Torture Whistleblower: I got 30 months in prison. Why does Leon Panetta get a pass?

[KoKo]

103. NOT a Propagandist for BUSH!

Kiriakou left the CIA in March 2004. He later served as a senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as senior intelligence advisor to Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry. Kiriakou also authored a book and worked as an intelligence consultant.

Throughout his career, Kiriakou received 10 Exceptional Performance Awards, the Sustained Superior Performance Award, the Counterterrorism Service Medal, and the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award.

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CIA/Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou


http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/homeland-security-a-human-rights/torture/ciatorture-whistleblower-john-kiriakou

John Kiriakou served in the CIA for over 14 years. During that time, he was involved in critical counterterrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After 9/11, the CIA started down the dark path of becoming a paramilitary organization, but Kiriakou did not abandon his. He refused the CIA’s offer to train him in “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and Kiriakou never authorized or engaged in these techniques that constituted torture. In fact, Kiriakou wrote of torture: “There are some things we should not do, even in the name of national security.”

After leaving the CIA, Kiriakou appeared on ABC News in an interview with Brian Ross, during which he became the first former CIA officer to confirm that the agency waterboarded detainees and label waterboarding as torture. Kiriakou’s interview revealed that this practice was not just the result of a few rogue agents, but was official U.S. policy approved at the highest levels of the government.

The government started investigating Kiriakou immediately after his media appearance. Five years later, the government finally succeeded in piecing together enough information to criminally prosecute him. He became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act – a law designed to punish spies, not whistleblowers.

Kiriakou became, and remains, widely viewed as an American hero who bravely served his country and blew the whistle on torture. In 2012, for example, Kiriakou was honored with the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civil Courage, an award given to individuals who advance truth and justice despite the personal risk it creates.

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Meanwhile, countless others who have committed far graver offenses than Kiriakou have never been held accountable for their wrongdoing. For example, Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, also received a 30-month sentence for leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. This leak, unlike Kiriakou’s whistleblowing disclosures, held no public value. President George W. Bush, however, commuted Libby’s sentence. Similarly, Michael Vickers revealed the name of an intelligence official to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty … yet he was never held accountable for his disclosures. And General David Petraeus leaked information to a journalist with whom he was having an affair, but was also never punished or prosecuted.

Even more troubling is the fact that CIA agents who actually engaged in torture after 9/11 have never been prosecuted, nor have the officials who condoned or ordered torture, or the attorneys who wrote memos justifying the torture. Similarly, the officials who destroyed the videotapes that provided clear evidence of torture have never been held accountable for their wrongdoing.

The Plea]/b]

On Oct. 23, 2012, in order to avoid further legal fees and to ensure that he would not face up to 45 years away from his wife and five children, Kiriakou entered into a plea agreement. In exchange for pleading guilty to the one IIPA charge, the prosecution agreed to a 30-month sentence and dropped all four of the remaining charges, including all of the Espionage Act charges. Kiriakou was the first person to be convicted under the IIPA in 27 years.

Kiriakou was formally sentenced on January 25, 2013 to 30 months in federal prison. Two days prior to sentencing, Kiriakou was honored by inclusion of his portrait in artist Robert Shetterly's series "Americans Who Tell the Truth," which features notable truth-tellers from American history. A short video of the Washington, DC event unveiling the portrait is embedded below.