john kiriakou day of action packet

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Defend John Kiriakou www.defendjohnk.com [email protected] Request: To have your boss call Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels to request that John Kiriakou be released immediately to a halfway house near his family in Arlington, VA. Background: John Kiriakou served for 15 years as an analyst and case officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (1987-2002). During that time, he led the raid that captured the first high-level al-Qai’da suspect, Abu Zubayda. John also spent two years working as a senior investigator for majority staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In late 2007, John was the first intelligence community official -- current or former -- to confirm that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques were used against terrorism suspects as part of official U.S. policy. When John made this public revelation, he also said that he believed waterboarding was torture and that, as Americans, “We are better than that.” Subsequently, the CIA referred John to the Department of Justice (DoJ) for criminal charges, which the DoJ did not to pursue. The CIA continued for the next five years to purse him with a criminal investigation. In 2012, John was charged with three counts of espionage and a violation of the Identities Intelligence Protection Act (IIPA) law. He was determined to fight these charges, which his attorneys, human rights organizations, former intelligence community officials, interfaith groups, politicians on both sides of the aisle, and many others, recognized as an attempt to punish and intimidate John for blowing the whistle on torture. The espionage charges were dropped and John pled to violating the IIPA after the judge in his case ruled against his attorney’s motions to declassify exculpatory evidence and declaring that intent could not be part of the defense. The author of the IIPA law has publicly spoken about how the DoJ misused the intent of the law to prosecute John. Before John, only one person in history has gone to jail for violating the IIPA. It was a CIA officer who gave the names of CIA officers overseas to her foreign national boyfriend. John was charged with the IIPA based upon an e-mail he sent responding to a journalist who asked if he knew a named undercover former intelligence officer. John said he knew the officer and did not believe that officer would speak to the journalist. That name was never made public and John had no intent to harm national security by answering the journalist’s questions. The person John confirmed knowing was controversial because that officer was directly associated with the torture program— someone the CIA was intent on protecting. Sen. Feinstein recently declared that we are facing a Constitutional crisis stemming from the CIA’s efforts to protect individuals associated with carrying out the torture program. She gave a powerful speech on the Senate floor condemning the CIA’s recommendation to DoJ that members of her staff working on the committee’s torture report face criminal charges. Sen. Feinstein’s staff are fortunate to have someone of her clout to defend them; John Kiriakou was not as lucky. John served his country for most of his career, during which time he earned more than a dozen medals and awards. He would gladly return to public service again. John is now eligible for halfway house time under Bureau of Prison guidelines. Transfer to a halfway house would put him closer to his five children and allow him to resume a productive life in society. Why support the request to ask Charles Samuels to release John Kiriakou immediately to a halfway house? 1. Perceived disloyalty to an Agency is not equivalent to disloyalty to this country. John loves his country, is a patriot, and has a long decorated public service record. 2. John is the only person associated with the torture program who has been criminally charged and he did not torture anyone. Neither the individuals who wrote the justification for the program nor those who carried out the acts or destroyed evidence of their use, have faced criminal charges. 3. John has served 14 months and under current BoP guidelines he is currently eligible for halfway house time. This would all him to be closer to his family and resume a productive role in society.

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Defend&John&Kiriakou& www.defendjohnk.com&[email protected]&

Request: To have your boss call Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels to request that John Kiriakou be released immediately to a halfway house near his family in Arlington, VA. Background: John Kiriakou served for 15 years as an analyst and case officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (1987-2002). During that time, he led the raid that captured the first high-level al-Qai’da suspect, Abu Zubayda. John also spent two years working as a senior investigator for majority staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In late 2007, John was the first intelligence community official -- current or former -- to confirm that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques were used against terrorism suspects as part of official U.S. policy. When John made this public revelation, he also said that he believed waterboarding was torture and that, as Americans, “We are better than that.” Subsequently, the CIA referred John to the Department of Justice (DoJ) for criminal charges, which the DoJ did not to pursue. The CIA continued for the next five years to purse him with a criminal investigation. In 2012, John was charged with three counts of espionage and a violation of the Identities Intelligence Protection Act (IIPA) law. He was determined to fight these charges, which his attorneys, human rights organizations, former intelligence community officials, interfaith groups, politicians on both sides of the aisle, and many others, recognized as an attempt to punish and intimidate John for blowing the whistle on torture. The espionage charges were dropped and John pled to violating the IIPA after the judge in his case ruled against his attorney’s motions to declassify exculpatory evidence and declaring that intent could not be part of the defense. The author of the IIPA law has publicly spoken about how the DoJ misused the intent of the law to prosecute John. Before John, only one person in history has gone to jail for violating the IIPA. It was a CIA officer who gave the names of CIA officers overseas to her foreign national boyfriend. John was charged with the IIPA based upon an e-mail he sent responding to a journalist who asked if he knew a named undercover former intelligence officer. John said he knew the officer and did not believe that officer would speak to the journalist. That name was never made public and John had no intent to harm national security by answering the journalist’s questions. The person John confirmed knowing was controversial because that officer was directly associated with the torture program— someone the CIA was intent on protecting. Sen. Feinstein recently declared that we are facing a Constitutional crisis stemming from the CIA’s efforts to protect individuals associated with carrying out the torture program. She gave a powerful speech on the Senate floor condemning the CIA’s recommendation to DoJ that members of her staff working on the committee’s torture report face criminal charges. Sen. Feinstein’s staff are fortunate to have someone of her clout to defend them; John Kiriakou was not as lucky. John served his country for most of his career, during which time he earned more than a dozen medals and awards. He would gladly return to public service again. John is now eligible for halfway house time under Bureau of Prison guidelines. Transfer to a halfway house would put him closer to his five children and allow him to resume a productive life in society. Why support the request to ask Charles Samuels to release John Kiriakou immediately to a halfway house? 1. Perceived disloyalty to an Agency is not equivalent to disloyalty to this country. John loves his country, is a patriot, and has a long decorated public service record. 2. John is the only person associated with the torture program who has been criminally charged and he did not torture anyone. Neither the individuals who wrote the justification for the program nor those who carried out the acts or destroyed evidence of their use, have faced criminal charges. 3. John has served 14 months and under current BoP guidelines he is currently eligible for halfway house time. This would all him to be closer to his family and resume a productive role in society.

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← Back to Original Article

I got 30 months in prison. Why does Leon Panetta get a pass?The  Espionage  Act  should  be  rewritten  to  deal  with  issues  of  intent  and  motive,  and  it  should  be  enforced  equally.

March 09, 2014 | By John Kiriakou

The confirmation in December that former CIA Director Leon Panetta let classified information slip to "Zero Dark Thirty" screenwriterMark Boal during a speech at the agency headquarters should result in a criminal espionage charge if there is any truth to Obamaadministration claims that it isn't enforcing the Espionage Act only against political opponents.

I'm one of the people the Obama administration charged with criminal espionage, one of those whose lives were torn apart by beingaccused, essentially, of betraying his country. The president and the attorney general have used the Espionage Act against more peoplethan all other administrations combined, but not against real traitors and spies. The law has been applied selectively, often againstwhistle-blowers and others who expose illegal, corrupt government actions.

After I blew the whistle on the CIA's waterboarding torture program in 2007, I was the subject of a years-long FBI investigation. In 2012,the Justice Department charged me with "disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer andinformation revealing the role of another CIA employee in classified activities." I had revealed no more than others who were nevercharged, about activities — that the CIA had a program to kill or capture Al Qaeda members — that were hardly secret.

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Eventually the espionage charges were dropped and I pleaded guilty to a lesser charge: confirming the name of a former CIA colleague, aname that was never made public. I am serving a 30-month sentence.

The Espionage Act, the source of the most serious charges against me, was written and passed during World War I and was meant totarget German saboteurs living in America. It was updated once, in 1950, when Americans got to thinking the country was awash incommunist spies. The law is so outdated that it refers only to "national defense information" rather than "classified information,"because the classification system had not yet been invented.

The act states: "Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any ... information relating to thenational defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to theadvantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates ... the same to any person not entitled to receive it ... shall be fined under thistitle or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both."

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A transcript obtained by the organization Judicial Watch shows that, at a CIA awards ceremony attended by Boal, Panetta did exactlythat. The CIA seems to acknowledge that Panetta accidentally revealed the name of the special forces ground commander who led theoperation to kill Osama bin Laden, not knowing that the Hollywood screenwriter was part of an audience cleared to hear him speak. Butintent is not relevant to Espionage Act enforcement.

U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled in my case that evidence of the accidental release of national defense information wasinadmissible, and she added that the government did not have to prove that a leak of classified information actually caused any harm tothe United States. In other words, the act of disclosing the kind of broad information covered by the Espionage Act is prosecutableregardless of outcome or motive.

The sensitivity of what Panetta revealed is not in question. The spokesman for the former CIA director said Panetta assumed thateveryone present at the time of the speech had proper clearance for such a discussion. When the transcript of the speech was released,more than 90 lines had been redacted, implying that Panetta had disclosed a great deal more classified information than the name of anoperative.

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Even the CIA's Office of Security concluded that "the agency's security policy and administrative procedures were not followed inallowing Mr. Boal, a member of the media, access to the classified bin Ladin [sic] Operation Award Ceremony."

If an intent to undermine U.S. national security or if identifiable harm to U.S. interests are indeed not relevant to Espionage Actenforcement, then the White House and the Justice Department should be in full froth. Panetta should be having his private life dug into, sifted and seized as evidence, as happened to me and six others under the Obama administration.

When the transcript of Panetta's speech and his inadvertent leak came to light in January, a CIA spokesman told the Associated Pressthat the agency had subsequently "overhauled its procedures for interaction with the entertainment industry." Such internal reviews are

Op-Ed

Copyright 2014 Los Angeles Times Terms of Service|Privacy Policy|Index by Date|Index by Keyword

fine and good, but equality before the law is the rule in America. Your job title, your Rolodex and your political friendships are not

supposed to trump accountability. Except when they do.

Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright, once known as the president's "favorite general," was reportedly targeted as the source of information

about the Stuxnet virus leaked to a New York Times writer. That investigation has dropped from sight, and Cartwright has so far faced no

charges.

Yet when senior National Security Agency official Thomas Drake blew the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse at the NSA — in the form of

a bungled project that cost more than $1 billion — he wound up buried under espionage charges, all of which were eventually dropped

but only after his life was in shreds.

When former State Department intelligence advisor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim talked to a Fox News reporter about North Korea, he was

charged with espionage, and his prosecutors were absolved by the presiding judge from having to prove "that the information he

allegedly leaked could damage U.S. national security or benefit a foreign power, even potentially."

If Panetta and Cartwright aren't accountable while Drake, Kim and I have been crucified for harming U.S. national security — all of us

accused of or investigated for the same thing: disclosing classified information to parties not authorized to know it — then what does that

say about justice in America or White House hypocrisy?

The Espionage Act should be rewritten to deal with the issues of intent, such as accidental disclosures and real harm done. Until then, it

is right and just to charge Panetta at least with espionage. Accidental though his revelation may have been, it's still a crime.

John  Kiriakou  is  a  former  CIA  counter-­terrorism  officer  and  former  senior  investigator  on  the  Senate  Foreign  Relations  Committee.  He

is  incarcerated  in  the  Federal  Correctional  Institution  in  Loretto,  Pa.  You  can  read  about  his  case  at  http://www.defendjohnk.com

May 1, 2014

Charles E. Samuels, Jr.DirectorFederal Bureau of Prisons320 First St., NWWashington, DC 20534

Dear Director Samuels, Jr.:

On behalf of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA), a

leading association for the nation’s millions of American citizens of Greek heritage and

Philhellenes, I am writing to express deep concern about the improper treatment of fellow Greek

American John Kiriakou and to request the Bureau of Prisons honor the agreement to grant him

nine months in a halfway house near his family.

From accounts, John has been a model prisoner during his time in FCI Loretto. At the prison’s

request, he stopped his letter writing, “Letters from Loretto,” although it is his First Amendment

right to voice his concerns about the treatment he receives. But after the Bureau of Prisons went

back on its agreement to grant him nine months in a halfway house, John spoke up, and the

Bureau's response has been unacceptable.

• John has been subject to surprise searches and shakedowns that were unreasonable andmeant to cause discord with his cellmates.

• Prison officials told him they would break his desk off his cell wall.• He was threatened with Diesel Therapy, a form of punishment in which prisoners are

shackled and then transported for days or weeks.• John has not been able to take Holy Communion, a clear violation of his First

Amendment right to Freedom of Religion.• Most recently, John’s wife and three young children were thrown out of the prison when

they attempted to visit him after traveling over 200 miles. John’s family was told thevisitation room was “too crowded,” which was a complete falsehood.

Continued…

Page 2— Kiriakou Letter

We call on the Bureau of Prisons to immediately stop its improper retaliation against John and

grant him his full nine months in a halfway house.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Anthony KouzounisNational President

Cc: Chairmen and Ranking Members, House and Senate Judiciary CommitteesWarden, FCI Loretto

Founded in 1922 in Atlanta, Georgia to combat bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination, AHEPA is the largest and oldest American-based, Greek heritage grassroots membership organization with chapters in North America and Europe and sister chapters inAustralasia. Its mission is to promote the ancient Greek ideals of philanthropy, education, civic responsibility, and family and

individual excellence through community service and volunteerism.

For Immediate Release: Callaway Awards Tuesday November 13, 2012

THE SHAFEEK NADER TRUST FOR THE COMMUNITY INTEREST PRESENTS THE ANNUAL JOE A.CALLAWAY AWARD FOR CIVIC COURAGE

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The awardees are:

William Binney & J. Kirk WiebeFor their work on Government Data Centers & Spying on Citizens

In recognition of their joint work on blowing the whistle on fraud, waste, abuse and illegality within the National Security Agency. They are bearers of truth

and accountability for incursions on civil liberties, and are often asked to speak publicly on problems with the growing national security state.

John KiriakouFor his work on the Government’s Torture Policy

John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer who publicly acknowledged that waterboarding constituted torture. For this and other whistleblowing activities, Kiriakou

became the sixth whistleblower to be indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act – more than all previous presidential administrations

combined.

The awards will be presented on Tuesday, October 30, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. at the Carnegie Institution Building, 1530 P Street NW, Washington, D.C. Following

each award the recipients will speak briefly about their work.

The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest administers the Joe A. Callaway Award, established by Mr. Callaway to recognize individuals in any area of

endeavor who, with integrity and at some personal risk, take a public stand to advance truth and justice, and who challenge unsatisfactory conditions in

pursuit of the common good. Toward this end, Mr. Callaway endowed the Trust with a special fund for an annual award honoring citizens for their civic

courage.

The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest was created to extend the civic values of the late Shafeek Nader, community advocate and founder of

Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Justice

the Northwestern Connecticut Community College. A tax-exempt organization, the Trust has the task of advancing the ability of citizens to participate and

shape the quality of democracy in their community.

# # #

Email info(@)csrl.org to reserve your place!

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on October 25, 2012 [http://www.callawayawards.org/for-immediate-release-callaway-awards-tuesday-oct-30/] .