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[font size=5]Unbroken, CIA Torture Whistleblower Kiriakou To Finish Sentence Home with Family[/font]
[font size=3]In final Letter from Loretto Prison, John Kiriakou writes: 'By the time you read this, Ill be home'[/font]
by Lauren McCauley, staff writer
John Kiriakou, the CIA agent who was jailed for blowing the whistle on the United States' torture program, was released from Loretto Prison in Pennsylvania on Tuesday under orders to finish the remainder of his 30-month sentence at home.
Though glad the whistleblower was finally able to return to his wife and five children, supporters said the development was bittersweet considering that Kiriakou has thus far been the only government official to be punished for U.S. torture.
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"Considering that the last three heads of the CIA engaged in leaks of classified information without being charged under the Espionage Act and that no CIA official who ordered or participated in torture has been criminally punished," (Jesselyn) Radack (Kirakou's attorney) continued, "it is a welcome development that Kiriakou can serve the rest of his sentence at home with his family."
Kiriakou was prosecuted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act for allegedly revealing classified information about the Bush government's torture program to a reporter. After agreeing to a plea deal in October 2012, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He has 86 days left to serve under house arrest.
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Downwinder
(12,869 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)markpkessinger
(8,409 posts)markpkessinger
(8,409 posts)[font size=3]Shame on this president for persecuting whistleblowers with a legal relic, while administration officials leak with impunity[/font]
Tuesday 6 August 2013 08.15 EDT
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President Obama has been unprecedented in his use of the Espionage Act to prosecute those whose whistleblowing he wants to curtail. The purpose of an Espionage Act prosecution, however, is not to punish a person for spying for the enemy, selling secrets for personal gain, or trying to undermine our way of life. It is to ruin the whistleblower personally, professionally and financially. It is meant to send a message to anybody else considering speaking truth to power: challenge us and we will destroy you.
Only ten people in American history have been charged with espionage for leaking classified information, seven of them under Barack Obama. The effect of the charge on a person's life being viewed as a traitor, being shunned by family and friends, incurring massive legal bills is all a part of the plan to force the whistleblower into personal ruin, to weaken him to the point where he will plead guilty to just about anything to make the case go away. I know. The three espionage charges against me made me one of "the Obama Seven".
In early 2012, I was arrested and charged with three counts of espionage and one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA). (I was only the second person in US history to be charged with violating the IIPA, a law that was written to be used against rogues like Philip Agee.)
Two of my espionage charges were the result of a conversation I had with a New York Times reporter about torture. I gave him no classified information only the business card of a former CIA colleague who had never been undercover. The other espionage charge was for giving the same unclassified business card to a reporter for ABC News. All three espionage charges were eventually dropped.
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woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Deeply corrupted government leads to outrageous abuses of power.
In our case, we are losing the Constitution itself.
Thank you to the courageous whistleblowers who make it at least a bit more possible that we will be able to wrest our democracy back.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Last edited Fri Feb 6, 2015, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)
It is our purchased government and our corrupt politicians, who defend the torture state and persecute whistleblowers, who are deeply broken and corrupt.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)markpkessinger
(8,409 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)bigtree
(86,013 posts)...not quite, because of the unjust prosecution and conviction.
However, this sounds like a government which is anticipating something in the hopper that could snap back on them. Such hyperventilated nonsense about all of the damage they say he did to national security and he's let out on house arrest? Must not have been as egregious as they said. What is really going on here?
Could be that they know they're not going to prosecute people like Petraus or Panetta and they're preemptively lessening this sentence to avoid too much criticism.
bigtree
(86,013 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Courage is contagious.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)deurbano
(2,896 posts)Autumn
(45,120 posts)Thanks for posting this.