
 Letter from Loretto - A Prison Letter from a CIA Whistleblower - Mizza
https://openwatch.net/i/74/letter-from-loretto-a-prison-letter-from-a-cia-w
======
tptacek
If you're interested in the "other side" of this story (such as it is; this
article doesn't really take a side), here's what the USG says happened with
Kiriakou:

The USG's position is that Kiriakou left the CIA and, in an effort to drum up
consulting business and sell a book, told journalists on several separate
occasions about (a) the identity of a covert operative who was still
undercover, and (b) the affiliation of another USG employee to a program to a
classified program capture Abu Zubaydah. Kiriakou was questioned by the FBI
and, the USG claims, lied about his disclosures. Kiriakou himself had,
according to the USG, repeatedly claimed he hadn't intended to compromise
either operative, the subtext apparently being that he assumed the title of
"whistleblower" when it became convenient to his defense.

FAS does a great job tracking all these leak investigations:

<http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/kiriakou/>

I don't know what to think about this case. It's not the most sympathetic
case, but certainly not the least. But I'm also biased, because I think both
Guantanamo Bay and the rendition programs were abhorrent.

~~~
beloch
Your use of past tense in referring to Gitmo and extraordinary rendition is,
regrettably, unwarranted.

------
iandanforth
I've always wondered what would happen if we enumerated the common events of
prison life in sentencing. You are hereby sentenced to:

Segregated eating

Daily verbal abuse

The regular disruption of your personal possessions

Being physically assaulted once for every 5-7 years of confinement

Being seriously injured through assault once for every 10-15 years of
confinement

Being raped once for every 15-20 years of confinement

While these are extrapolations from prison statistics, the uncertainty makes
the sentence all the more chilling. Prison is, in the US at least, a cruel
institution, but this is rarely discussed when we talk about what it means to
give someone a 5 year sentence or 10 years. Confinement is terrible, but, for
many, it is not the worst part of the punishment.

~~~
beedogs
The thing is, I could probably find a pretty substantial percentage of
Americans who wouldn't have a problem with any of that, as long as the
offender "learns his lesson" or some other similarly-trite authoritarian
nonsense.

~~~
gizmo686
I don't have any sources handy, but I believe their is much evidence that
prisoners do learn very good lessons about violence. Unfourtuantly, those
lessons are in how to be violent, which (I think) results in prisons being the
best way to make a non-violent criminal into a violent one.

~~~
yardie
A childhood friend was sent to juvenile detention on a statutory rape charge
(not a rapist, they were both 14). After 2 years he emerged to be a worser
human being with a huge, justifiable, chip on his shoulder. By 16, he was
dealing in cocaine (not weed, cocaine, he gained the connections for that in
JD), prostitution (addicts will do anything for blow) and weapons.

And Scarface, the movie character, became his idol. We used to be backpackers
(the rapping kind, check urban dictionary) and he transformed into everything
that was wrong with hip-hop. And I blame everything on how all the adults
completely snowballed a 14yo.

------
vkou
Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, said this in reference to John's
conviction:

"This case yielded the first IIPA successful prosecution in 27 years, and it
marks an important victory for our Agency, for our Intelligence Community, and
for our country. Oaths do matter, and there are indeed consequences for those
who believe they are above the laws"

I have to wonder if practitioners of torture will ever have reason to believe
otherwise. Somehow, I don't find it to be likely.

~~~
tptacek
It is possible for both things to be true simultaneously: that the specific
illegal disclosures Kiriakou made were crimes, and that the torture of
detainees at Guantanamo and in sites around the middle east were also (grave)
crimes.

~~~
vkou
That it might be. However, the state is remarkably adept at not pursuing
crimes that its agents commit... Unless those crimes harm the interests of the
ruling class.

There's a pretty clear - and abhorrent power imbalance at play, here.

~~~
tptacek
Or, the state is adept at making the cases it can actually make, and less
adept at making systemic cases whose prosecution would cost tens of millions
of dollars and seize up operations at intelligence services that actually do
need to function, for instance to curb proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Reasonable people can _OBVIOUSLY_ disagree on this point, but I do not
perceive Barack Obama as someone who is sanguine about torture.

~~~
pkinsky
Is that perception based on his public speech or on his actions?

------
smutticus
For comparisons sake Scooter Libby was also convicted of revealing the
identity of a CIA operative. But his sentence was commuted by then President
George W Bush.

Scooter Libby explicitly and intentionally revealed Valerie Plame's name as
retaliation for her husband's New York Time's article detailing the lack of
evidence that Saddam Hussein could have acquired Uranium from Niger. John
Kiriakou admits to providing a name to a journalist as a source of information
on torture but the name has never been published.

Scooter Libby was convicted of outing a CIA operative as retribution for her
whistle blowing husband. John Kiriakou is a whistle blower who gave a reporter
a yet unpublished name. In both cases the actual whistle blowers were
punished. One through losing their career as a CIA operative(Valerie Plame)
and the other by being sent to prison(John Kiriakou).

~~~
walshemj
Libby should be still in jail if not on death row - note that AFASK Manning is
accused of releaseing secret information however the real identity of a CIA
officer is Top Secret.

------
quackerhacker
1st, I speak from experience.

I can see why he didn't get to go to the camp. Usually if your a flight risk
(like you ran when you got your indictment), or if you are violent (which
could be the unseen possibility here given his previous profession), BOP won't
deem you appropriate for a camp.

I agree strongly with tptacek's comment that when you look at a
whistleblower's case it's really hard to see that someone who was apart of the
problem will grow a conscience (very possible), remove themself from the
problem (possible), without intervention or pressure, disclose information
about what you and your other people did (unlikely).

I don't believe this guy deserves the attention he is vying for. Although some
of the CO's are assholes, the mailroom checks all incoming and outgoing mail,
so if some of the details in the letter was true...it would've been lost on
departure (shit, I couldn't even get my wired magazine subscription cause I'm
a hacker).

Many people inside that I met (at a camp) have hopes of writing a book,
explaining how it is, making a change in their life for the best, and
profiting off their experiences. Not me, people on here ask me how it was, and
I give that experience and advice for free (feel free to email me).

------
brown9-2
_But the more I thought about it, the more this made no sense. Why would the
uncle of the Times Square bomber be in a low-security prison? He should be in
a maximum._

Why? Should family, rather than crime or danger, dictate what type of prison a
sentence is served in?

~~~
bilbo0s
Well...

Just put it this way... phone calls to Pakistan by a known terrorist threat
from an American prison SHOULD not happen.

So this guy was just, kind of, connecting the dots.

~~~
officemonkey
Well, he was an intelligence officer. He should be able to know bullshit when
he hears it.

------
clamprecht
Wow, $5.25 per month was what they were paying in 1995 as well. They haven't
even increased the minimum wage in federal prison!

------
jetsnoc
Google Cache if you are experiencing an error 504 gateway timeout:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fopenwatch.net%2Fi%2F74%2Fletter-
from-loretto-a-prison-letter-from-a-
cia-w&client=ubuntu&channel=cs&aq=f&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fopenwatch.net%2Fi%2F74%2Fletter-
from-loretto-a-prison-letter-from-a-
cia-w&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.1161&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
chrisballinger
Ahhh sorry about the 504s! You should be able to retry if it's giving you
issues. We only have 4 gunicorn workers running on a single Linode right now,
we'll try to bump it up to 6-8 to see if that helps in the meantime.

edit: Increased the worker count to 8. Hopefully that helps a little bit.

edit2: Turned on memcache.

~~~
knowtheory
So, i'm pretty disappointed that you took an article posted on FireDogLake
([http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/05/29/imprisoned-
cia-t...](http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/05/29/imprisoned-cia-torture-
whistleblower-john-kiriakou-pens-letter-from-loretto/) ), simply pulled the
PDF and the text which they transcribed by hand, rehosted it yourself, and
then posted it to HN.

Especially since you did it without any citation/reference (and since FDL
notes that they did the legwork on this).

Edit: I'm going to give the OpenWatch guys the benefit of the doubt, and
assume that they never saw the FireDogLake post, and that they were linked
directly to the PDF of the letter that is hosted on DocumentCloud's S3
account.

It would be nice if they acknowledged the original source of the letter.

------
ChrisAntaki
This is a true American hero.

~~~
brown9-2
Who may have, and was convicted of, doing something else not that heroic
(disclosing covert agent's identities) completely separate from the water-
boarding disclosures.

It's convenient for Kiriakou to gloss over the events he was convicted of and
insist that it was merely retribution (which of course it might be, but good
luck proving that). His statements about persecution have to be taken with
some grains of salt.

~~~
fianchetto
> His statements about persecution have to be taken with some grains of salt.

In the fight between the National Security State and the individual, I always
give the individual the benefit of the doubt. Then again, I always back the
underdog.

------
warmwaffles
Sounds like Shawshank Redemption in parts of this letter. How did this letter
even make it out of the prison?

~~~
wavefunction
perhaps dictated over one or more phone calls?

------
psychopaf
He makes me think a of modern-punk cicero, with a sense of justice for others
(tortured people) above his own self. Give this guy a break for his broken
oath: he pays a harsh price already.

------
rdl
Ah, now I see why weev asked to be sent to the same prison.

~~~
quackerhacker
If letters like this were getting out (and all content is true), then of
course I see why weev would want to be there. ESP given the fact that at
camps, there are usually cell phones floating around....and weev has a pr
campaign to uphold (apparently this guy does too, but at least I like weev).

------
gojomo
Prisons are long overdue for disruption.

~~~
sharkweek
They've done a great job "disrupting" the industry through privatization! /s

I fear how powerful that lobby is going to get over the next few decades --
Think about what they'll be able to prevent... any realistic shot at
rehabilitating our country's drug laws into something sensible will be
completely dismissed.

~~~
quackerhacker
I could not agree with you more!

I went to Taft (the camp) which is privately owned by a company called MTC.
When I was there, I hurt my leg extremely bad to the point where something
popped (I was only 22 and a jock in HS, so it was bad). I couldn't walk on it
at all. The nurse guy came out to the yard and made me get into a wheel chair
and he pushed me to the nursing area. He ran my hurt leg into a concrete
pillar. Everyone told me don't get hurt inside, because you'll stay longer,
your release date will somehow disappear, and it looks bad on the facility so
they don't release you until your better. When I got into the nursing area and
he checked it, he made me stretch it and I swear I held back tears from the
pain and said I'm fine. Other prisoners would tell you that Taft is good, they
sell tobacco in the commissary, or they're more laid back.....prison is prison
and PRIVATE ones like this make money off of you being there. Don't get hurt,
don't piss off the co's, or you'll end up with no release date like 1 person I
met, or dead like a healthy person that needed their medication, but didn't
get it in time.

------
joshuaheard
I don't feel sorry for the guy in Club Fed that tattled on the CIA. If you
want some real prison stories read "Papillon":

[http://www.amazon.com/Papillon-P-S-Henri-
Charriere/dp/006112...](http://www.amazon.com/Papillon-P-S-Henri-
Charriere/dp/0061120669/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369984528&sr=8-2&keywords=papillon)

~~~
pagekicker
Or see the movie with Hoffman and McQueen. Amazing.

~~~
joshuaheard
Great movie, but the book contained a lot more they didn't show.

------
rmrfrmrf
Took me about 5 minutes of furiously rubbing my phone against my shirt to
realize that it's the website background that's dirty looking, not my screen!
Grr.

