Silenced

---

-come on!

[ telephone rings ]

-in january of 2012,

the fbi called me at home

and said,

"can you come to the washington

field office thursday at 10:00?"

i said, "absolutely."

so, i went down to

the washington field office,

and they began

asking me questions.

well, i've spent my entire

adult life working with the fbi.

so, the fbi needs my help,

i'm happy to help.

it wasn't until i was about

an hour and 45 minutes

into this interview

that i realized,

"wait a minute.

they're investigating me."

-we need to be honest with you.

-and they said, "well,

we need to be honest with you.

we're executing

a search warrant on your house

right now as we speak,

and we're seizing

all of your electronics."

-what i experienced

as a whistle-blower

sends the most chilling

of messages

about what the government can,

and i will emphasize, will do

when one speaks truth

to and of power.

-there is information

that the public

in a functioning democracy

has a right to know.

-what does it do?

so, your whole body

rails against it?

-warrantless wire-tapping,

torture --

we only know about that

because of whistle-blowers.

[ thunder rumbles ]

-i knew i could not

remain silent.

if i remained silent,

i'd be complicit to the

subversion of the constitution.

if i remained silent

as a senior executive assigned

to the national security agency,

i would be an accessory

to a crime.

-historically,

such people were forced

to choose

between their conscience

and their career,

but now the stakes

are much higher --

they risk their freedom

and their lives.

-i did not commit a crime.

i'm going to trial,

and i'm gonna

prove myself innocent.

i'm not the pushover

that these guys think i am.

i'm as tough as they are,

and i'm gonna fight.

[ "twinkle, twinkle, little

star" playing on piano ]

-no, i'm sorry.

they're all metals.

john, did you get her?

-yeah.

-okay.

-where's max?

-he's sleeping.

-okay.

-sorry to wake you up,

but it's dinner time.

-mnh.

-bless us, oh, lord,

and these thy gifts,

which we are about to receive

from thy bounty.

through christ our lord, amen.

-father, son, holy spirt.

amen.

-in my heart,

i believe i'm gonna win.

my wife tells me

every time i start to feel

a little depressed,

"you have the truth

on your side."

[ laughs ]

and she's right.

i haven't done anything wrong.

-his name is john kiriakou,

a cia undercover officer

for 15 years.

-did you feel comfortable

with the techniques?

-uh, frankly, no.

and i elected to, uh,

to forego the training.

-i was the first cia officer,

or former cia officer,

to confirm

the use of torture techniques

against al qaeda prisoners.

-what is it like?

-uh, you feel like

you're choking or drowning.

it was already in the news.

the washington post,

for example,

had reported that the cia

had used torture techniques,

and human rights watch

had reported it

and amnesty international

had reported it.

so, in the back of my mind,

i didn't think

i was saying anything new.

-would you call it torture?

-um...

i had never been

on television in my life.

i truly expected this to be

a 10-minute interview

that they whittle down

to 15 seconds.

instead, he asked me about

abu zubaydah and about torture.

and i think that waterboarding

is probably something

that we shouldn't be

in the business of doing.

-why do you say that now?

-because we're americans,

and we're better than that.

-that interview became

a major international story.

i ended up getting calls

from every network in america.

the cia filed

a crimes report against me,

saying i had leaked

classified information

by admitting that waterboarding

had taken place.

thank goodness

that the justice department said

that it was not classified

and declined to pursue

a case against me then.

and i think it's good

that we're having

a national debate about this.

we should be debating this.

and congress

should be talking about it

because i think as a country,

we have to decide

if this is something

that we want to do

as a matter of policy.

with that interview,

i became a cia dissident.

whether i knew it or not,

whether i liked it or not,

i was an outsider

from that day onward.

[ keyboard clacking ]

-i'm fighting to have

my september 10th country back.

it's a very, very

dangerous direction.

the pendulum swung after 9/11,

and instead of swinging back

to some kind of equipoise,

it just swung even further

in the direction of secrecy.

and that includes

over-classification.

that includes the crackdown

on whistle-blowers.

that includes

secret signing statements.

it includes

shutting down lawsuits

with the state secrets

privilege.

i mean, there is a whole bevy

of secrecy tactics

that the government uses.

every time you bring up

civil liberties

that have deteriorated

or been tossed out completely

in the name of

national security,

people think somehow you're

siding with the terrorists --

"oh, you want

our country to suffer."

quite the opposite.

people want our country

to continue to live up

to the ideals

on which it was founded.

[ thunder rumbles ]

-it's not something

you aspire to.

this is not a career goal

to become a whistle-blower.

it's not.

it doesn't matter whether it's

in the public interest or not.

they can pejoratively say it's

leaking, unauthorized leaking.

so, whistle-blowers,

it's clear,

have become

an endangered species,

to say it that way,

and you have

a government who's decided

that they need

to become extinct.

the last thing they want

is people spilling the beans

on what the government's doing

under the rubric of secrecy

and national security

behind the scenes.

to use the espionage act,

it is the harshest thing

you can charge someone with.

they were sending,

deliberately sending,

the strongest possible message.

they set the target.

they put the bull's-eye on me

and said, "we're gonna make

an example of him."

[ thunder rumbles ]

i was born in louisiana.

my father was an officer

in the u.s. air force.

but the bulk of my growing up

was actually in vermont.

and that's where

i went to high school,

that's where i became

a young adult.

-i was born and raised

in a small town

in western pennsylvania,

north of pittsburgh,

in amish country.

i always had a fascination

with international affairs.

i was an avid ham radio operator

when i was a kid, for example.

-i grew up

in columbia, maryland.

i grew up in a somewhat

dysfunctional family,

and therefore,

at a very young age,

the concept of justice

became very central to me.

-the attorney general had

the authority to authorize it.

-i remember sitting

in social studies class,

watching the watergate hearings.

-i authorized wire tapping

and other related activity.

-seeing these incredible

violations

of law and the fourth amendment,

high crimes and misdemeanors as

specified in the constitution --

no one was above the law,

not even the president

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