Title: John Kiriakou: CIA Whistleblower on Julian Assange, Israel, Security State & More
Show: News Beat
Date: 2024-07-29
URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0mEtU_O62j8
Duration: 45:42

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[00:00] so we want to welcome our guest John Kaku back to the show John joined us on two previous newsbeat episodes one about the US government's war on the press and the other about former CIA director Gina haspel operating a black site and destroying evidence and as rashed reminded us we actually go back much further W about 10 years now um when we were back at an ALT weekly uh together way back in the day um so for listeners who may not know John's a former C

[00:30] analyst and case officer former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former counterterrorism consultant while at the CIA he conducted critical counterterrorism missions overseas following the September 11th terrorist attacks and refused to be trained in so-called enhanced interrogation techniques something we'll get to in a few more moments after leaving the CIA he appeared on ABC News and confirmed that the agency water boarded detainees

[01:00] which is torture he also revealed that this practice was not just the result of a few Rogue agents but official US policy sanction at the highest levels of the government he was indicted by the Obama Administration under the Espionage Act a law designed to punish spies and served 30 months in prison as a result of those Revelations John's the sole CIA agent to go to jail in connection with the US torture program despite the fact he never tortured anyone rather he blew the

[01:30] whistle on it he currently writes about National Security intelligence Foreign Affairs and much more on his loud and clear substack and co-host the daily radio show on podcast political Misfits hell of a resume uh so John welcome back to the show thank you so much good to see you both and uh what I'd like to do uh for listeners right off the bat is to is to uh is to talk about that Journey we just outlined so if you could paint us a

[02:01] portrait of what it means to be a whistleblower share if you possibly can you know what this what this whole ordeal has been like personally professionally you risked your life for this country and then after exposing something internationally recognized as a crime against humanity torture you're indicted as a spy um so if you could you know please describe the Fallout the toll it took on you and your family and we're curious given all that's happened if you had the choice would you do it all

[02:31] again I I'll answer that part first that's the easy one the answer is yes 100% yes 1,00% yes I'd do it today today I've I've realized that that this this sort of is my purpose in life and uh somebody had to say something I'm glad that it was me the more difficult answer is it's not just what what I experienced as a whistleblower it's what any whistle blower experiences especially a national

[03:02] security whistleblower you know we have a we have a law in this country called The Whistleblower protection act which specifically exempts National Security whistleblowers from its protections and so if you blow the whistle on waste fraud abuse illegality or threats to the public health or Public Safety which is the legal definition of whistleblowing and you work for the CIA the FBI NSA DOD the White House or even the Department of Homeland Security you're probably going to go to

[03:35] prison and not just prison you're probably going to be indicted under the Espionage Act I'll get to that in a second because it's really important beyond that you're going to be shocked at how many friends in some cases lifelong friends will walk away from you and never speak to you again you're going to be shocked that the marriage that you thought was so rock solid turns out to not be so Rock Solid not when you know

[04:05] your wife is a senior Cia officer and is concerned about her own career uh you're going to be shocked at how quickly bankruptcy is upon you which is the government's plan they do something called they do two things called venue shopping and charge stacking venue shopping is that they will seek to indict you in the federal district court that where they are they are

[04:37] confident you will get a guilty verdict and the longest possible sentence in my case and in the case of other National Security whistleblowers that's the eastern district of Virginia where no National Security defendant has ever won a case there ever um and then you have to start thinking about the definition of Espionage the Espionage Act was written

[05:07] in 1917 to combat German savitur during the first world war it has never been meaningfully updated and in fact the SPN act doesn't even mention classified information it mentions only what it calls National Defense information and then doesn't Define what that means so the secret that you're charged with exposing is whatever the justice

[05:39] department says it is whether it's actually secret or not in my case my case set a very dangerous precedent or two I had a hanging judge by the name of Leoni brinka she was a Ronald Reagan is a Ronald Reagan appointee and um she reserved most national security cases for herself she did my case she did uh Jeffrey Sterling's case she did Zacharias musawi she uh had the Ed Snowden case which is

[06:09] still open and hanging over his head uh she had originally been assigned the Julian Assange case so she keeps all these cases for herself and um in my case um I clearly had no Criminal Intent and um and the justice department admitted in court that I had no Criminal Intent and so my lawyer said well your honor you know Tom Drake the NSA whistleblower he was in the district of Maryland no Criminal Intent all those charges fell apart they were thrown out

[06:42] she says I am electing to not respect that decision and if you don't like it you can go to the Circuit the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which of course you do Post conviction and post incarceration and I remember my lawyer standing up and saying your honor are are you saying that a person can accidentally commit Espionage and she said that's exactly what I'm saying and she looked at me and she said Mr kiraku either you did it or you didn't

[07:13] do it and I think you did it so we walked out of court and as we were walking out I said to my lawyers I should add that we had made 110 motions for the declassification of documents that I needed to to uh uh uh defend myself and we had we had blocked out two days for arguments on these 110 motions and she said I'm going to deny all 110 of these motions all all 110 you

[07:45] don't get anything so I couldn't defend myself so we're walking out of court and I said to my lawyers A-list lawyers some of the best lawyers in America I said what just happened and one of my attorneys said we just lost the case that's what happened well this was like the first hearing we we have a Year's worth of hearings ahead of us which we would lose at every step of the way now I was charged with five felonies including three counts of Espionage of course I hadn't committed

[08:17] Espionage and so what the justice department did was um they charged me they waited till I went bankrupt and then they dropped the charges and one other thing you The Limited discovery that we did get there was a memo from John Brennan who became the CIA director at the time was the uh was the deputy National Security adviser for counterterrorism John and I always hated each other we went back 30

[08:47] years and um there's a memo from Brennan to Eric Holder the attorney general and he says charge him with Espionage and holder rates back and says my people don't think he committed Espionage and then Brennan wrote back and said charge him any way and make him defend himself and that's what they did and then when I went bankrupt uh they they dropped the charges it's incredible John thanks for thanks for sharing that I and I know even today all these years later it's still very emotional probably difficult

[09:19] for you to to relive so we do appreciate it um just really quick before we get into the question some some of our other questions including about Julian Assange one of the things that I still can't believe about the Espionage Act is that it it is one of the most undemocratic laws that we have on the books and one of Edward snowden's Arguments for not wanting to actually come back to face trial is because you are not afforded as you know a public interest defense um so I I I I think this is this is important

[09:50] for listeners can you explain to people the undemocratic nature of this and why a public interest defense would be so helpful for people like yourself or the Snowden or Assange if he was actually going to you know um face prosecution rather than take a guilty ple why that's so important uh that is such an important question um there is no affirmative defense in the ESPN act and courts over the last century have ruled that people cannot get up in court and

[10:23] say I did it but I did it in the public interest let me explain you can't explain as judge uh brinka said you either did it or you didn't do it Ed Snowden I've talked to Ed about this at length and he told me from the very beginning that he was willing to come home and he was willing to go to prison if he could get up in court and explain that what he did was in the interest of the American

[10:54] people and so he hired my attorneys I I said I have the best attorneys in America you got to hire these guys they they only do white color defense and National Security so he hired my lawyers and they began engaging the justice department in conversations very preliminary conversations now Ed told me on the QT he was willing to go to prison for 10 years 20 years whatever it took he knew what he was getting into and he did it

[11:25] for the public interest so when the lawyers went to the justice department said look he's willing to come home and mind you this is you know 11 years ago he's willing to come home but he wants he wants to make a statement in court they said absolutely not so let me ask then if you're a prosecutor at the justice department or you're an FBI agent in The Counter Intelligence Division isn't it important to you to

[11:55] take custody of this man who you have called the most d dangerous man in America because he's offering to deliver himself to you all he wants to do is to explain his actions and they said absolutely not and so they never got him so yes you know over the over the years over the century the last century the the uh Espino act has been used to imprison Eugene V Debs popular

[12:26] presidential candidate uh a Hollywood producer who who produced a movie that was deemed to be not pro British enough and then ended up getting like a decade in prison uh and and one other thing and I apologize in advance for throwing a a number at you but but between the creation the the founding of the Espionage Act and the election of Barack Obama three people three Americans were charged with Espionage for speaking to

[12:57] the Press just under Obama eight of us were charged with Espionage for speaking to the Press not for spying for other countries not for taking money for sensitive information but for going to the media and saying the American government is committing war crimes and here are the details that's what gets you locked up yep it's incredible and So speaking of locked up while not in the US but um in self-imposed imprisonment at at the

[13:29] Ecuadorian EMB Embassy in the UK and then also in a UK prison um as he awaited an extradition hearing Julian Assange obviously um a few weeks ago accepted a guilty play in his Espionage Act case which I still can't believe was brought because under the Obama Administration which obviously Biden played a huge hand in uh that doj which was aggressive against everybody including yourself um decided they couldn't bring charges against Assange they had a quote New York times problem if they did yet Trump Administration

[14:02] does it Biden continues with the prosecution and he takes his guilty plate and Chris and I were sort of stunned with the um the way that this was being discussed yes it was great to us that Assange was finally being released he go back to his family it's a win for him especially because of his physical um mental and his health conditions just overall yet the government still in our view got a guilt a conviction essentially under the ESP act for a publisher a journalist setting a hugely a dangerous precedent that will

[14:34] live on forever we can never go back um from that we'll never return from that so well there's disagreement about that sure um that was my my position was the same as yours yeah I was gonna ask you what your position was John because I know there's disagreement but I'm just wondering what your position is and if you want to bring up what you know what other people say about that that notion that a guilty plea is different than a a conviction and it's not a precedent and and that's really it I was talking to chip Gibbons about this the other day uh chip is a is a great he's an attorney

[15:05] and a great champion of of not just civil liberties but also of the scrapping and rewriting of the uh Espionage Act and I expressed exactly the same concerns that you just expressed and he said well not necessarily first of all um even though it technically falls under the Espionage Act he didn't plead guilty to espionage he plad guilty to conspiracy to commit ESP okay well all right I'm not a lawyer what do I know but he said because it was a plea deal future prosecutors can't

[15:39] use it to Leverage The indictment of another journalist and I said okay well all right I get that too but let me give you some background that I think you'll have fun with I um I am a very proud longtime supporter of both Julian Assange and wikileak and um and I made three trips to Iceland to meet with Wikileaks uh in December January and and February this

[16:10] year to strategize uh with attorneys and and activists and journalists we were all expecting that Julian would be would be extradited to uh to the eastern district of Virginia and face trial there now Julian also had some of the best legal Minds that money could buy on the payroll in in the form of Barry Pollock here in the in in Washington Barry's legendary and um and Barry never gave up hope because

[16:41] he knew that he had the facts on his side he also knew that public opinion plays at least as great a role in in people's convictions as the facts do and the biggest problem that Julian had was that almost everybody who considers himself or herself to be a Democrat blames Julian Assange for giving us Donald Trump right and they were just convinced

[17:13] that he wasn't going to get a fair trial it just wasn't possible to get a fair trial Julian also didn't trust the justice department to um to uh respect the agreement and that's why see there was they were at logger heads for a long time because Justice insisted that Julian be brought to Alexandria Virginia um that he take the plea in the eastern district of Virginia and then be expelled to Australia and he said no he

[17:48] said I don't believe them I don't trust them and if they lock me up I'm going to kill myself and so the deal that Barry Pollock was able to negotiate was that they process him in the federal district that is closest physically closest to Australia and that was sipan Northern Mariana Islands I had no idea there was a federal court there seriously and it all worked out you know there was one odd provision and it was

[18:20] funny because the justice department just cackled with the light that it was this great victory for them and it made me laugh that they're just such idiots um part of the the agreement was that he had to promise not to publish any unpublished material that originated with Chelsea Manning and he had to swear out an affidavit saying that he didn't have any and that Wikileaks had to purge from its systems any unpublished material from Chelsea Lan well there is no unpublished

[18:51] material from Chelsea Manning now interestingly the CIA didn't demand that any about Vault 7 and Vault 8 needed to be purged or anything about Russian troll Farms that Wikileaks has exposed or the Church of Scientology that's on the website you know people think oh well you know Wikileaks it's a Russian front organization and uh Julian Assan she's a Russian agent and all they do is they try to uncover American Secrets people

[19:23] who say that have never been to the Wikileaks website they've never looked to see what it is that leaks is revealing because they reveal protected information from all around the world in the public interest you know I'm I'm I'm thrilled that Julian is free that was the goal and I don't care so much about a conspiracy charge and he's he's banned from applying for an American green card for 25 years it's like great that's

[19:54] great great punishment um but the important the suggestion that they they don't produce or reproduce anything in their possession as a journalistic outfit to me is also insulting but you know it is it's insulting that's right but I'm glad he's home with his wife and his kids and you know his mom his dad his brother it's it's better this way John you know just on the topic of Julian and yourself you know again back to just the whole whistleblower being a

[20:24] whistleblower you know I mean all the things that that Assan has exposed um all the things that you've exposed um if we could talk a little bit about just how frustrating is it for you uh that in your case you know they went after you yet the people who were actually committing the crimes yeah um weren't even pursued and in fact we're celebrated in some cases we mentioned Gina haspel at the at at the top of the episode here who are some of

[20:56] the people that it just still sits with you like those are the people who should have been held accountable yeah wow let's make a list number one is Jose Rodriguez the former deputy director for operations at the CIA the former director of the of the uh counterterrorism Center and Gina haspel's uh boss and uh and Rabbi at the CIA it was it was Jose who implemented

[21:29] the torture program it was Jose who ordered the training for the torturers and then when word started getting out it was Jose who ordered that the tapes of the torture sessions be destroyed after being specifically told by the White House Council don't destroy the tapes and not only did he destroy them I mean it's not like he put them on a magnet or something he had them thrown into an industrial grinder so that they were pulverized and couldn't possibly

[21:59] be recovered so my own personal view is that Jose is a a war criminal and should face International charges uh there are several people whose names you wouldn't recognize around Jose whose careers rose with Jose's who should be in the same dock in the ha uh Jim pavit the former deputy director of the CIA for uh for operations uh died a year and a half ago

[22:29] he should have been in the dock uh George tennet listen George is a nice guy right great hero of the Greek American Community but George is a war criminal uh what did he get he got a $6 million book advance and a position on the board of directors of a of a vulture Fund in New York City he has more money than he could possibly count in a lifetime so yeah I was angry about about a lot of that for a long time but you know after a period of time you you come to the real

[23:00] ization that you're right and they're wrong right I can sleep at night my kids are proud of me I like the person that I am and I know that history will smile on me you know when I'm dead and gone and people are studying this period you know in December of 2014 I was still in prison I had about six weeks to go and I called my wife I was allowed to call her for 15 minutes every other

[23:31] day and I said hey how's your day she said it's great and I said really great why is it great and she said because the Senate torture report was released today and it proved that everything you said was true she said John McCain got up on the floor of the Senate and said you were an American hero and that the American people would never have known what the US government was doing in their name had you not told them it was

[24:03] worth it and it was it was worth it so you know the likes of Jose they can have their little retirement homes in St Augustine Florida I don't care I can sleep at night and know that I'm not a war criminal with the blood of hundreds or perhaps thousands of people on my hands yeah definitely and John the uh you know we like to continuously bring up these stories because you know the war and terror is still going on

[24:35] we're still this surveillance state is still being expanded and heavily funded um they're finding new ways to find way you know to to surveil American citizens and people abroad um you mentioned the Senate torture report I spoke uh we briefly spoke to you yesterday and I talked about how that was the first story I wrote about you back in December 2014 when that was released because because the torture report was heavily uh reliant on the story of Abu zubeda who was accused of being in I think the third ranking member of aleda which if

[25:06] I'm right but then they yes years later they basically retracted that um wasn't true yep and he's being held in Guantanamo still um there's an update to his case um and if I remember correctly I believe that you were not only part of the operation that led to his capture in Pakistan um but you also either interviewed him or you were with him after the capture if I maybe I hope I have those correct I I led the capture and then I sat with him for 56 hours

[25:38] after he was captured yeah so I bring this up because he is petitioning to be released by a mil I think a military review board and I don't I don't know if that if there's been an update on that case I'm assuming you've been following it um I bring him up because he's basically exemplifies all that's gone wrong um since then he was the first person to be um waterboarded uh and some of these torture techniques used against him effectively a guinea pig um he was rendered thrown in Guantanamo um to to the American public you bring up you

[26:09] know maybe some people don't know him other people's he's just like scum of the earth because they think he was involved um um can you just if you have any update on on zubeda's case do you mind mentioning that and can you just just um sort of talk about him as sort of like the example of of everything that sort of went wrong at that in that period sure I and I do have an update um so in December of 2002 I was the chief of counterterrorism operations in

[26:40] Pakistan for the CIA and we got word that Abu zua was somewhere in Pakistan we had to take him alive he was identified to us as the number three in al-Qaeda I'm going to make a very very long story very short and say number one he was not the number three in al-Qaeda he was never even a member of al-Qaeda he was a bad guy he um created uh uh founded al-qaeda's Safe House in Pasha

[27:10] Pakistan the House Of Martyrs he founded al-qaeda's two training camps in southern Afghanistan in helmond and um and uh kahar provinces and he acted as something of a of a logistician if you wanted to go to Afghanistan fight he would get you across the border if you were tired of the fight and wanted to go home he would get a false passport and a plane ticket and send you home um but he had never joined Al-Qaeda he was not the number

[27:41] three in al-Qaeda he had never pledged fty to Usama Bin Laden and he had literally nothing to do with 911 nothing but we tortured him mercilessly in violation of both us and International law he was held at a series of six secret prisons all around the world where he was tortured at black sites and then finally sent to Guantanamo and even after the the

[28:12] government reluctantly admitted ah he really wasn't the number three in al-Qaeda they still didn't want to let him go why because he knew too much about CIA methods right the act of torture was classified currently and properly classified is the is the phrase that the CIA uses all the time even his drawings he drew sketches of himself being tortured those were

[28:43] classified and kept from the public so Abu zubeda has been in American custody since March 28th 2002 that's a long time a long time he was a kid when I captured him now he's on the back end of middle age and he's never been charged with a crime well the Constitution says we all have a right to face a a jury of our peers and to face our accusers in a court of law he's

[29:13] never been given those rights and so my mantra for years has been that he must be released he must be released and I've gone so far as to go on to Twitter and to apologize because I know that the government won't so I apologize to him sort of In Absentia for this illegal and inhuman and immoral treatment now with that said I spoke to his lead attorney a week

[29:45] ago and uh and he said a couple of funny things he said something that really made me feel great he said that when I went public in 2007 word immediately got around the prisoners at Al-Qaeda that a CIA man had confirmed what they had been alleging they said a friendly guard told them that I had blown the whistle on the torture program he said it was like giving them New

[30:16] Life uh that made me very happy the lawyer also said that ABA has some different Recollections of our en counter that night back in 2002 um but that he looks forward to the two of us having dinner together as freem men and that also means a lot you know the the media have made a great deal about well you know could he be expelled to Saudi Arabia he's

[30:49] Palestinian but he was born in Saudi Arabia well he couldn't be expelled to Saudi Arabia or to Yemen or that's not the way these things work these releases you know over the years we've released hundreds of prisoners from Guantanamo almost all of whom have been innocent of any crime and if they can go back to their country they go back to their country but in the case of abua he has no country and so what we've done with

[31:20] other Palestinians or with prisoners who can't be returned to their home countries because it would be too dangerous for them there they would be tortured Ed or killed or harassed or you know the intelligence service would be on them they go to places like Tahiti Albania Switzerland uh Biz Costa Rica uh Thailand so what's happening now is there are dual negotiations

[31:51] underway number one is between aba's legal team and the justice department where they're looking for some crime that he can plead guilty to right conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism I'm just making that up something so that he'll plead guilty he'll be found guilty sentenced to time served and expelled the second negotiation is with

[32:24] a wide variety of countries with the wherewithal to be able to handle somebody who's as high high-profile as abuaba is abua probably can't go to a place like bise because the bans they I mean I don't even know how many people there are in bise let alone how many people in the National Police or the intelligence service but if he could go to someplace like Muhammad udah for example is is now uh in the Netherlands uh or there are prisoners in

[32:56] former prisoners in Italy who have been welcomed Switzerland as I said so if if they can negotiate The Plea and negotiate a relocation package this thing might actually come to an end thank god oh you know what let me add one more thought one of the important things about the Senate torture report which was actually not really the Senate torture report it's a heavily

[33:27] reacted 500 page executive summary of the 5,000 page Senate torture report one of the important things is in the footnotes right so it's very heavily redacted to really understand what the CIA did to these people you have to read the footnotes and there's there's a footnote there that I've quoted many times in my own writing where the CIA said that Abu zua would never be released under any circumstances

[33:58] he would never be permitted to um communicate with the outside world and when he died at Guantanamo he was to be cremated and his ashes cast into the Caribbean that's not the cia's decision to make the CIA is not a law enforcement organization it's not up to them to make that call and so it looks like maybe after all these years the government is

[34:30] finally coming to the realization we need to end this thing my God that's incredible terrible yeah horrific um speaking of horrific and and just more you know indefinite detention and torture um we're curious to get your thoughts on these latest reports um coming out of the conflict um with Israel uh regarding these makeshift sort of detainment camps and prisons um CNN

[35:00] had a report recently where a whistleblower Israeli whistleblower um leaked details of forced amputations um women and children being held there there's reports of mass rapes sexual abuse um we spoke with um former DOD official uh Mark Fallon a couple weeks ago just in the context of of you know Israel has has stated you know this is they're they're taking this as the October 7th attacks is there sort of 9911 um and and he you know warned about

[35:34] the proliferation of of sort of more enemies and combatants regarding their response um so what's your what's your thoughts on this what specifically about these these torture camps that are that are coming out yeah uh allegedly there's the number I I had seen was over 10,000 potential prisoners there um and what needs to be done I saw that number too first of all let me say if Mark Fallon says it you can believe it um he's he's a great truth tell and

[36:07] um I've heard the same reports um there are doctors reporting back to the United Nations on the inordinate number of amputations that are taking place um among Palestinian prisoners uh unnecessary amputations because if you cut off their legs they can't run after you with a you know a bomb strap to them right or you cut off their arms they can't find they can't fire a gun I mean the most grotesque human rights violations

[36:39] imaginable and it's even worse than that I spoke to an Israeli uh human rights attorney two or three weeks ago who who represents only Palestinians in Israeli prisons and he said as soon as October 7th took place the entire Israeli prison system enacted a new uh regulation that Palestinians who are incarcerated are not permitted to walk meaning to get from point A to

[37:10] point B you have to crawl on your hands and knees you want to go to the cafeteria crawl on on your hands and knees he said you can do that for 10 minutes you can't do it for a year and a half and if you object if you speak in more than a whisper you're beaten with a truncheon or a piece of rebar they'll break your legs they'll break your arms and then God forbid they'll amputate

[37:41] them because they become infected so I think this is an absolutely hideous human rights ongoing human rights violation that the entire world is overlooking they're choosing to overlook and criminally the US government has elected to just pretend it's not happening yeah John so um we we went back just to see what you what you have going on and as as Chris mentioned up top it's it's a lot um but you did

[38:12] report on an interesting story that I wasn't even aware of and I think everybody would find interesting I I I couldn't believe it um you reported on the National Archives um which is obviously has to protect founding documents and plays an instrum instrumental role in declassification but you found out that's really that's not been the cas in recent years partly due to defunding and partly due to what seems like just like they don't want to do it really they don't want to actually um perform their function um can you tell listeners about the story with the

[38:43] National Archives I mean we're laughing but it is a it is a serious story you know honest to God I forgot I wrote that until you just mentioned it uh yeah this is a serious story so the National Archives of course is the is the ultimate repository of literally every document that's produced by a US government employee right especially classified documents now we have a mandatory declassification law in this country that says that every document should be Declassified after 30

[39:15] or 35 years it's called statutory declassification the thing is is you need a human being to actually read it after 30 or 35 years to say okay yeah this stuff isn't still classified so um it should be we can declassify it and put it on the website but the problems are several number one archives is using a computer system that's 20 years old it's just not

[39:45] updated number two the head of archives has asked for a smaller fed federal budget who does that like ever in the history of America like you know what my agent needs less money next year and so year after year after year after year there's no computer upgrade number three that computer system has no connectivity with any other governmental organization because it's so many

[40:15] generations behind the times so if somebody from the state department says oh you know we've got these documents we're going to send them over to you they have to like physically Al put them in the mail and double wrap them and send them hard copy to the National Archives because there's no internet connectivity and number four and this is the worst part of it because of all these problems there's something like a 500e wait for the Fulfillment of Freedom

[40:47] of Information Act requests it's like you can file a Freedom of Information Act request and the law says that they have 30 days to tell you that they've received your request and then they have 90 days to answer the request but there's a 500e wait because there's just nobody to actually do the work it it just doesn't exist I'll give you just one typical example um in

[41:19] 2015 I wanted to write an article about a guy popular science fiction writer from the 1950s who may may have worked for NSA he may have worked for CIA um but all the while was writing these Hollywood you know B movies uh under a pseudonym so I said here the guy's dead here's his name here's a copy of his death certificate and I would just like to know was he a CIA or NSA employee between 1950 and

[41:54] 1954 and if so you know please tell me about his career so I got a letter back I got an email back uh also in 2015 saying that um they had received the request that was nine years ago I never heard anything again and so I wrote an email to the CIA a year ago and I said hey you guys ignored this request you had 180 days or or 90 days to respond to

[42:24] it and here we it's N9 years later I have now resp response and they said oh you are in the line to be answered but at the current rate it's going to be about 30 more years and and you know what you say well you guys are violating the law and they say call your Congressman you know I mean I mean John I mean just hearing that right I mean how convenient for them right I mean you gotta oh sure I'm not I'm not trying to be conspiratorial here but it's like you

[42:54] know it's like is it is it just laps of you know funding and Mis and gross mismag or is that just deliberately so they don't have to fulfill these requests I mean it's incredible I I'll tell you another quick story when when I was an analyst I was like a mid-career analyst and I was asked to be the acting Deputy National Intelligence officer for the Middle East right it's kind of a big deal it's it's handling the Middle East for the entire uh intelligence community and I did this for six weeks it was a six-

[43:25] week rotation so I go up up there uh it's on the seventh floor of the CIA the the executive floor and I was all gung-ho you know I'm going to write a paper about Saddam Hussein I'm going to write a paper about you know whatever and they said no we want you to work on these Freedom of Information Act requests so just go through uh these documents and black out everything that's classified well the stack of documents was literally eight feet tall and this was just for this one National

[43:58] Intelligence officer for the Middle East it was 8 feet tall I worked 12-hour days six days a week for the entirety of that six weeks to go through every one of those documents and say these are old they're historical they're not important nobody cares about the Suez Crisis and what you know John Foster dullus said to his brother about the Suez Crisis it's all for the historians so almost none of it was classified and then the nio

[44:31] said you saved me 10 years worth of work and I said but I mean there there shouldn't be any backlog for Foya we should have an army of Foya people hire retirees to come in and just get the the American people own this information they should have access to it Scholars should have ready access to it and nobody does incredible but if you you want to give the filmmakers behind Zero Dark 30 oh behind the scenes don't get

[45:02] me started just just speak to your favorite uh national security officer that's right and there will be no implications for that and if you're a CIA analyst you get a Rolex and tickets to the premiere in exchange yeah nice it's incredible um John I mean yeah it's always a pleasure to speak with you we always appreciate the time that you you give us I know you're a busy busy person uh you know we can speak to you we can speak to you for hours on any range of in issues that come up um thanks for your good

[45:33] questions thank you you know it's it's always great so we really appreciate you taking some time out and doing this with us thanks for having me good to see you both
