The encounter at the Greek ambassador's residence
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John Kiriakou tells the following story as a demonstration, offered in support of the argument that the congressional intelligence committees are not in a position to oversee anything.

"A couple of weeks after I got out of prison I was invited to dinner at the Greek ambassador''s residence. So I went, and there was a Democratic senator there from the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he walked up to me and he said, ''hey, welcome home, we were so worried about you.'' I said, ''thanks, Senator, but I''ve got to tell you, I was disappointed. I thought you would stand up for me.'' And he got angry. And he said, ''look, it took everything I had just to not lose my security clearance.'' And I said, ''oh, you''re afraid of them.'' And then he just walked away from me."

The point he draws from it

Kiriakou''s general position is that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence "are really not oversight committees so much as they are cheerleaders for the CIA", with the consequence that assurances such as the claim that MK-Ultra and its sub-programs ended in 1975 rest on nothing the public can check. "How do we know that? We don''t know it. We''re just supposed to take their word for it." The encounter at the residence supplies the mechanism behind the deference: the clearance is the leverage.

See also

- Congressional intelligence oversight
- Senate Intelligence Committee
- MK-Ultra
- John Kiriakou
