Told that he was expected at National Whistleblower Day in July, Kiriakou said he loved the event, and then explained why at some length.[1]
What it is
It is an event the National Whistleblower Center puts on every year, and it is always a major event on Capitol Hill.[1]
The room
The venue is the part Kiriakou lingers on. It is always held in the Kennedy Caucus Room, which he says is not just the biggest room on Capitol Hill but the most historic single room anywhere on Capitol Hill.[1]
His evidence is the list of hearings it has held: every major Senate hearing, he says, from the sinking of the Titanic to Watergate and Iran-Contra.[1][2]
Why it matters to him
The rest of his description is about attendance. The organisers pack the place every single year. It is a fantastic day and a fantastic lunch, and the guests are A-list movers and shakers from Capitol Hill — senators, congressmen, committee chairmen — who come to celebrate whistleblowers.[2]
His conclusion is a recommendation: it is an event that no whistleblower, or whistleblower’s supporter, should miss.[2]
The enthusiasm is worth reading against the rest of Kiriakou’s account of Washington. He is consistently scathing about the congressional oversight committees, which he describes as cheerleaders that rubber-stamp whatever the intelligence community brings them, and he has said that the blame for the country’s failures on civil liberties belongs on Capitol Hill as much as in the White House.[3][4]
National Whistleblower Day is the exception he makes: the one day of the year on which the same building, and in his account the same class of people, treats a whistleblower as something to be celebrated rather than managed.