# Signal and the parking lot

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Signal and the parking lot," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/signal-and-the-parking-lot/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's account of how a clandestine source is actually contacted — an innocuous telephone question with a pre-agreed answer standing for a time and a place fixed in advance, and a physical signal such as the flowerpot on Bob Woodward's balcony — offered as the reason investigators looking for an email trail between a service and its agent will not find one.*

- **The mechanism:** A pre-agreed phrase or physical signal, not an instruction
- **What it carries:** Only that a meeting already agreed is on
- **The example he gives:** A flag in a flowerpot on a balcony, Watergate
- **The consequence:** No email trail, ever

**Signal and the parking lot** describes the mechanics [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) gives for contacting a clandestine source, offered in answer to a question about what being run by an intelligence service would actually have looked like for [Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jeffrey-epstein) day to day.[1]

## The phone call that says nothing

If the source is handled normally, the contact is a conversation with no content in it:

> *"You get a phone call saying, hey, how's your mom doing? And the answer is, my mom is feeling much better, thank you. And that means: meet me at the parking lot of the yacht club at 2:00 in the morning. You have this all set up in advance. And then he goes and does his meeting, and gets his marching orders."*

The work is done beforehand. The call carries a single bit of information — that the arrangement already made is on — and nothing an interceptor could act on.[2]

## Why there is no email

Asked directly whether there would be an email trail, Kiriakou's answer is categorical: *"oh, no, no, no. There would never be an email trail. This is all done verbally, or just using signals."*[3]

The illustration he reaches for is domestic and famous. During Watergate, the source would react to Bob Woodward putting an American flag in a flowerpot on his apartment balcony — *"that triggered a meeting that night at 9:00 in a parking garage in Rosslyn, the Rosslyn neighbourhood of Arlington, Virginia."* The signal did not name the garage or the hour, because both had been agreed long before it was given: *"all of this is always set up in advance, so you never have to actually put anything in writing, or say, meet me at 8:00."*[3]

The investigative consequence he leaves implicit but the hosts draw out: an absence of documents between a service and its agent is what competent handling looks like, not evidence that the handling did not happen.[4]

## See also

- [Access Agent](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/access-agent)
- [Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jeffrey-epstein)
- [Asset acquisition cycle](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/asset-acquisition-cycle)
- [The Israelis are free agents](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-israelis-are-free-agents)

## Sources

1. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 08:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=492s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/
2. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 08:43. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=523s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/
3. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 09:13. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=553s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/
4. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 09:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=584s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/signal-and-the-parking-lot/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt