# The CIA–State Department cover agreement

> **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: "The CIA–State Department cover agreement," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/state-department-cover-agreement/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The standing arrangement under which CIA officers serve abroad under State Department cover. As a senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kiriakou was told the agency was misusing the agreement to place officers from the torture program under diplomatic cover so that publishing their names would expose journalists to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. His written query, sent over Senator John Kerry''s signature, came back classified above his own clearance.*

- **What it is:** The arrangement placing CIA officers abroad under State Department cover
- **Alleged misuse:** Parking torture-program officers under diplomatic cover to shield their names
- **Protective effect:** Naming them would trigger the [Intelligence Identities Protection Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/intelligence-identities-protection-act)
- **Raised by:** Kiriakou as a senior investigator, [Senate Foreign Relations Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-foreign-relations-committee)
- **Query sent under:** Senator [John Kerry](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kerry)''s signature
- **Reply:** Returned classified Top Secret, above Kiriakou''s own clearance

The **cover agreement** between the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) and the State Department is the standing arrangement under which agency officers serve abroad in declared diplomatic positions. [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) has described an allegation that the agency used it, after 2001, for a purpose it was not written for.

## The allegation

While serving as a senior investigator on the [Senate Foreign Relations Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-foreign-relations-committee), Kiriakou was approached by a journalist who said he had evidence that the CIA *"was misusing its cover agreement with the State Department to place people involved in the torture program under State Department cover so that their names could not be exposed in the press."* The protective effect was legal rather than practical: if such a name were published, whoever supplied it would be exposed to the [Intelligence Identities Protection Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/intelligence-identities-protection-act) — the same statute under which Kiriakou himself was later convicted.[1]

## The letter, and the answer he was not allowed to read

Kiriakou's reading was that this amounted to a violation of the cover agreement itself. He sent the agency a request for clarification under the signature of the committee's then chairman, Senator [John Kerry](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kerry). A response arrived roughly six weeks later, classified Top Secret — a level above the clearance Kiriakou held at the time, so that the answer to his own question was withheld from him. A colleague who could read it summarised it for him. In Kiriakou's paraphrase the letter said, in very strongly worded language, *"mind your own business."*[2]

## See also

- [Intelligence Identities Protection Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/intelligence-identities-protection-act)
- [Senate Foreign Relations Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/senate-foreign-relations-committee)
- [Cover position](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cover-position)
- [The declared officer](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/declared-officer)
- [John Kerry](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kerry)

## Sources

1. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 39:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=2367s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/
2. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 39:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=2397s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/state-department-cover-agreement/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt