# The modified CMU

> **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 modified CMU," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-modified-cmu/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The communications restrictions imposed on John Kiriakou at FCI Loretto after his Letter from Loretto was published by the Huffington Post. Staff called it a modified communications management unit: a five-day delay on incoming and outgoing email, live monitoring of his telephone calls rather than recording, and a prohibition on speaking Greek to his family.*

- **Facility:** FCI Loretto, Pennsylvania
- **Trigger:** Publication of the Letter from Loretto
- **Email:** Five-day delay in and out
- **Telephone:** Monitored live rather than recorded
- **Languages:** Greek and Arabic forbidden on calls

**The modified CMU** is the term [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) uses for the communications regime imposed on him at [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) after his [Letter from Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/letter-from-loretto) reached a national audience.

## The trigger

His lawyer had set up a mailing list of about six hundred people and asked him to write when he had settled in, so they would know he was all right. Kiriakou waited roughly six weeks and then wrote what he called a letter from Loretto, in deliberate homage to Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail — a day in the life, as he describes it.[1][2]

He had not known that his lawyer was a close friend of Arianna Huffington. The piece ran as a banner headline on the Huffington Post and took more than two million hits over the following days, after which he gave interviews to Jake Tapper, who drove to the prison, and to NPR, *Playboy*, *The Economist* and *The Atlantic Monthly* among others.[2]

## The restrictions

The institution clamped down immediately on his access to the outside world. He was not sent to a genuine [communications management unit](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/communications-management-unit) — he considers himself fortunate in that — but to what staff called a modified one.[1][3]

Incoming and outgoing email carried a five-day delay. His telephone calls were monitored live rather than taped for later review at the monitors' discretion.[3] Kiriakou speaks Greek and Arabic, and had been using Greek with his children and his aunt; that was stopped. Asked why, the answer he was given was that the monitors were too stupid to follow it.[3][4]

The monitoring had teeth. He was summoned to the lieutenant's office over a private call with his wife in which he had called a guard a Nimrod — a summons that in his description normally means solitary and then transfer to a higher-security prison.[5]

## See also

- [Letter from Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/letter-from-loretto)
- [Communications management unit](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/communications-management-unit)
- [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto)

## Sources

1. In Limine — John Kiriakou (2023-02-06), at 04:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud096a018e9&t=262s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-02-06-in-limine-podcast-in-limine-john-kiriakou/
2. In Limine — John Kiriakou (2023-02-06), at 05:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud096a018e9&t=327s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-02-06-in-limine-podcast-in-limine-john-kiriakou/
3. In Limine — John Kiriakou (2023-02-06), at 05:59. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud096a018e9&t=359s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-02-06-in-limine-podcast-in-limine-john-kiriakou/
4. In Limine — John Kiriakou (2023-02-06), at 06:32. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud096a018e9&t=392s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-02-06-in-limine-podcast-in-limine-john-kiriakou/
5. In Limine — John Kiriakou (2023-02-06), at 07:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud096a018e9&t=423s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-02-06-in-limine-podcast-in-limine-john-kiriakou/

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