# The open letter to Edward Snowden > **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 open letter to Edward Snowden," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-open-letter-to-edward-snowden/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The letter John Kiriakou wrote from prison in 2013 to Edward Snowden, sent privately through a shared attorney and carrying three pieces of advice — hire the best national-security lawyers available, cultivate a base of support on Capitol Hill, and never under any circumstances talk to the FBI — which went viral and reached its addressee only because Arianna Huffington published it.* - **Written:** About four months into Kiriakou's sentence, 2013 - **Route:** Privately, through an attorney the two men shared - **Advice 1:** Hire the best national-security attorneys money can buy - **Advice 2:** Cultivate natural bases of support, especially on Capitol Hill - **Advice 3:** Never talk to the FBI - **Reach:** Over two million hits [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) had been at [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) roughly four months when [Edward Snowden](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/edward-snowden) went public. He wrote him a letter. ## How it was sent It went out privately, routed through an attorney the two men had in common, and was written "just from the benefit of my own experience."[1] Kiriakou expected it to reach the lawyer, perhaps a couple of hundred other people, and eventually Snowden himself. ## The three pieces of advice The first was to find the best national-security attorneys money could buy — "essentially my insurance" — advice Snowden took, engaging Kiriakou's own lawyers.[2] The second was to cultivate his natural bases of support, especially on Capitol Hill. Kiriakou says this took time but was also done, and attaches to it his view that the political spectrum "is not a straight line, it's a circle" — that the far left and the far right meet at the point where they care about civil liberties, and that it was civil libertarians on both sides who came out for Snowden. He credits that coalition with the fact that elements of the Patriot Act had begun falling away.[2][3] The third he calls the most important: "don't ever, ever, under any circumstances talk to the FBI." The reasoning is institutional rather than moral — "they will lie, they will cheat, they will twist your words, they'll wiretap you and then take your statements out of context to use against you in court. Remember they get promoted if you go to prison. That's the only way for them to get ahead in their careers is for you to go to prison."[4] ## How it travelled The letter was not meant to be a publication. What made it one was [Arianna Huffington](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/arianna-huffington), who had already given Kiriakou's first prison letter — his [letter from Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/letter-from-loretto) — a million readers, and who did the same again. The Snowden letter went past two million hits.[5] The attention that followed came to the prison. CNN drove out to interview him; the American programme *60 Minutes* came; the letter was covered in outlets ranging from *Time* to *Playboy* to *The Economist* to *The Atlantic Monthly*. "And thanks to Arianna we got it immediately back to" Snowden.[6] Kiriakou draws a lesson from that which he applies generally to activists: ideas make no difference if nobody knows about them. "If we have access to the press, that's how we win."[7] ## See also - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) - [Edward Snowden](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/edward-snowden) - [Arianna Huffington](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/arianna-huffington) - [Letter from Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/letter-from-loretto) - [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto) ## Sources 1. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 29:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=1786s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ 2. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 30:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=1817s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ 3. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 30:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=1847s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ 4. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 31:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=1878s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ 5. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 33:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=2003s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ 6. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 33:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=2033s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ 7. Internet Party (2017-08-21), at 34:25. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dljiI06es&t=2065s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2017-08-21-internet-party-internet-party/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-open-letter-to-edward-snowden/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt