# The operational test

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

*The vetting procedure John Kiriakou describes for moving a trusted source onto normal handling: put a full surveillance team on him without telling him, watch how he gets to the meeting, and then ask him to describe what he did.*

- **Purpose:** Verifying a source before moving him to normal handling arrangements
- **Method:** A large surveillance team follows him unannounced to a meeting
- **The check:** Asking him afterwards to describe his surveillance detection route
- **What the source did:** Taxi stopped on an eight-lane highway; ran across; over the median; a cab the other way; then the subway
- **Result:** Moved "straight into the Yes, we can trust him camp"

**The operational test** is the vetting technique [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) describes when asked how a case officer guards against a source who might betray him as readily as he betrayed his own service. Polygraphy is one answer; the other, in his words, is *"what we call operationally test them."*[1]

## The occasion

The case Kiriakou tells was not a test of suspicion but of promotion. *"I'll tell you I there was this one source that I had who I really really liked and because he was from an enemy country, he was recruited under under special circumstances. Well, he was so reliable, I wanted to move him over to normal circumstances."*[1]

The change of status was administrative — *"It's a paperwork exercise"* — but it carried a requirement: *"And as part of that paperwork exercise, I had to operationally test him."*[1]

## The test

The method was surveillance without notice. *"So I I put a large surveillance team on him as he left his place of work and uh and they followed him to the meeting site and the the head of the security the head of the surveillance team kept calling me saying he's doing this, he's doing that, he's doing this, he's doing that."*[1][2]

## What the source did

The route Kiriakou describes is elaborate and physically committed. *"At one point he got in a taxi, um had the taxi just pull over on the side of a of a an eight lane highway and then he ran across all eight lanes, climbed over the median, got in the cab on the other side and went the opposite direction and then got on the subway and came to the meeting."*[2]

His professional assessment of it is admiring: *"It was a terrific, it was very very provocative in terms of of you know the surveillance detection route."*[2][3]

## The verification

The test was not the route but the account of it. *"So when he got there, I knew exactly what he had done, but I said, 'Did you do a surveillance detection route on your way here?' And he said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Okay, walk me through it and tell me what you did.' And he told me like to to a move exactly what he did."*[3]

The match between the observed and the reported settled the question: *"And we were able to move him straight into the Yes, we can trust him camp."*[3]

## See also

- [Surveillance detection route](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/surveillance-detection-route)
- [Sources are not traitors](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sources-are-not-traitors)
- [Running Into Former Sources](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/running-into-former-sources)
- [The Greek colonel and China](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-greek-colonel-and-china)

## Sources

1. Greek Spies, Epstein, Aliens, CIA (2026-02-10), at 07:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuKmPsXKPs&t=467s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-10-deprogram-ted-rall-greek-spies-epstein-aliens-cia/
2. Greek Spies, Epstein, Aliens, CIA (2026-02-10), at 08:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuKmPsXKPs&t=497s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-10-deprogram-ted-rall-greek-spies-epstein-aliens-cia/
3. Greek Spies, Epstein, Aliens, CIA (2026-02-10), at 08:48. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuKmPsXKPs&t=528s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-10-deprogram-ted-rall-greek-spies-epstein-aliens-cia/

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