Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a group of former U.S. intelligence officials — retired CIA, FBI, NSA and some DOD personnel — of which John Kiriakou is a member.[1][2] It confers the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. Kiriakou recounts that when Joe Kent went public on intelligence matters, he tracked down Kent’s contact information and arranged for VIPS to give him the Sam Adams Award — though, he notes, the two had never spoken.[3][2]
Kiriakou identifies fellow VIPS member Bill Binney as the former number-four official at the NSA, and cites Binney’s study concluding that the data downloaded from the DNC server was extracted at a speed no internet connection could achieve remotely, implying a local, not Russian, leak.[4]