our guest, john kiriakou, it is about to go to jail or a sentenced to 30 months in prison, worked for cia. there while john brennan was there. can you respond to what john brennan knew, when he knew it, and the fact that president obama wants him to be head of the cia? >> opposite, i cannot read john brennan's mind, but i can say at the time the torture techniques for being implemented, john brennan was president bush's director of the national counterterrorist center. he was also, a little earlier than that, the deputy executive director. i believe executive director of the cia, the no. 3 ranking position in the cia. he would have had to have been intimately involved not necessarily in carrying out the torture techniques, but in the policy, the torture policy. either that or he had to be brain dead because you cannot be in positions like that, director of the match for counterterrorist center and executive director of the cia without knowing what the cia's torture policies are. i am frankly surprised also at the fact there is doubt outrage in the human rights community now that mr. b

of the cases so far that have completely dropped all espionage act charges or thomas drake and john kiriakou the espionage charges have completely gone away they've been used rather as a hammer to force people like john into a plea bargain now john of a these are very serious accusations brought against you know who yes. did you ever feel like you were putting anyone's life in danger oh no certainly not certainly not if if i had any inkling that there was a danger to anyone i would have never said anything about anybody but no this reporter was looking for someone to interview for a book former cia officers refer one another to journalists all the time for the purpose of books or interviews or documentaries and and the justice department used that to to prosecute me and you were the first person to publicly disclose the use of torture that that this actually went on and you called that this practice of waterboarding and you called it torture this was revealed in an interview with a.b.c. back in two thousand and seven i believe we have that clip there. as time has passed and has as september

john kiriakou former cia agent and anti torture whistleblower may never see him self in the national portrait gallery but he was celebrated in a different kind of ceremony when state evening the portrait is the newest edition in the americans who tell the truth series by artist robert shirley one of the things that we believe in this country it's in our constitution and our legal structure is that we don't torture and that's why i paid it john kiriakou human rights activists legal scholars and other supporters turned out for the celebration sponsored by the government accountability project one of those in attendance was bruce fein a top justice department official under reagan we should care because of what it says about us a civilized people doesn't torture anybody period no matter what the conceivable so-called benefits could be this celebration took place just before kiriakou sentencing on friday where he faces thirty months in prison kiriakou first stepped into the public light in two thousand and seven when he first spoke out about waterboarding as a result of waterboarding at

while they are so few month sentence that's being talked about as part of a john kiriakou is plea deal but the judge could still refuse to settle that meaning that they could potentially be more jail time let's get details on this now and speak to ray mcgovern former cia officer now joining us here live on a pleasure to see you today sir the man we're talking about says he's being punished not for what he did but for who he is what are your thoughts here as well it's mostly for what he said. he's being punished out of range hypocrisy. look at the chronology here in two thousand and seven john kiriakou came out very loudly against torture as being not worthy of the united states and not efficient not a way to get information less than a year later two lawyers confirm that one's name would be obama and the others name was holder obama having become president eric holder another lawyer having become attorney general they shed order boarding is torture torture is illegal what happened well nothing happened to the torturers what is happening here is to the person who happened to agree with

look at the chronology here in two thousand and seven john kiriakou came out very loudly against torture as being not worthy of the united states and not efficient not a way to get information what happened well the instructions were to get people to confess confess to what confessed to the existence of weapons of mass destruction in iraq confess to the existence of operational ties between al qaeda and saddam hussein it was all a crock they had to make this stuff but you can't get real flyable information from torture but you know what torture works beautifully if you want unreliable information and so they kind you know not only tires not only weapons of mass destruction but ties between iraq and al qaeda and it was a masterful propaganda performance on the part of the united states on the part of the u.k. . a vital anti terror weapon or a deadly threat to civilians. u.n. investigators look into whether the use of drone strikes many by the u.s. could amount to war crimes that's coming your way very shortly the sound of the. first dozens of people being injured in clashes in and around

the cia veteran the former chief of counterterrorism operations in pakistan john kiriakou will spend thirty months in prison for leaking the identity of an agent but before he was prosecuted mr keating after had been actively speaking out against torture and now he and his supporters believe that he was prosecuted for coming clean over torture practices in the cia it started with an investigation into how military defense attorneys at guantanamo bay obtained the names and photographs of cia personnel authorities eventually tracked one name back to a reporter who had spoken to mr. rather than risk a far longer prison term and because he could no longer afford these legal fees and stick it out when a cobra agreed to plead guilty to one of the five charges against him violating the intelligence identities protection act by e-mailing the name of a covert cia officer to a freelance reporter who never even published it there's something very disturbing about this case had john actually engaged in torture he wouldn't be in any trouble at all he never even would have been investigated becaus

who is the drone daddy and who have lived approved a lot of the torture techniques on which john kiriakou blew the whistle john brennan is now nominated to head the cia so to me that clear cut find of what will get you promoted and then stay within the cia and what will get you thrown in jail just talk about it's just that i mean what does that say about a society about a country that we award applaud people who are committing these horrific acts i mean overseeing the assassination program completely without due process drone wars i mean we're putting them at top levels of these cabinets and then we're persecuting prosecuting and arresting those who are simply speaking out it's unbelievable it is. what's going on and to have people i mean think about it john you who wrote the memo the memos justifying torture he's a tenured professor berkeley jay bybee who also wrote this memo this is a federal judge everybody who has been involved in these very controversial programs from torture warrantless wiretapping they've all been promoted and enjoy very high levels of power from the bush administr

the thirty eight month sentence that's being talked about is part of john kiriakou his plea deal but the judge could still refuse to settle for that meaning he could potentially face far greater jail time that's why the accusations themselves cia officer ram a governor believes them to be purely political. he's being punished out of range hypocrisy. look at the chronology here in two thousand and seven john kiriakou came out very loudly against torture as being not worthy of the united states and not efficient not a way to get information less than a year later two lawyers confirmed that one's name was obama through the others name was holder obama having become president they said waterboarding is torture torture is illegal what happened well the instructions were to get people to confess confess to what confessed to the existence of weapons of mass destruction in iraq confess to the existence of operational ties between al qaeda and saddam hussein it was all a crock they had to make this stuff up and you can't get real flyable information from torture but you know what torture work

is coming to you live from moscow with a former cia officer john kiriakou he's been sentenced to two and a half years behind bars for leaking classified intelligence his supporters of called for a sentence to be reduced saying the real reason for his punishment was because he went public on washington's torture tactics artie's guy nature kind of reports. the cia veteran the former chief of counterterrorism operations in pakistan john kiriakou will spend thirty months in prison for leaking the identity of an agent but before he was prosecuted mr kitty affleck had been actively speaking out against torture and now he and his supporters believe that he was prosecuted for coming clean over torture practices in the cia it started with an investigation into how military defense attorneys acquired tunnel bay obtained the names and photographs of cia personnel as ortiz eventually tracked one name back to a reporter who had spoken to mr. rather than risk a far longer prison term and because he could no longer afford his legal fees and stick it out when a cobra agreed to plead guilty to one of

john kiriakou's admitted to a single count of revealing the identity of a covert officer under a pleadeal that saw prosecutors drop charges brought under the espionage act. kiriakou's the first cia official to publicly confirm and detail the bush administration's torture program, describing the waterboarding about cut operative abuses by that in a 2007 interview with abc news. he also is the first cia official to be jailed for any reason related to the torture, even those who carried it out. outside the courthouse, prosecutor neil macbride called kiriakou's sentence a warning to other whistleblowers. >> the judge just said in court, today sentence should be a reminder to every individual who works for the government who comes into possession of closely held sensitive information regarding the national defense or the identity of a covert agent that it is critical that information remains secure and not into the public domain are be shared with others who do not have authorized access to it. >> the judge in the case told kiriakou she would have sentenced him to more jail time if not for

starting off this hour after a long and tedious trial process former cia official john kiriakou was sentenced today to two and a half years in federal prison last october the forty eight year old pled guilty to violating the intelligence identities protection act by leaking the name of a covert official's name to reporter. something that u.s. district judge when they were in kemah says was not a form of whistleblowing the district judge said that if she had been given the choice she would have sentenced kiriakou to much more time behind bars than the relatively light sentence received kiriakou was also one of the first cia insiders to confirm reports that the agency used torture tactics like waterboarding in order to extract information from detainees now at an event honoring him curiosity was quick to point out the hypocrisy of prosecuting the whistleblower and not the people who actually performed the enhanced terror gay sions. i never tortured anybody but i got into prison while the tortures of the lawyers people who were and the people who deceived and the man who destroyed the proof of t

a former cia analyst and senior investigator for the senate foreign relations committee john kiriakou and while he isn't the only whistleblower charged out of this administration his story is particularly unique if he actually left his position at the cia in two thousand and four three years later when waterboarding was becoming a point of contention he was put to the media circuit as a commentator eventually to disclose the name of the covert cia officer to a freelance reporter simply wanted to help the journalist find a good source a little did he know that's the formation would cost him his career just last week he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison as part of a plea deal and he now stands as the first cia officer to be convicted under the espionage act an extremely archaic piece of world war one legislation now because of the legal proceedings has been silent and unable to speak to the media not even more in fact he's here right now to talk to me about his personal case torture and the crusade against whistleblowers in this country john thank you so much for coming so

no date has been set yet as to when john kiriakou report to the president to begin his two and a half year sentence. well we've told you before about the sting ray technology that the government and select law enforcement agencies are using to track people's locations based on their cell phones that technology was only supposed to be used to monitor people suspected of terrorist activities but it turns out the los angeles police department has started using it in criminal investigations as well things like burglary drugs and murder investigations to name a few most importantly the l.a.p.d. does not need the court's order or the cell phone providers approval in order to use the device they don't even have to explain how the technology works or what information it is capable of gathering for more on the latest developments coming out of l.a. r.t. correspondent ramon glendower joined me earlier today i first asked him how many times the l.a.p.d. employed this device in routine criminal investigations new or newly obtained newly released records show that the l.a.p.d. has used this sting

of counterterrorist operations in pakistan so expected to be sentenced to thirty months in jail john kiriakou was found guilty of leaking classified information to a reporter he first became known to the public in two thousand and seven when he was the first government official to admit waterboarding was torture earlier this week kiriakou explained exactly what it is that's driving him. i've never gained anything through what i've said publicly so i lost everything and i believe i was prosecuted not for what i did but for who i am a cia officer. who said george was wrong and ineffective and went against the grain i'm not naive i know that national security and intelligence and counterterrorism agree is a very tough arena i knew that there was a risk to what i was doing. but i also know that to be seeing another person and serializing human rights abuses under a legal paper is not the american way and it's not something that as americans we should be engaged in we are not a lowest common denominator country measuring what is right by what others do and the american way stands for something and

former cia officer john kiriakou has been sentenced to two and a half years behind bars for leaking classifiedintelligence his supporters of course for the sentence to be reduced saying the real reason behind the punishment was him going public on washington's torture tactics but a federal judge rejected arguments he was acting as a whistleblower when he leaked a covert agents name to a reporter by e-mail to a cia veteran retired in two thousand and four and was outspoken about the use of secret interrogations and waterboarding by the us you could have been sentenced to eight years in prison had he not secured a plea deal with prosecutors author and activist sibel edmonds believes that insiders will be targeted and punished for making a stand as long as u.s. authorities continue to cover up wrongdoing and with that we do see this type of witch hunt action against those who leak information that exposes either government criminality or government waste fraud abuse so this is a selective behind he has had a single case where was the glorious happy success all by actor suing doors so whole channe

talk to a whistle blowing agency outcast is now awaiting a summons to start a prison sentence john kiriakou was one of the first to confirm the existence of washington's waterboarding program and has been sent to jail for two and a half years for revealing the name of an undercover agent speaking to r.t. he himself said his true crime was speaking against the government. first of all my case was not about leaking my case was about torture when i blew the whistle on torture in december of two thousand and seven the justice to department here in the united states began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together. charge and force me into taking a plea agreement and i'll add another thing to when i took the plea in october of last year the judge said that she thought the plea was was fair and appropriate but once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years you have called it ironic that the first person to be convicted with regard

department isn't going to prosecute those cases at the very least the american people need to know john kiriakou ex a cia officer and touch a whistleblower speaking to i fail live thank you very much for your time thanks for thanks for having me. and he does session in the u.s. senator obama's pick up for defense secretary goes before lawmakers have a confirmation hearing starts with vocal protests already coming from the israeli lobby that's coming up. at our g. has managed to get exclusive footage of what's believed to be atrocities committed by the mali an army in a town liberated from islamist rebels with the help of french forces any information on civilian casualties in mali has been notably scarce he spoke to local journalists gone zollo one child who told us all the originals of the disturbing tape. ginny moving north we find reports of extrajudicial killings and evidence of crimes we have heard of the murder of a few citizens by molly and soldiers in the town of silver not only did they kill them they shove their bodies into the drinking water well ok today in the center of the town lik

turned torture whistleblowing agency outcasts is now awaiting a summons to start a prison sentence john kiriakou was one of the first to confirm the existence of washington's waterboarding program and has been sent to jail for two and a half years for revealing the name of an undercover agent speaking to r.t. he himself said his sheer crime of speaking against the government first of all my case was not about leaking like case was about torture when i blew the whistle on torture in december of two thousand and seven the justice to department here in the united states began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together. charge and force me into taking a plea agreement and i'll add another thing to when i took the plea in october of last year the judge said that she thought the plea was was fair and appropriate but once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years you have called it ironic that the first person to be convicted with regar