john kiriakou has just been released from prison.n a minute, he will join us from his home, where he remains on house arrest while finishing his sentence. shortly after his release last week, he tweeted a picture of him at home with his smiling children, along with a quote from martin luther king jr. -- "free at last, free at least thank god almighty, i'm free at last." in january 2013, kiriakou was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. under a plea deal, he admitted to a single count of violating the intelligence identities protection act by revealing the identity of a covert officer involved in the rendition, detention and interrogation program to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it. in return, prosecutors dropped charges against kiriakou brought under the espionage act. in 2007, kiriakou became the first cia official to publicly confirm and detail the bush administration's use of waterboarding when he spoke to abc's brian ross. >> at the time, i felt waterboarding was something we needed to do. as time has passed,

>> hi, i am john kiriakou, home after cheerleaders in federal prison. -- home after two years in federal prison. i am full of hope. >> today in a broadcast exclusive interview, we spend the hour with the retired cia agent who blew the whistle on torture. he has just been released from prison. he will join us from his home, where he remains on house arrest while finishing his two-and-a-half-year sentence. in 2007, kiriakou became the first cia official to publicly confirm and detail the bush administration's use of waterboarding. >> i've come to believe firmly that torture is wrong under any circumstances. it is not something that a civilized society should sanction. it is something that we as americans should oppose. >> john kiriakou is the only official to be jailed for any

it's almost shameful. >> do you think he's hated, kiriakou?ense that he is persona non grata inside the cia. >> well, he's a convicted felon. that's all you can say. but the activities as he presented them the first time were almost within whistleblower protection. again, he divulged that classified information and that's what he's been held to account for. but the broad program of individuals who literally decided that these activities, which the world has seen forever as torture, which we prosecuted people for in world war ii, was good enough for us to use. that in itself is a crime. i mean, it's certainly enough to besmirch the entire honor of the united states. but that people should be held to account for that. >> what do you think the legacy of that period has been for counterterrorism and intelligence now? have things gotten better? is there some sort of internal repudiation that's happened, or is it basically, that was a bad chapter and if we have another attack and someone sends the order down again, we'll go back at it? >> well, let'

kiriakou has come to feel very differently about the cia's detention and interrogation program than he did back in 2007. when we spoke yesterday, he gave me his perspective on what happened to abu zubaydah starting with the mission to capture him in pakistan back in 2002. >> we were told by headquarters at the time that abu zubaydah was the number three in al qaeda. that turned out to just not be true. he actually had never joined al qaeda. and he had never pledged fealty to osama bin laden. but he was an al qaeda associate. and he was the director of al qaeda's two training camps in afghanistan. so as such even if he wasn't the number three in al qaeda, he was a pretty important target for us. >> but you're operating at the time thinking, we've got the number three. >> oh, yeah. >> you must have been stoked? >> oh, absolutely. in fact, a lot of us felt it was just too good to be true that, you know, we've hit this one guy, we've hit this one guy, we're not going to catch the number three in al qaeda just by going out and looking for him. >> but you do catch him. >> elwell, we did catc

report states that they had violated the law, none faced prosecution, a fact that's not lost on john kiriakou. he's now on house arrest, serving out the rest of his sentence for identifying a covert officer to a reporter. you're the only person that has gone to prison over torture. >> yes. >> how do you feel about that? >> very disappointed. and not because i think people involved in the torture program should just across the board be prosecuted. i don't. i think reasonable people can agree to disagree about whether or not those people should be prosecuted. i don't think they should. but -- >> you don't think they should be prosecuted? >> no, because they thought that they were following the law. they were told that the justice department had approved these torture techniques. that they had been signed off by the national security council and the president, and that what they were doing was legal. i get that. i understand. but we now know from the senate torture report that there was a lot that was done that was not authorized by those national security findings, that was not approved by the

in the united states cia , whistleblower john kiriakou has been released from prison.iriakou exposed the bush-era cia torture program and became the only official jailed over it. in january, 2013, he was sentenced to two and a half years after pleading guilty to confirming the identity of a covert officer to a reporter who didn't publish it. his supporters say he was unfairly targeted as part of the obama administration's crackdown on whistleblowers. in 2007, he had become the first cia official to publicly confirm the bush administration's use of waterboarding. a twitter post tuesday shows kiriakou smiling with his children, with the martin luther king jr. quote "free at last free at least, thank god almighty, i'm free at last." he remains under house arrest for three months. the obama administration has announced a series of minor surveillance reforms that will leave its bulk spying operations in place. the reports limit retention of data on foreigners and limiting the use of intercepted data to -- data. critics point out obama could and it himself. the environmental

. >> i had to ask kiriakou if he is a reliable narrater of history.e we go further, i have to ask you, i had experience talking to folks in my reporting career, and two things that struck me. one is a lot of them seem a little crazy. and the other thing is you guys are trained paid liars. it is like why should i believe anything you say to me now? you literally professionally lied for decades. >> yeah, you're trained to lie all the time. you lie, cheat, steal swindle, you trick people that is the nature of the job. the problem at the agency those guys don't know when to turn it off. >> do you know when to turn it off? >> well, i hope i do i think i do. but one of the side effects of that type of culture is that the agency has what is probably the highest divorce rate in all of the federal government. and it's become you have officer whose lie all day long. and then go home and lie to their wives about their girlfriends and what they're doing and things fall apart. one senior officer who had retired and then come back as a trainer told me one time you

chelsea manning to former national security agency contractor edward snowden to cia analyst john kiriakouwell, today we bring you the story of another whistleblower one whose case has received far less attention, the jailed former state department analyst steven kim. he is currently serving a 13-month sentence at the federal bureau of prisons in cumberland, maryland, for violating the espionage act by leaking classified documents on north korea to fox news reporter james rosen. journalist peter maas of “the intercept” details the prosecution of kim in a new piece out today titled "destroyed by the espionage act -- stephen kim spoke to a reporter. now he's in jail. this is his story." in a few minutes we'll be joined by reporter peter maass. but first, this is an excerpt from "the surrender" a new short film that accompanies the report on the intercept's website. it is directed by stephen maing and produced by peter maass and laura poitras, director of "citizen four," the oscar-nominated film about edward snowden. this clip begins with stephen kim. stephen: i had a new life ahead of me. i