John Kiriakou Quotes

• The truth of the matter is, we can certainly fight against terrorism and fight terrorist groups around the world without having to give up our own civil liberties. They're not mutually exclusive.

  John Kiriakou

  Giving Up, Fighting, Liberty

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  11 Copy quote

• Even if torture works, it cannot be tolerated -- not in one case or a thousand or a million. If their efficacy becomes the measure of abhorrent acts, all sorts of unspeakable crimes somehow become acceptable. I may have found myself on the wrong side of government on torture. But I'm on the right side of history. There are things we should not do, even in the name of national security. One of them, I now firmly believe, is torture.

  John Kiriakou

  Believe, Names, Government

  9 Copy quote

• The CIA has transformed from an organization created to recruit spies to steal secrets, into a paramilitary organization, a paramilitary force. It's not supposed to be a paramilitary force. It's not good at it. It needs to return to its roots.

  John Kiriakou

  Organization, Roots, Secret

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  6 Copy quote

• The big issue is this incremental whittling away of our constitutional rights, our most important constitutional rights, including freedom of speech. This is something that we really have to put our foot down on, and we have to fight it at every step of the way.

  John Kiriakou

  Fighting, Freedom Of Speech, Important

  Source: www.truth-out.org

  4 Copy quote

• If the CIA is going to disrupt future terrorist attacks, it needs to recruit spies to infiltrate those groups in order to disrupt the terrorist attacks. Not to rely on what you and I are putting in chat messages on Google or Apple.

  John Kiriakou

  Order, Apples, Google

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  7 Copy quote

• You can't just blurt the information out to the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador. What happens is, the information goes back to the CIA, to the originating office. The CIA will pull the relevant information out of the report, put it on a new blank sheet of paper and then type at the top, "Secret releasable to Russia." That way, nobody gets in trouble, no sources and methods are revealed, everybody's happy, and we can establish something of a liaison relationship to the Russians. That's not what the president did.

  John Kiriakou

  Office, Secret, President

  Source: www.truth-out.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think the president, very simply, has never read a copy of the Constitution. I think that that's true. He's just never bothered to read the Constitution, and he just has no understanding and appreciation of the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech.

  John Kiriakou

  Appreciation, Thinking, Understanding

  Source: www.truth-out.org

  4 Copy quote

• It's not up to Google, it's not up to Apple to turn over our personal communications in order to save the country. It's up to the CIA and it's up to the FBI to recruit foreign - I mean to recruit human sources, rather, to penetrate these groups.

  John Kiriakou

  Country, Communication, Mean

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

• It's much less romantic in that you have to go to www.cia.gov and click "Apply Now." For me it was much more clandestine.

  John Kiriakou

  Clandestine, Clicks, Cia

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

• I can remember only a small handful of instances in which I talked about politics with my parents. I remember my parents telling me that Daniel Ellsberg was a hero when I was six years old.

  John Kiriakou

  Hero, Years, Parent

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  6 Copy quote

• I had never really given any thought to working for the CIA, but graduation was upon me; I was getting married just a week or two after graduation; I had no job, no prospects for a job. And so I said sure, I'd be interested in working for the CIA.

  John Kiriakou

  Jobs, Two, Married

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  5 Copy quote

• I've never heard a White House staff say that the president was too stupid or too ill-informed to have broken the law. And that's really what it comes down to. The truth is, he leaked highly classified information that he shouldn't have leaked. It's one thing to say, "Hey, I'm the president. Nobody can punish me for that." It's another thing entirely to just deny that he did it. We know that he did it. And he really ought to own up to it.

  John Kiriakou

  Stupid, Broken, House

  Source: www.truth-out.org

  4 Copy quote

• Immediately after the September 11th attacks, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan in any capacity that the CIA wanted me. Four months passed before I was able to go overseas, just because my skill set was not one that was important in those really early days after the attacks.

  John Kiriakou

  Skills, September 11, Important

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

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