John Kiriakou

We need to make a policy decision here.

But may I answer further to answer more specifically your question?

Way back in the bad old days, in the early 1970s, a dear friend of mine started as a 22-year-old at the agency, and his initial job was in the Counterintelligence Center, which was then headed by the notorious James Jesus Angleton.

And on his first day, the secretary was walking him around the office and she pointed to an entire wall of file folders.

And she said, you may find yourself alone in the office every once in a while.

You are not permitted to look at those files.

Well, of course, what's he going to do?

He's 22 years old.

As soon as he's alone, he's going to run and look at the files.

And he said, and now he's in his 70s.

He said every single one of those files was on an American citizen.

Now that was patently illegal.

but they were doing it anyway.

We all thought that with the Church Committee and Pike Committee reforms of 1975 and 1976, that we had cleaned all that out.

And maybe we did, at least for a while.

But September 11th changed everything.

And the CIA went back to the battle days with largely the support of the American people, at least for a while, and certainly the support of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

I don't know, but I can tell you it's absolutely possible.

You know, when Joe Kent, whether you like Joe Kent's politics or not, you cannot doubt the man's patriotism.

He's walked the walk.