John Kiriakou

And in that position, you have access to literally everything that the CIA is doing around the world.

And so I'm reading these cables coming back from the secret site.

And people are saying like, whoa, I didn't sign up for this.

Nobody said we're going to torture people.

I quit.

And then they come home.

Or there was a secretary who fainted once when she happened to be in the room while Abu Zubaydah was being tortured.

And she curtailed her assignment.

That means she sends a cable to headquarters saying, I'm coming home.

I'm not doing this anymore.

That is a career-ending decision to curtail an assignment.

And I remember thinking, so I'm not the only one who thinks this is illegal.

Certainly somebody's going to come out and say something.

And nobody did.

The big ones were waterboarding, the cold cell, and sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation doesn't sound like any big deal.

And when that finally leaked, Don Rumsfeld, who was the Secretary of Defense at the time, made a statement that still kind of sticks in my mind.

He said,

There is no such thing as sleep deprivation.

He said, I have a standup desk in my office.