John Kiriakou

You can call it whatever you want.

The fact is it exists and it's unelected and it's generally unaccountable to anybody.

And they just wait for the president to leave if they don't want to do what he wants.

You know, honestly, I didn't know until well after I left the agency.

You know, once I turned this down.

And I got this out-of-cycle promotion for the Abu Zubaydah operation.

I was named executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations.

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.