Jailed Whistleblowers Urge Snowden Not To Come Home

NSA whistleblower is currently in Russia

Every day at 5:45 a.m., John Kiriakou wakes up. He pulls on green pants and a green button-down shirt with his name and number on the front. Breakfast is at 6. He watches the news from 6:30 to 7:30, then goes back to sleep. He wakes up again at 11 a.m. for lunch, after which he exercises until around 2:30 in the afternoon. Mail call is at 3:30. Dinner is at 5 p.m.

Kiriakou, a former CIA agent, is serving 30 months in prison. He emailed a freelance reporter the name of a covert CIA officer, violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The name was never published, but Kiriakou became one of eight people charged by the Department of Justice since 2008 for leaking classified information under the Espionage Act.

"Boredom is the toughest thing about prison," Kiriakou wrote Al Jazeera America in letters sent from the federal low-security penitentiary in western Pennsylvania where he is incarcerated. "I have never read so many books in my life."

Comments

[Austrian Anarchy]

I wonder if they have "Flight of the Falcon" in the prison library?

[Quixote]

If Snowden does decide to return, he should do so in full awareness that "neither good faith nor truth is a defense," as a judge in New York ruled at the criminal trial of an academic whistle-blower. Throughout the trial, the prosecution was allowed to argue that the defendant made "false accusations," but on the basis of the "truth is not a defense" ruling, the defendant was blocked from introducing any evidence that his accusations were true. So far, the appellate courts seem to have ignored this issue ? no doubt a taste of what awaits Snowden should he return. For documentation of the New York case, see:

http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/