The LADbible Stories YouTube channel released this fascinating video a couple of weeks ago:

In this episode of Honesty Box, Former CIA Spy and Whistleblower, John Kiriakou spills all about working for America’s primary intelligence agency.

I watched this with my mouth agape as Kiriakou unflinchingly answered questions like “What skills make a good agent?” (“people who have sociopathic tendencies”); “Are hitmen real?” (yes; a committee meets every morning at 9 am to review a “kill list”); “How does the CIA recruit spies?” (they spend lots of money and time “becoming best friends” with future “assets”); and “Does the CIA listen through our phones and laptop cameras?” (yes—and they can “remotely take control of your car… to make you kill yourself and make it look like an accident”).

What surprised me was hearing him give unequivocal “yes, and…” answers, with details, context, and examples behind them—no prevarication, no hedging—he just outright said it. His forthrightness made me wonder just how much of what he was saying was true and how much was simply believable. It certainly lends an air of both invincibility and inevitability to the CIA—something I’m sure they’re happy to cultivate.

For context (which I didn’t have before this video), Kiriakou was a CIA officer who in 2007 exposed the CIA’s waterboarding of al-Qaeda prisoners, and was convicted and sentenced in 2012 to 30 months in prison for “passing classified information to the media” (he served 23 months). I remember the waterboarding disclosures and outcry, but not the person, nor the arrest and trial that followed.

He was also a script advisor on The Bourne Ultimatum, Burn Notice, and a couple of other spy shows. (One note of advice he offered for watching shows: “If somebody calls the CIA ‘The Company,’ turn it off.”)

After watching Kiriakou, I wished I was able to ask him my own questions, like “How do you recognize a foreign agent?” and “Do you believe there are foreign spies working at high levels of the U.S. government?” and “What would a spy be doing differently compared to what some members of Congress are doing today?”

(Via my friend and former colleague, Jason Yeo.)