John Kiriakou Quotes

#1. If the CIA is going to disrupt future terrorist attacks, it needs to recruit spies to infiltrate those groups in order to disrupt the terrorist attacks. Not to rely on what you and I are putting in chat messages on Google or Apple.

John Kiriakou

#2. I had never really given any thought to working for the CIA, but graduation was upon me; I was getting married just a week or two after graduation; I had no job, no prospects for a job. And so I said sure, I'd be interested in working for the CIA.

John Kiriakou

#3. I can remember only a small handful of instances in which I talked about politics with my parents. I remember my parents telling me that Daniel Ellsberg was a hero when I was six years old.

John Kiriakou

#4. Immediately after the September 11th attacks, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan in any capacity that the CIA wanted me. Four months passed before I was able to go overseas, just because my skill set was not one that was important in those really early days after the attacks.

John Kiriakou

#5. The CIA has transformed from an organization created to recruit spies to steal secrets, into a paramilitary organization, a paramilitary force. It's not supposed to be a paramilitary force. It's not good at it. It needs to return to its roots.

John Kiriakou

#6. It's not up to Google, it's not up to Apple to turn over our personal communications in order to save the country. It's up to the CIA and it's up to the FBI to recruit foreign - I mean to recruit human sources, rather, to penetrate these groups.

John Kiriakou

#7. The truth of the matter is, we can certainly fight against terrorism and fight terrorist groups around the world without having to give up our own civil liberties. They're not mutually exclusive.

John Kiriakou