Kiriakou & Manning: Victims of Tyranny

Dear Mr. President,

“The highest and best function of a jury is not…to dispense punishment to fellow citizens guilty of breaking the law, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical prosecutions and bad laws imposed by a power-hungry government.” (Lust for Justice: The Radical Life and Law of J. Tony Serra, p. 115.) As I read this quote by the legendary defense lawyer, I thought about John Kiriakou. Kiriakou did not have a jury’s protection from the tyranny of the state and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The ostensible harm he did to national security is so secret that he was not permitted to know what it was. To not see the charges against you violates the fundamental concept of law; it is the hallmark of a tyrannical state. Bradley Manning is another political prisoner of our tyrannical state and, as a U.S. Army soldier, he is under the jurisdiction of a military tribunal and will never have the protection of a jury of his peers. Manning’s crime was to expose war crimes, duplicity and the abuse of power by the state. Kiriakou’s real crime was not the leaking of a covert agent’s name but disclosure of the CIA’s use of torture—waterboarding. Both Manning and Kirakou have paid a heavy price. Manning has spent 984 days in prison without a trial, 11 months in solitary confinement under conditions of torture. Since 2007, when Kiriakou disclosed the CIA’s use of torture, he has been followed constantly by the FBI and audited every year by the IRS. The DOJ has filed charge after charge against him, he has racked up more than a million dollars in lawyer fees defending himself, his wife was forced out of her job at the CIA and he has become unemployable as a result of the government’s harassment. The Washington Post reports that the FBI is increasing the pressure in their search for the source of leaks about our illegal cyberwar against Iran. Your administration clearly is waging war against its citizens’ right to know what their government is doing and it has had a chilling effect. Suppression of information is an indication of tyranny. I thought the first test of whether you had “gone back to your progressive roots” as many hopeful pundits predicted, would be your decision on Keystone XL. I was wrong. The first test will be whether you pardon John Kiriakou. I am not hopeful, however; nothing in your past and nothing you have said recently indicates a turn toward justice and the restoration of democracy. It is a dark and dangerous time in America.