John Kiriakou's Dead Drop

IN THIS EPISODE: How do you fight corruption when most of the corrupt deck is stacked against you? In John's case, he used his words - and the fact that becoming a federal prisoner does not mean you surrender your rights - like the one to free speech. The prison authorities genuinely feared John's power to expose them and their corruption and plotted endlessly to find ways to silence John and cut him off from the outside world and cut the outside world's access to him.

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THE BLURB: While John was serving his sentence, the American government faced the consequences of other whistleblowers speaking their truths about the corruption they'd encountered inside the government. One of the more prominent was Edward Snowden who blew the whistle on the NSA - the National Security Agency - and the fact that it was breaking the law, violating its charter and spying on American citizens by scooping up data on their phone calls. Snowden claimed that he'd been inspired in part by John's whistleblowing. In this episode, we'll tell Ed Snowden's story and how the two whistleblowers found common ground.

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THE BLURB: In this bonus episode, John tells the story of a legal case in which he testified as an expert witness - against the FBI in a case against an accused terrorist. As John learned from personal experience, democracy and secrecy don't always play well together. The people holding the secrets tend to disregard democracy in order to protect their secrets. In this instance, the FBI went after a homeless man, determined - despite a complete lack of actual evidence - that he was a dangerous terrorist. Did John's expert testimony save the day? You'll have to listen to find out!

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THE BLURB: John arrived at Loretto Federal Prison having promised to write about his experiences for various independent news media outlets. He had no idea just how powerful that connection - John's prison experiences and the news media - would prove. In this episode, John tells the story of how his prison blog - "Letters From Loretto" - became a national sensation and an ever-more-damning indictment of the corruption inside our prisons and prison system.

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THE BLURB: Already a succesful, best-selling author when the CIA put John in prison, he quickly realized that his writing - his words - were going to be his super power. John wasn't worried about his fellow prisoners; his training as a spy gave him advantages over them. But the prison authorities - corrupt to their marrow - did pose problems to John. Until they realized just how much of a super power John's writing was. Turns out, the pen is mightier than the sword and the corrupt federal prison system.

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For more great podcasts, please visit Costard & Touchstone. Your next favorite podcast is just a click away!

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