That the United States tortured prisoners, sometimes resulting in death, is no secret, even though denied by the government. So what message are we sending when American torturers are never prosecuted, but those who blow the whistle on these crimes against humanity are sentenced to prison?

Of course we did have videotapes of CIA waterboarding, 92 in all. The tapes, filmed in a secret CIA prison in Thailand, showed the waterboarding of terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, including tapes showing Zubaydah “vomiting and screaming,” according to the BBC.  Those tapes were destroyed by a top-level CIA officer, Jose Rodriguez, who went on 60 Minutes (See video below) to defend himself and promote his book, Hard Times. 

According to the New York Times:

Not only have those responsible escaped criminal liability, but the administration has succeeded in denying victims of the harsh methods any day in court, using exaggerated claims of secrecy and executive power to get federal judges, who should know better, to toss out claims for civil relief. The broad denial of justice to victims disgraces both the administration and the courts.

So who gets sent to prison? Not the torturers, but the whistleblower.–BPR Editor

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, left, and his attorney John Hundley, leave federal court in Alexandria, Va., 01/23/12. (photo: AP)

Whistleblower Who Revealed CIA Torture Sentenced to Prison

By RT/ October 23, 2012

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to crimes related to blowing the whistle on the US government’s torture of suspected terrorists and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Kiriakou, 48, agreed to admit to one count of disclosing information identifying a covert agent early Tuesday, just hours after his attorney entered a change of plea in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom outside of Washington, DC.

Kiriakou was originally charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 after he went public with the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of waterboarding on captured insurgents in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. On Monday morning, though, legal counsel for the accused former CIA agent informed the court that Kiriakou was willing to plead guilty to a lesser crime.

Initially, Kiriakou pleaded not guilty to the charge that he had outted two intelligence agents directly tied to the drowning-simulation method by going to the press with their identities.

Photo: AP

As RT reported last week, defense attorneys had hoped that the government would be tasked with having to prove that Kiriakou had intent to harm America when he went to the media. Instead, however, prosecutors were told they’d only need to prove that the former government employee was aware that his consequences had the potential to put the country in danger.

Had Kiriakou been convicted under the initial charges filed in court, he could have been sentenced to upwards of five decades behind bars.

“Let’s be clear, there is one reason, and one reason only, that John Kiriakou is taking this plea: for the certainty that he’ll be out of jail in 2 1/2 years to see his five children grow up,” Jesselyn Raddack, a former Justice Department official who blew the whistle on Bush administration’s mishandling in the case of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, wrote Tuesday.

Kiriakou, Raddack wrote, was all but certain to enter the Alexandria courthouse on Tuesday and plead guilty to the lesser charge of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), explaining, “there are no reported cases interpreting it because it’s nearly impossible to prove–for “outing” a torturer.”

“’Outing’ is in quotes because the charge is not that Kiriakou’s actions resulted in a public disclosure of the name, but that through a Kevin Bacon-style chain of causation, GITMO torture victims learned the name of one of their possible torturers,” Raddack wrote. “Regardless, how does outing a torturer hurt the national security of the U.S.? It’s like arguing that outing a Nazi guarding a concentration camp would hurt the national security of Germany.”

From The Big Picture Report, Oct. 24: The Espionage Act of 1917, though amended over the years, is still in effect. Prior to the time President Obama took office, It had been used three times for cases involving government officials providing classified information to the media. It has been used at least six times during the Obama’s time in office, including against Bradley Manning. According to David Carr of the New York Times, “the majority of the recent prosecutions seem to have everything to do with administrative secrecy and very little to do with national security.”