Whistleblowers are often celebrated in retrospect, but rarely protected when they actually expose the crimes and abuses of powerful institutions. That contradiction sits at the heart of this remarkable discussion featuring journalist Glenn Greenwald, former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou, and civil-rights attorney Janine Ununice. Together, they examine what happens when people inside the national-security state refuse to remain silent—from Kiriakou’s disclosure of the CIA torture program to Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance and Julian Assange’s role in transforming how digital leaks could reach the public.
The conversation is ultimately about more than individual whistleblowers. It is about the machinery built to identify, intimidate, prosecute and silence those who expose government wrongdoing—and about an Espionage Act written more than a century ago that can turn the disclosure of information in the public interest into a criminal act. And has only been made worse. As surveillance expands and the ability to communicate anonymously becomes increasingly difficult, the panel asks a fundamental question: What happens to a democracy when the people who reveal abuses face greater consequences than the institutions responsible for them?
Glenn Greenwald, Jenin Younes, and John Kiriakou bring distinct but complementary perspectives on journalism, national security, civil liberties, media institutions, and government accountability. Together, they examine the long and often dangerous history of whistleblowing, how it has evolved in an era of mass surveillance and digital communication, and why protecting those who expose government wrongdoing remains so important. Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer, investigative journalist, and best-selling author whose reporting on the NSA and Edward Snowden’s revelations earned the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. A co-founder of The Intercept, he left the publication in 2020 and is now an independent journalist and host of System Update on Substack, YouTube, and other platforms. Younes is a civil liberties attorney and president and legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. She has brought lawsuits challenging First Amendment and other civil liberties violations, including cases involving the censorship of scientists who challenged government COVID policies and the punishment of pro-Palestine activists. Kiriakou is a podcaster, journalist, former CIA counterterrorism officer, former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former counterterrorism consultant for ABC News. In 2002, he was involved in the capture in Pakistan of Abu Zubaydah, then believed to be a senior al-Qaeda figure. In 2007, Kiriakou publicly disclosed the CIA’s use of torture, telling ABC News that prisoners had been tortured and that the program was official U.S. government policy. He was subsequently indicted under the Espionage Act and served 23 months in prison. Kiriakou is also the author of ten books, including The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison, The Convenient Terrorist: Abu Zubaydah and the Weird Wonderland of America’s Secret Wars, and The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis.
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