CIA 'torture' spy risks his life to reveal the hidden truth about black sites... terrifying new weapons that can be used on AMERICANS... and the agency's secret weekly 'kill list' | Retrui News | Retrui
CIA 'torture' spy risks his life to reveal the hidden truth about black sites... terrifying new weapons that can be used on AMERICANS... and the agency's secret weekly 'kill list'
SOURCE:Daily Mail
America's enemies already know the CIA can find them. But, according to our insider, they should now be afraid of how it can do it... and what follows.
America's enemies already know the CIA can find them. But according to one of the agency's best-known whistleblowers, they should now be afraid of how it can do it.
Former CIA counterterrorism officer John Kiriakou painted a chilling picture of an intelligence machine that has surged far ahead of public understanding – a system turbo-charged by cutting-edge surveillance tech, robotized warfare, and covert powers that have survived every scandal of the last two decades.
And Kiriakou should know. He spent 15 years inside the CIA's most secret units, helped run operations in Pakistan, and became the first agency insider to publicly confirm that the US used waterboarding – a revelation that landed him behind bars.
Today, he remains one of America's most outspoken critics of the intelligence world he once served.
Now, after a bruising year for US spy agencies – and just weeks after an inspector general blasted War Secretary Pete Hegseth in the explosive Signalgate scandal for mishandling sensitive battlefield information on a messaging app – Kiriakou said the real story is bigger, darker, and far more dangerous.
Because while Washington frets over leaks and political infighting, the CIA and its sister agencies have been quietly perfecting tools that would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, Kiriakou said the truth is hiding in plain sight – in the massive 2017 Vault 7 leak published by WikiLeaks.
The documents revealed that the CIA and NSA had pioneered a suite of cyberweapons capable of turning everyday consumer gadgets into spying tools.
An aerial photo shows a former CIA black site in Lithuania used for torture during the war on terror
Kiriakou left the CIA in 2007 and became the first former officer to publicly confirm the agency had used waterboarding and other torture-like methods
The problem, he said, is that almost no one bothered to read them.
'People don't realise what the CIA is able to do with technology – the information is out there, but nobody read the Vault 7 papers,' he told the Daily Mail.
And what can those tools do? Quite a lot.
Kiriakou said the CIA can listen through phones, laptops, and even smart TVs, even when they appear to be switched off.
The agency can infiltrate new consumer tech as soon as it hits the market. And it can reportedly hijack modern vehicle computers – remotely.
'They can crash a car and kill you if they want to… and they can do it through a satellite,' he said.
It's the kind of claim that sends conspiracy theorists into overdrive. But Kiriakou insists the capability exists – and that nothing in the leaked documents contradicts it.
But the CIA's cyber tools, he said, are only one part of a rapidly shifting battlefield.
He argued that the next phase of warfare – one already underway inside DARPA, the Pentagon's ultra-secretive tech agency – will involve robot dogs, robot soldiers, and automated weapons systems operating alongside or instead of human troops.
'I really believe the next war the United States fights is hardly going to have any human beings in it,' he said.
'Robot dogs and robot warriors are not sci-fi anymore – they're almost upon us.'
The push toward autonomous warfare mirrors China's rapid advances in drone and AI weapons; while Russia's cyber units are among the best on the planet.
And it's not only foreign adversaries who are concerned about US capabilities.
'It would be logical to use these technologies for crowd control, riot control… to infiltrate demonstrations and political gatherings,' he warned.
One of Kiriakou's most explosive assertions is that the US government maintains a weekly 'kill list', drawn up by a National Security Council committee every Tuesday morning.
According to him, the CIA has a dedicated unit whose job is to take the list, travel to whichever country the targets are hiding in, 'kill the person,' return home, and move on to the next name.
The targets, he said, are generally terrorist leaders – but the legal and moral issues are immense.
Satellite imagery of Salt Pit outside of Kabul, Afghanistan, which was an isolated CIA black site prison and interrogation center
Human fighters will only play a minor role in America's wars of the future, said ex-CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou
Waterboarding, demonstrated here as part of a political protest, was a controversial topic in the War on Terror
A US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper on the tarmac in Puerto Rico, part of Washington's campaign against Venezuela's leaders
He said officials justify the program by arguing that it prevents another 9/11.
Kiriakou called it immoral and illegal, though he notes the machinery behind it is decades old and unlikely to change.
Washington insists it shut down its network of secret prisons – the notorious black sites used for the CIA's extraordinary rendition program after 9/11. But Kiriakou doesn't buy it.
'I believe those sites still exist,' he said. 'We just have to take the CIA's word for it – and I can't take their word for it.'
He pointed out that even members of Congress' intelligence committees were once barred from knowing the full scope of the detention program. Only the top two lawmakers in each chamber were given access.
If black sites continue today, he said, they would be so heavily classified that 'almost nobody would know.'
The CIA did not answer the Daily Mail's request for comment. Officially, the agency abandoned enhanced interrogation techniques in 2009.
Kiriakou is also watching the situation in Venezuela, where President Donald Trump recently took the unprecedented step of publicly authorizing CIA covert action – something no commander-in-chief has ever done.
He speculated that the agency would be drawing up plans to seize the presidential palace, capture President Nicolás Maduro, take control of state media, and secure key intersections in the capital Caracas.
Success, he said, would hinge on winning over the military – the one element the CIA cannot control.
He added that Trump may topple Maduro without 'firing a single shot' through a mixture of military pressure, oil seizures and psychological operations.
It may not even be illegal – the president has wide powers to launch covert missions abroad under what's known as Title 50.
But regime change, he warned, is only the easy part.
'It's what you do the next day that's hard,' he said, pointing to the implosion of Iraq after the 2003 invasion and other American debacles.
Perhaps Kiriakou's most unsettling claim is not about technology at all – but about power.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden briefs delegates at an educational conference in Moscow, Russia, where he now lives
CIA Director John Ratcliffe before briefing lawmakers on covert military strikes in the seas around Venezuela
He argued that the intelligence community barely shifts course between administrations.
'I've come around to the belief that the deep state is real,' he said. 'These people know they can out-wait presidents. They don't have to follow an order they don't like.'
He called it a bureaucracy obsessed with budget growth, internal empire-building, and protecting its own survival – a machine so large that elected leaders can struggle to control it.
Kiriakou left the CIA in 2007 and became the first former officer to publicly confirm the agency had used waterboarding and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques' — which he called torture.
He was later indicted under the Espionage Act and pleaded guilty to revealing the identity of a covert operative, receiving a 30-month sentence and serving nearly two years.
He remains the only person to go to prison over the CIA's torture program.
Since his release in 2015, Kiriakou has pushed for intelligence reform and transparency, writing, speaking, and co-founding Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
On the home front, Kiriakou is blunt: Americans have become frighteningly complacent.
Despite whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaks, the Patriot Act, mass surveillance, and the Utah mega-facility capable of storing every American's calls, texts, and emails for 500 years, there has been almost no public outrage, he said.
'I'm scared the most about our loss of civil liberties in the United States… and nobody seems willing to do anything about it,' he said.
'Are we that cowed that we just accept this is what government is going to do?'
For Kiriakou, a man who sacrificed his career and freedom to expose CIA torture, the answer may be the most alarming revelation of all.
Kiriakou's new show Whistleblowers will air from March 2026, featuring interviews with other insiders who risked everything to expose wrongdoing.