The CIA had zero trained interrogators when they started catching al-Qaeda suspects after 9/11. They handed the job to two contract psychologists — James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen — who invented waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, the naked cold cell, and rectal feeding with hummus. Taxpayers paid them $108 million. Neither has ever been charged with a crime.
Where this was said
At 1:08:50 · chapter starts 1:05:00
When Pakistani jails filled up with detainees, Kiriakou's team began flying prisoners to Guantanamo on C-12 transport planes. The original plan was sensible: hold them temporarily in Cuba while the FBI determined which federal court would prosecute them under the open criminal investigation from 9/11. Then someone in Dick Cheney's office — Kiriakou suspects David Addington, though he's never admitted it — pointed out that these men had no legal rights in Cuba. Why charge them at all? Why not just leave them there indefinitely? That offhand suggestion created what Kiriakou calls a 24-year nightmare: 770 detainees at peak, 34 still held today, and a plea deal that was constructed, celebrated, and then thrown out under political pressure from the Biden administration and 9/11 families.
The original plan for Guantanamo was to hold detainees temporarily while the FBI determined which federal court would try them. Someone in Dick Cheney's office — likely David Addington — suggested that since detainees had no rights in Cuba, they could simply be held there indefinitely. Twenty-four years later, 34 people remain.
At its peak, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility held approximately 770 detainees; 34 remain as of the time of the conversation.
Fei-Fei Li went back to Stanford from Google in 2018 specifically to build a multi-stakeholder governance framework for AI. Her argument: market forces are not societal norms. Just as biology uses IRBs and cars have safety laws, AI needs layered oversight from educators, governments, and the public — not just a few industry titans.
Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
Mass surveillance is here to stay. The real battle isn't stopping cameras — it's ensuring judges and laws keep that data out of family court and civil disputes, admitting it only for violent crimes and national security. The surveillance economy currently yields more upside than downside, but only if we build the legal guardrails now.
When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
Two percent adjustments to income tax and stamp duty tweaks are deck-chair rearrangements. The UK's competitiveness hinges on four structural levers: currency valuation, energy costs, regulatory burden, and tax rates. Devalue the pound, build 56 nuclear plants, slash red tape, introduce a flat tax — and the country transforms.
Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
The CIA planted mines in Nicaraguan commercial harbors, wrote the Contras' press releases taking credit, and promptly blew up ships from four allied nations. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, Congress erupted, and the Boland Amendments multiplied.
Oliver North was a decorated Marine and devout Catholic with zero covert operations experience. He ran the entire shadow war against Congress — planes, airstrips, arms shipments, shell companies — learning on the job. And by every operational measure, he crushed it.
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