Adversaries of the United States are undoubtedly aware of the CIA’s ability to trace their movements. However, according to a prominent former whistleblower from the agency, the real concern lies in the sophisticated methods now being employed to do so.

John Kiriakou, a former CIA counterterrorism officer, describes an unnerving evolution within the intelligence community—one that has advanced beyond the public’s comprehension. This transformation is driven by state-of-the-art surveillance technologies, automated warfare systems, and clandestine capabilities that have withstood numerous controversies over the past twenty years.

Kiriakou speaks from experience, having dedicated 15 years to some of the CIA’s most confidential operations, including missions in Pakistan. He was also the first to publicly acknowledge the use of waterboarding by the US, a confession that ultimately led to his imprisonment.

Today, he stands as one of the most vocal detractors of the intelligence apparatus he once was part of.

In the wake of a tumultuous year for American intelligence agencies—and mere weeks following an inspector general’s damning report on War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mishandling of sensitive data in the Signalgate scandal—Kiriakou asserts that the underlying issues are even more profound and menacing.

While Washington is preoccupied with leaks and internal strife, the CIA and its allied agencies have been discreetly honing capabilities that would have been considered the stuff of science fiction just a few years 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.