And the passiveness, you know, the apathy, well, that's not responsible citizenship. When I'm asked, why am I an activist, I say, well that's the rent that I pay for living on this planet, okay?

When Private Bradley [aka Chelsea] Manning put his conscience ahead of his personal well-being by allegedly releasing important information to the world's public via WikiLeaks, he was put into an inhumane solitary confinement and is now facing charges that carry the possibility of him spending the rest of his life in prison.

This was the ethos of the intelligence analysis directorate during most of the 27 years I spent there.

I knew about some experience on the operational part of the CIA with Latin American services and so forth having to do with torture. But this was the first time that the CIA was openly advocating for permission to be able to torture. And that seemed to me so abhorrent that I wanted to disassociate myself from the CIA for the first time since 1963, because I didn't want to be associated in any way, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.

You know, it's hard to say this, but I suspect that Obama is afraid either of blackmail potential or even worse. And he has referred to the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in this main saying, "don't you remember what happened to Dr. King?"

You do what you know is good, because it's good, and then you have a certain peace of mind, saying, you've been an activist in a constructive way.

You know, we may just be planting seeds for future generations, but that's okay. We can't be deterred from doing things, because we might be laughed at, because somebody might say, "What did you think you'd accomplish by turning your back on the secretary of state," or something like that.