Panel Discussion — Whistleblowers: Truth at Any Cost, 2026 Independent Journalism Awards

Watch the full panel discussion “Whistleblowers: Truth at Any Cost,” recorded at the 2026 Integrity Media Independent Journalism Awards. Glenn Greenwald, Jenin Younes, and John Kiriakou bring distinct perspectives on journalism, national security, civil liberties, media institutions, and government accountability. Together, they examine the historical legacy of whistleblowing, its evolution amid contemporary surveillance technologies, and why protecting those who expose wrongdoing remains more important than ever. Glenn Greenwald Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer, investigative journalist, and best-selling author. Acclaimed as one of the 25 most influential political commentators by The Atlantic, one of America’s top 10 opinion writers by Newsweek, and one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013 by Foreign Policy, Greenwald’s fiercely adversarial reporting has won the highest awards in journalism around the world, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the NSA-Snowden revelations. Leaving The Intercept — which he co-founded — in 2020, he is now an independent journalist and host of System Update on Substack, YouTube, and beyond. Jenin Younes Jenin Younes is a civil liberties attorney and currently the president and legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. She has brought lawsuits challenging First Amendment and other civil liberties violations on behalf of a wide range of clients, including censorship of scientists who challenged government COVID policies and state-sponsored punishment of pro-Palestine activists. John Kiriakou John 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. He was responsible for the capture in Pakistan in 2002 of Abu Zubaydah, then believed to be the third-ranking official in al-Qaeda. In 2007, Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, telling ABC News that the CIA tortured prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government policy, and that the policy had been approved by then-President George W. Bush. He became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act — a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of the revelation. Kiriakou is 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. Recorded September 17, 2026.