A former CIA officer who worked for the agency for 14 years has been charged with revealing the identity of an undercover officer and providing classified information to unauthorized individuals.

According to federal prosecutors, John Kiriakou served as a source for a variety of news organizations whose reporters were writing stories in 2008 and 2009 about CIA operations following the September 11 attacks. Among the stories that Kiriakou is accused of being a source for is a 2008 New York Times piece in which the name of the CIA's interrogator of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed was revealed.

In addition, Kiriakou is believed to have supplied information to reporters that contributed to a security breach at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility that allowed defense attorneys to obtain pictures of CIA operatives who were thought to have been involved in the interrogations of terrorist suspects. Those interrogations involved the use of controversial techniques that some have described as being torture. The pictures were later found in the cells of some high-value terrorist suspects.

Kiriakou has also been charged with lying to the CIA about where other sensitive material that he published in a book came from. He faces as much as 30 years in prison if he is convicted on the charges against him.