It is a stretch for many to put ourselves in the shoes of those tortured for what we assumed were reasons of their being at least potential threats.

Last week CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling went to prison. If he were white, he probably wouldn't be there. Sterling was one of the CIA's few African-American case officers, and he became the first to file a racial discrimination lawsuit.

A dozen years before his recent sentencing to a 42-month prison term based, former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was in the midst of a protracted and fruitless effort to find someone in Congress willing to look into his accusations about racial discrimination at the agency.

Even if the jury's guilty verdict was correct -- and after sitting through the entire trial, I'd say the government didn't come close to its burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt -- an overarching truth is that the whistleblower(s) who provided journalist Risen with information about Operation Merlin rendered a major public service.