Considering the exec mentioned his own CIA connection, likely to scare his target, it seems absolutely pertinent for the author to mention it. It's details like that which transform a threat from laughable to believable. As others have mentioned, there are many valid reasons to fear ex-CIA agents even if you don't expect to get shot.

Worse, Cisco has a history* of fraud and conspiracy to falsify evidence to get people jailed. At this point, with their history, an employee at Cisco would be absolutely in the right to expect their reputation to be tarnished by lies, to be fired even if their leaks were legally required, to be framed for leaking trade secrets, etc., even if they weren't even originally involved, just because of this hothead's paranoia and the vastly greater chance he'll find an innocent person, especially after announcing his crusade.

On the upside, from now on almost any dismissal can be claimed to have happened as part of this crazy traitor-hunt giving all departing employees a far better severance package than otherwise.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Cisco+deceived+Canadian+cou...