After months of denying the allegations that the CIA had spied on U.S. Senate investigators investigating the agency’s harsh interrogation measures on suspected terrorism suspects, the agency admitted it had illegally searched computers used by Senate investigators.
Last week the Washington Post reported that five agency employees — two lawyers and three computer specialists — surreptitiously searched Senate Intelligence Committee files and reviewed some committee staff members’ e-mail on computers that were supposed to be exclusively for congressional investigators, according to a summary of the CIA inspector general’s report, released Thursday.
The Christian Science Monitor reported, after Senate leaders learned about the intrusion in January and objected, the CIA made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, alleging improper behavior by Senate staffers when they took the internal CIA review documents. That referral, CIA watchdog David Buckley found, was based on inaccurate information and was not justified.
The CS Monitor continued to report that Brennan also asked his agency’s inspector general to examine whether the CIA committed wrongdoing. When internal investigators interviewed the three CIA computer specialists who helped access the Senate machines, they exhibited “a lack of candor,” the report said, suggesting an attempt to cover up their actions.
CIA Director John Brennan back in March categorically denied any sort of spying by the agency stating, “When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.”
Last week Brennan admitted the CIA had in fact been spying on Senate investigators.
In March, Brennan was responding to accusations made by Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and others on the activities by the CIA with regard to the actions of Senate investigators.
In a statement back in March, Feinstein stated, “I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution, including the Speech and Debate clause. It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”
Thursday, the New York Times reported that Feinstein has called Brennan’s apology and decision to set up an accountability board “positive first steps,” and said that the inspector general report “corrects the record.” She said that she expected that a version of the report would be declassified, but gave no further details.
Last Thursday, The New York Times Editorial Board writing an opinion stated, the Central Intelligence Agency admitted that it did, indeed, use a fake online identity to break into the Senate’s computers, where documents connected to a secret report on the agency’s detention and torture program were being stored. Mr. Brennan apologized privately to Ms. Feinstein and to Senator Saxby Chambliss, the vice chairman of the intelligence committee, and promised to set up an accountability board to determine who did the hacking and whether and how they should be punished.
In the same opinion piece, the Times wrote, in an extraordinary speech on the Senate floor in March, Ms. Feinstein accused the agency of having “undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.” The institutional affront even drew Republican criticism. If the charge was true, said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, “heads should roll, and people should go to jail.”
So far only Senator Mark Udall of Colorado and Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico have called for the Brennan’s resignation.
Last week in hastily convened press conference President Obama stated, “I have full confidence in John Brennan.”
The president continued, “Even before I came into office, I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong,” Obama said. “We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
Now we can and should have a healthy debate about whether the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques is considered torture or what value was gained from this, but missing is the lack of outrage over the CIA spying on the U.S. Senate.
This should make all American’s livid that the CIA was actually spying on the Senate, when it’s prohibited from conducting any domestic surveillance by the constitution. Has the Congress, and the President ever heard of the constitution?
There should be more outraged of this flagrant abuse of the Constitution and individuals need to be held accountable. Why has the Justice Department declined to investigate this matter, instead leaving it to the Inspector General’s Office?
The lack of outrage over this matter is appaling!
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