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A ferocious battle has flared up between U.S. Senators and the CIA after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top ranking lawmaker of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence accused the agency of spying on congressional staffers. 

In a scathing address on the Senate floor, Feinstein stated, “the agency may have committed a crime by improperly searching a computer network established for Congress as part of its investigation into allegations of CIA abuse in a Bush-era detention and interrogation program.”

She also mentioned that the issue has been sent to the Justice Department by the CIA Inspector General.

Continuing her condemnation of the potential CIA abuse of the constitution, “Based on what Director [John] Brennan has informed us, I have grave concerns that the CIA search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution including the Speech and Debate clause,” she said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”       

Current CIA Director John Brennan denied the allegations, “Nothing can be further [from] the truth, we wouldn’t do that.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., stated, “Heads should roll, people should go to jail if it’s true,” and continued to state, “If it is, the legislative branch should declare war on the CIA.”

The White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, refused to join the fray between the Senate and the CIA and stated, “I would refer you to the Justice Department for any action they may or may not take.  But I’m saying that this is because of a referral because of the IG review.  In terms of allegations about activity, I’m not going to get into that.  What I can say is that — you saw the CIA Director say today that if there was any inappropriate activity by the CIA or SSCI staff he would, of course, want to get to the bottom of it.  And certainly the President would agree with that.

The Guardian news organization issued a stinging editorial rebuke of Feinstein’s stance as being hypocritical.  “The exasperation with Ms. Feinstein is that she directs her sense of outrage only at the CIA. It seems restricted to issues that impact on her. She is outraged when the CIA allegedly hacked into her committee’s computers. She is upset over the alleged intrusion into the privacy of her own staff. And yet this is the same senator who could not empathize with Americans upset at the revelations in the Snowden documents of millions of citizens whose personal data has been accessed by the NSA. It is the same senator who could not share American anger over the revelation of the co-operation in surveillance of the giant tech companies, whether wittingly or unwittingly. “

This allegation seems to compound the sense the government is out of control after last year’s NSA phone data spy scandal, IRS targeting of conservative groups, and the U.S. Justice Department secretly gathering phone records of Associated Press reporters.

It continued when the Justice Department labeled James Rosen a criminal and monitored his phone records after he reported about classified information.

No matter where you sit on the political fence it just adds to the frustration by American their government is out of control and Washington is only concerned when it happens to them.

The President needs to get out in front on these serious breaches of the public or trust otherwise you will have the drip, drip, drip effect and with its added potential to swamp the administration’s ability to govern.

The public trust in government is at an all-time low; and only getting worse.       

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