The CIA is in a rare confrontation with the Senate Intelligence Committee, a committee widely viewed as a rubber stamp for the intelligence community and headed by Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein has been ridiculed for her defense of the intelligence services, attacks on whistleblowers, and support for the expansion of surveillance operations. Feinstein also helped cover up past intelligence scandals from the torture program to the recent alleged perjury by National Intelligence Chief James Clapper. After dismissing concerns over the surveillance of ordinary citizens, Feinstein is now dealing with surveillance of her own committee and staff. Staff members allege that the CIA violated core constitutional and statutory protections by monitoring their computers in an oversight investigation. The CIA has accused Senate staff members of sneaking out classified documents — documents that the staff say prove that the CIA lied to the Committee in its investigation of the CIA’s secret interrogation and detention program.
The CIA has refused to allow staff member to remove copies of key documents that contain incriminating information contradicting earlier information given to the Committee. It reflects the sense of impunity enjoyed by the national security agencies that it would refuse such copies to be taken to secure locations within the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have testified before that Committee in classified session and they have highly secure SCIFS and storage for such documents.
The CIA accused the staff of removing classified information to take back to the Committee. The panel staff then concluded that the agency had monitored computers that they were using at Langley. The material included a draft of an internal CIA review that at least one lawmaker has said contains clear evidence that officials misled the Intelligence Committee in disputing some of the committee report’s findings.
So let’s recap. The Committee believes that officials lied to it in an oversight investigation and then monitored their computers. Yet, this is being treated once again as a matter for internal deliberation and resolution? We just saw the debacle with Clapper who admits that his testimony was “the least untruthful” statement he could make. Yet, of course, that would still make it an untrue statement — which most people call a lie and lawyers call perjury. Indeed, when Roger Clemens was prosecuted for untrue statements before Congress, he was not told of the option to tell the least untrue statement on steroid use. Now we have intelligence officials not just allegedly lying but monitoring congressional communications.
From torture to illegal surveillance, the Committee has served more as a shield than a sword. Notably, I once put before the Committee a record of false statements and security breaches by national security officials. Those allegations were classified, buried and never saw the light of day again.
Sen. Mark Heinrich, D-N.M., a Senate Intelligence Committee member, “The CIA has gone to just about any lengths you can imagine to make sure that the detention and interrogation report won’t be released.” Yet, it is not supposed to work that way. The Senate exercises oversight authority. However, the Senate’s exercise of oversight has long been feeble and feckless. The fact that this report — dealing with violations under the Bush administration many years ago — is still being bottled up by the CIA is an example of the control exercised by these agencies. Rather than releasing the report on its own authority, the Committee has been delayed for years by the very agency under investigation, which has threatened to cut off access to classified material.
CIA Director John Brennan has denounced members of the Senate for making “spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.”
Do you folks recall the folk singer Alan Sherman? He wrote a little ditty which I will set out here with one name inserted instead of Little David Suskind.
Little Dianne Feinstein, Shut Up!
Old Lady Feinstein, Shut UP!
If you think that this 80 year old lady is fit to run the Committee then please tell us why.
Shadow government. That always make for great fiction. Too bad this is all too real!
The post office is selling 56 post offices Richard Blum has an exclusive on the real estate sale and stands to make close to a million dollars on the deal. The kicker is that Richard Blum happens to be Dianne Feinstine’s Husband. He’s also hooked up in the high speed train in California. WHAT A BUNCH OF CROOKS
The CIA leadership is beginning to seperate from the notion of being an arm of the US gov’t to being a sovereign state of its own.
CIA Probed for Possibly Spying on Congress
March 5, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/cia-probed-possibly-spying-congress
WASHINGTON – The CIA’s inspector general is investigating whether the agency may have been monitoring the computer usage of Senate Intelligence Committee staff members, according to articles today by The New York Times and McClatchy. The inspector general’s office has reportedly referred the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.
Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, had this reaction:
“If it turns out that the CIA was spying on the Senate committee that oversees the agency, it would be an outrageous violation of separation of powers. The CIA is prohibited from spying in the United States itself, and there can be few greater violations of that rule than spying on congressional staff carrying out the constitutional duty of being a check on the CIA’s powers. CIA surveillance of Congress would be another sign that the intelligence community has come to believe that they are above the law, and should get only deference from the other branches of government, not the meaningful oversight that’s required by the Constitution. Checks and balances, especially for agencies like the CIA and NSA that have many secret operations, are essential for democratic government. At the very least, these reports should spur the committee to vote quickly for the declassification and release of its full report into the CIA’s torture program so the American people can see what it is that the CIA is so eager to hide.”
In December 2012, the committee adopted a 6,000-page report on the CIA’s Bush-era rendition, secret detention, and torture program. The report concluded that abusive methods were ineffective, and the CIA wrote an extensive response, countering many of the Senate report’s conclusions. There is also a secret CIA report commissioned by former CIA Director Leon Panetta, which is reportedly consistent with the Senate report findings and contradicts the CIA’s response to the Senate report. All three reports are classified.
End of press release
(Thanks for the posting, Jonathan.)
Another snake-handling minister bitten by their snake. Big snake in this case.
Amazing, maybe. Suicidal, definitely.
Sanders is making noises about running for Prez. A Sanders/ Warren or Warren/ Sanders ticket would be amazing.
nick spinelli
“The chickens have come home to roost.”
=================
In the fox’s hen house.
Eat more chickin’ says the military NSA.
Hell yea says the fox.
Hey randyjet, we’re both in Texas. Thanks for your response, you seem to have hope – which can be contagious and uplifting. I do agree that we have *some* good people in Washington who want to do the right thing. I always voted Democrat to keep the repubs out of office – you know the lesser of two evils reasoning – but i’ve seen so much evil in this administration that the lesser of two evils is too much evil for me. I will look into your favorites, maybe they can help the people – it really depends on who is funding their campaigns.
Used I am old enough to remember segregation and when the South was a dictatorship in most respects. The US is NOW FAR better than it was since I grew up in the late 50s and early 60s. The US during the McCarthy era was one of outright police state and NO liberty to speak of. So to say that Obama is evil as those people back then is simply delusional.
When I moved to Houston, part of the reason I came down was because the HPD and the KKK were running a terrorist network against the SWP and ANY progressive movement. We were being bombed, one of our members had his home shot up on numerous occasions, cars were vandalized, and people were arrested for handing out leaflets. I figured that we needed some people who were not deterred by such things. In fact, almost half of our members were Vietnam combat veterans, about half of those were former Marines and all of us knew how to handle weapons. We even had a couple of WWII combat vets from the ETO and they had the scars to prove it too. As one of them said about the KKK and the HPD, he said he wasn’t worried since he survived a couple of years of real professionals trying to kill him. The Nazis almost succeeded in his case, and his legs were not something you would like to see on the beach. So to say that things are worse now is simply absurd.
I don’t deny the facts of the bad things that are still being done, and I think that these issues must be raised. As always, I only ask that you know our past history, and that you have a sense of proportion and use common sense. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, were FAR worse than anything Obama has done or is doing. Clinton was not as bad, he simply turned a blind eye to what was going on. W Bush was uncontestably worse in every area. The bad actors have left the Democratic party and are now running the Republican party, though of course, we still have some political hacks, but at least they are not as vicious and corrupt as those who are in the Texas GOP. Those people have NO respect for any law or rules and are the Dixiecrats of old. So while I am not a big fan of Obama, to say he is the same as Nixon makes the rest of us know you have lost your senses.
“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
— Niccolo Machiavelli
randyjet, I used to be a democrat too untill all those campaign promises were broken and my civil rights were allowed to be stripped away by corporate greed.
If the dems or repubs were going to fix this – they would – right now. We cannot look to them to fix our broken system – they are integral to the problem.
Used, I can sympathize with you on that since I used to be an SWP member until they ran off the road. The fact is that even in revolutions, the leading members of such a thing come from the existing political leaders. So for better or ill, leaders who can change things come from the current cast of characters. The only reason I am a Democrat is that they are the only game in town here in Texas, and the Democratic Party no longer has people in it who are the old segregationist or Connelly Democrats. I could not have been part of that old party since I would have to violate my principles by supporting those people.
The FACT is that despite the current violations, we are FAR freer than we were back in the 60s, 70s. Executive branch murders have long been a staple of US law back in those days. We carried out such things with no outcry or acknowledgement that such things were being done to American citizens who were not engaged in armed conflict. The current drone attacks do not bother me at all since they ARE engaging in armed attacks or supporting such attacks on us. I think that some leeway needs to be given in warfare of this kind. At least we are having a debate on this as opposed to not even knowing about the murders of peaceful dissidents back then.
My favorite legislators are Warren and Sanders by the way. We need more folks like them. Wellstone and Feingold were also among my Democratic favorites. So I cannot abandon them and leave the field open to the Republicans who are a clear and present danger of FAR greater magnitude than even the lapses by Feinstein.
Anything kept “secret” is strong evidence of guilt. That goes for both Congress and Security agencies.
Just like the mob had on J Edgar Hoover.
Kraaken, I think the intelligence community have something on Feinstein.
And you thought “Scandal” was fiction … Maybe not.
Different when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it?
Once again, this is becoming a real 1984 nightmare with Feinstein allowing such illegal activities to continue. While I am a Democrat, I hope that either she will stand up and do her job, or we need to run another candidate against her. I would even consider voting for a Republican if they put up a rational candidate, but that is not likely to happen any time soon. This shows how the rightwing of the GOP is simply making things like this harder to correct, since any prospective candidate the GOP would put up is more than likely to be even worse than her.
The Talk Factory will in the end get nowhere in any conflict with the REAL rulers of this country.
“The chickens have come home to roost.”