CIA spying on Senate: Feinstein clashes with Brennan
- 9 years ago
An ongoing beef between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Senate Intelligence Committee, its congressional overseers, broke out into the open on Tuesday after Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee and frequent CIA defender, blasted the agency for withholding information about prisoner treatment and attempting to intimidate committee staff members looking into the detention program.
Feinstein said the CIA had removed documents from computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff members working on a congressional report about the CIA's detention program. She also accused the agency of searching committee computers after their report was completed. The CIA also referred a criminal case to the Justice Department in order to try and stop the investigation.
The 6,300 page report has been the reason for conflict between the committee and the agency. The CIA says the report has many inaccuracies that need to be corrected before it is released. So basically, the report is probably very accurate and the CIA just wants to take out all the parts that make it look bad.
Feinstein's announcement came a week after it was released that the CIA last year monitored computers used by her staff in an effort to ascertain how the committee may have gotten access to the CIA's own internal review of the detention and interrogation program.
Feinstein said the internal review supported the conclusions of the committee's still-classified investigation on the program, which President Obama officially ended in January 2009.
The moral of the story? It's okay for the U.S. government to spy on American citizens and world leaders, but when it comes to U.S. politicians, hold on, that's breaking the law. Some are speculating that there might even be some real jail time involved. No doubt it will be some maximum security Ryker's Island, Guantanamo Bay type of place.
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Feinstein said the CIA had removed documents from computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff members working on a congressional report about the CIA's detention program. She also accused the agency of searching committee computers after their report was completed. The CIA also referred a criminal case to the Justice Department in order to try and stop the investigation.
The 6,300 page report has been the reason for conflict between the committee and the agency. The CIA says the report has many inaccuracies that need to be corrected before it is released. So basically, the report is probably very accurate and the CIA just wants to take out all the parts that make it look bad.
Feinstein's announcement came a week after it was released that the CIA last year monitored computers used by her staff in an effort to ascertain how the committee may have gotten access to the CIA's own internal review of the detention and interrogation program.
Feinstein said the internal review supported the conclusions of the committee's still-classified investigation on the program, which President Obama officially ended in January 2009.
The moral of the story? It's okay for the U.S. government to spy on American citizens and world leaders, but when it comes to U.S. politicians, hold on, that's breaking the law. Some are speculating that there might even be some real jail time involved. No doubt it will be some maximum security Ryker's Island, Guantanamo Bay type of place.
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