The Central Intelligence Agency found that agents did not improperly access the computers of members of the Senate Intelligence Committee last spring. It wasn’t that the agency found that the computers weren’t accessed, but rather, it found that the spying on US Senators was justified. The committee was investigating Bush-era CIA detention and interrogation techniques utilized by the CIA. The information gathered in the investigation was recently released in the controversial 6,000 page, $40 million “Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA Torture”.
In July of 2014, the news broke that Senators investigating the CIA over torture techniques had their computers hacked by, none other than, the CIA themselves. It appeared to be an embarrassment to the agency, with Director John Brennan personally apologizing to Senator Diane Feinstein, a long time Senator and member of the Intelligence Committee. Feinstein had accused the CIA of attempting to undermine the investigation into the allegations of torture back in March of last year. Brennan initially denied the CIA hack stating, “I mean, we wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s – that’s just beyond the – you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do.” The files accessed were specifically related to Leon Panetta’s scathing review of the torture report, as Panetta weighed in in support of the CIA criticism. Panetta’s report was removed by the CIA from the senators computers. It wasn’t until several months later that Brennan was proven wrong, and admitted that the CIA had in fact accessed the Senators’ computers. Brennan assured the country that the hack would be investigated by an accountability board who would review the agents’ conduct.
Here we are, six months after the apology by John Brennan and an acknowledgment by the CIA Inspector General David Buckley, and low and behold… the CIA internal investigation found that the search of the Senators computers was reasonable. According to a CIA spokesman, there was the possibility that the Senate Intelligence Committee had either inadvertently or intentionally accessed classified agency files that they should not have had access to. The conclusion fails to address the Panetta Report which was removed from the committee’s computers. The conclusion was announced shortly after Inspector General David Buckley, who had previously acknowledged the agency’s wrongdoing in this case, announced his stepping down. The CIA denies that Buckley’s stepping down has anything to do with the Senate snooping case or his statements acknowledging their wrongdoing.
Senator Feinstein came forward denouncing the CIA’s internal findings stating, “The decision was made to search committee computers, and someone should be found responsible for those actions.” While we shouldn’t be surprised by the CIA’s findings, we should absolutely be disgusted. The CIA has a long history of lies, deception and manipulation of world events, and continues to operate with little to no oversight and an endless budget. How many times must we expose their corruption and self-serving agenda before the American people are fed up and ready to move forward in a world without the CIA?
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Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30829055
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture-report-key-points.html?_r=0
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/cia-spied-senate-committee
big brother is watching you.
FUCK THE CIA
Hmmmm, CIA is an organization that is to have it’s focus on International venues. Outside the US, is the territory of action. The FBI is suppose to be the enforcement of Federal laws within the boundaries of the US. Now, where does it state that CIA has the right to work, investigate within US boundaries? Is that not the FBI’s domain? If this has been altered and now both overlap within the jurisdictions of law. I for one would like to know how this change occurred.