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Senators Demand CIA Director Admit He Lied About Spying On Senate Computers
blottsie writes with a link to a story at The Daily Dot which begins: CIA Director John Brennan lied when he denied ordering agency employees to search Senate computers to trace a leak. Frustrated with his unwillingness to admit the obvious, three Senate Democrats on Friday called on Brennan to admit that his agency crossed the line. The Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing a report on the CIA's Bush-era torture programs when the spy agency discovered that the committee had somehow acquired an internal CIA report on the program. To determine how the report had leaked, Brennan ordered CIA officers to pry into the computers used by committee staffers. The heart of the story is in the letter in which the Senators call for Brennan to 'fess up, also linked from the story. Drawing from that letter: When you were asked publicly about the CIA's search in March 2014, you denied that any improper access had occurred, stating that "As fas the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, that's -- that's just beyond the -- you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we could do." The reports of both the Inspector General and your review board demonstrate that this denial was at odds with the facts.
In June 2014, senior officials from the FBI, NSA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all testified that it would be inappropriate for their agencies to secretly search Senate files without external authorization. To date, however, there has been no public acknowledgement from you or any other CIA official (outside the Office of Inspector General) that this search was improper, nor even a commitment that the CIA will not conduct such searches in the future. This is entirely unacceptable.
In June 2014, senior officials from the FBI, NSA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all testified that it would be inappropriate for their agencies to secretly search Senate files without external authorization. To date, however, there has been no public acknowledgement from you or any other CIA official (outside the Office of Inspector General) that this search was improper, nor even a commitment that the CIA will not conduct such searches in the future. This is entirely unacceptable.
That sentence is straight from the letter from the Senators. Why is it inappropriate to include the Senators' words?
The Senators are a bunch of morons and are the last group that should ever complain about someone lying. They are experts at prevarication and give unambiguous answers that always leave room for them to back track. Only a very select committee of Senators are privy to anything relating to classified US intelligence matters and that committee is responsible for determining what information can be safely released to the entire Senate. Any Senator claiming they did not know about certain intelligence programs or operations should first go after their fellow Senators on the foreign intelligence committee and ask them what they know and then go after the particular intelligence agency. This investigation was not being conducted by this intelligence committee. The vast majority of Senators and staffers do not even have the necessary security clearances needed for access to certain classified information about US intelligence programs. In this particular case the CIA discovered the Senate had possession of an internal CIA report that had not been legally obtained through the proper channels. The CIA could attempt to justify it's actions by claiming there had been a security leak (which there was) and they were investigating how the Senate got a hold of the document in question. The first logical step in the investigation would be obtaining proof the document was actually on the Senate computer system. The Senate constantly wastes time on these types of conflicts while doing nothing that would actually help the country and the people who put them in office. The Senate is more dangerous to the US public than the CIA and NSA combined. And the feckless Senators will do nothing of consequence in this cat fight because they are just barely smart enough not to get into a full blown conflict with agencies capable of destroying their political careers. After all the CIA has had a lot of practice changing governments around the world using subtle and not to subtle means. The Senate and the CIA deserve each other.
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