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.

Comments

Re:Boohoo, crocodile tears.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to realize though, that those congressmen are our constitutional representatives. They represent the power of the people in this democracy

I think the OP is referring to the fact that the NSA lied to Congress and the American people when asked about spying, not on Congress, but on the American people:

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

James Clapper: "No, sir."

Wyden: "It does not?"

Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

(watch for yourself)

Some Republicans have said He should be fired. Obama said he misspoke.

One might think he should have been arrested. Instead, they arrested the lawyer who asked him why he lied..

We've seen this double-standard applied recently-- no one arrested for torture except the CIA Whistleblower. Leakers getting huge sentences unless their rank is high enough.

If the CIA can get away with spying on Senate computers then that's it. They really are above the law.

They've gotten away with much much worse already. (I started adding links but there are hundreds of them...)