At the outset, I freely admit that oversight of our national security organs has been the Obama administrations weakest area. However the abuses of power are far fewer than they were under Bush, or would be under any Republican. Obama has failed, because he left those areas largely in Republican hands, and when he did appoint Democrats, they came from Hillary’s camp instead of his own more progressive advisors, who had based his campaign on transparency. Now the CIA appears to have committed a major criminal act, putting them way out of bounds.
It was early December when the Central Intelligence Agency began to suspect it had suffered what it regarded as an embarrassing computer breach.
Investigators for the Senate Intelligence Committee, working in the basement of a C.I.A. facility in Northern Virginia, had obtained an internal agency review summarizing thousands of documents related to the agency’s detention and interrogation program. Parts of the C.I.A. report cast a particularly harsh light on the program, the same program the agency was in the midst of defending in a prolonged dispute with the intelligence committee.
What the C.I.A. did next opened a new and even more rancorous chapter in the struggle over how the history of the interrogation program will be written. Agency officials began scouring the digital logs of the computer network used by the Senate staff members to try to learn how and where they got the report. Their search not only raised constitutional questions about the propriety of an intelligence agency investigating its congressional overseers, but has also resulted in two parallel inquiries by the Justice Department — one into the C.I.A. and one into the committee.
Each side accuses the other of spying on it, with the Justice Department now playing the uneasy role of arbitrator in the bitter dispute. “It’s always been a dicey proposition to be investigating Congress,” said W. George Jameson, a C.I.A. lawyer for decades. “You don’t do it lightly.”
At the center of the dispute is the classified internal C.I.A. review of the detention and interrogation program, a review that Democratic senators believe buttresses the conclusion in the intelligence committee’s 6,300-page report that the program yielded little valuable intelligence… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
First of all, investigating the CIA is Congress’ job. Investing Congress falls to the FBI and the Justice Department. The CIA’s demesne is foreign intelligence and operations, NOT domestic, which is forbidden. Therefore, investing their overseers is clearly a criminal act.
I have to add that, in predicting every international event of consequence from the Reagan Regime on, the CIA has been caught flatfooted every time. They have utterly failed in their foreign intelligence role. The entire agency needs to be reorganized to focus that agency on its primary role, gathering foreign intelligence.
9 Responses to “CIA: Way Out of Bounds!”
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Now Congress has their panties in a wad. How dare anyone investigate them! Yes. I know it is not the CIA's job. They have failed miserably at foreign espionage lately but the FBI is not doing their job either.
They both need total reorganization.
Sung to the tune of Three Blind Mice: Three Rogue Agencies. OK, no it doesn't really fit the tune, but the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA are ALL rogue agencies and ALL need to be scrapped and started over on. Like that's goung to happen.
I seem to remember there was a time when law enforcement was respected. Around the Eisenhower administration. Although even then there were exceptions, like the South and the FBI. But the exceptions were still shocking. Now they are business as usual.
Thanks for posting this very important story.
The CIA has the singular duty of gathering information that is NOT of a domestic source. Spying domestically is the task of the NSA, The CIA has (not surprisingly) once again crossed the line and breeched the trust. Both of these agencies seem to running at full capacity with no accountability. The House is still investigating the non existent IRS and Benghazi situations, but not vigorously investigating either the CIA or the NSA, and yes, we do not want to forget that the FBI is in the same salmagundi as the other two agencies. The FBI is tasked with law enforcement on a national level, or when their assistance is requested by a local police agency. Why is the FBI involved with this? Questions – and no answers.
Thanks TC – you seem to be back to yourself again!
As Sir Walter Scott penned,
It seems the intelligence agencies, whether domestic or foreign, have major cases of CYA (cover your ass) disease, and a particularly virulent strain that means blame others without batting an eye.
I have been of the opinion for a number of years that these agencies are out of control, and it is their shenanigans that create or fuel politically sensitive situations globally.
Congress has let the CIA run riot as long as it suited their purposes. Now the shoe is on the other foot and they are ALARMED! I agree with Joanne, the CIA, Fbi, and NSA are all rogue agencies and need to be reined in and instructed to what their actual duties are, and supervised to see that the stay in their realm. The NSA is not our official Big Brother. I understand that an elderly grandmother, like me, can be investigated for having an opinion. TC, I agree with you, Obama should have rid himself of all the Bush appointees preferably at the beginning of his first term. His transparency has evaporated due to the people he has relied on to give him information.
Thanks and amen to all.
I agree that the CIA, FBI and NSA are all rogue agencies. I think that Republicans want them that way tgo peppetrate abuse for political advantage, and Democrats fear that reigning them in will limit their ability to protect the nation.
Very Distressing information…