thenatureofmind

U.S. Senate leader orders probe of alleged CIA computer hacking

The Plot thickens....

The leader of the U.S. Senate strongly backed the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in a dispute with the Central Intelligence Agency, ordering an investigation into what he called an "indefensible" breach of the panel's computers by the CIA.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said accusations that the agency spied on the panel's computers as it investigated the use of harsh interrogation techniques during the Bush administration raised concerns about possible violations of the Constitution.

"The CIA has not only interfered with the lawful congressional oversight of its activities, but has also seemingly attempted to intimidate its overseers by subjecting them to criminal investigation," Reid said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder obtained by Reuters.

U.S. Senate leader orders probe of alleged CIA computer hacking | Reuters.

White House Withholds Thousands of Documents from Senate CIA Probe

The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency's Role in Torture for Years

On May 10, 2013, John Brennan presented CIA’s response to the Senate Intelligence Committee Torture Report to the President. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.

The fight between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Committee’s Torture Report – which Dan Froomkin covered here – has now zeroed in on the White House.

Did the White House order the CIA to withdraw 920 documents from a server made available to Committee staffers, as Senator Dianne Feinstein says the agency claimed in 2010? Were those documents – perhaps thousands of them – pulled in deference to a White House claim of executive privilege, as Senator Mark Udall and then CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston suggested last fall? And is the White House continuing to withhold 9,000 pages of documents without invoking privilege, as McClatchy reported yesterday?

The White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency's Role in Torture for Years - The Intercept.

CIA vs. Senate: Who Is Obama Protecting?

How Bush officials got away with torture

Among the many things to be said about the CIA’s Bush-era interrogation program, one of the most important is that they got away with it. 

That’s the crucial background to this week’s blowup between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the agency it’s meant to oversee. When President Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, he ran on a platform of rebuking his Republican predecessor’s national security policies. He inaugurated his first term by denouncing the “false choice” between “our safety and our ideals.”

How Bush officials got away with torture | MSNBC.

Calls for Brennan's Ouster Emerge Along With Details of CIA Search of Senate Computers

CIA Director John Brennan’s decision to search Senate committee computers was such a blatant violation of the constitutional separation of powers that some pro-accountability groups in Washington are starting to seek his ouster.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) disclosed in a fiery speech on Tuesday that Brennan told her in January that CIA personnel had conducted a search on  computers at a CIA-leased facility that had been reserved for the use of committee staffers investigating the agency’s role in the Bush-era torture of detainees.

Calls for Brennan's Ouster Emerge Along With Details of CIA Search of Senate Computers - The Intercept.

CIA feared that documents shared with Senate could lead to exposure of crucial intel sources

The CIA spin doctors are at it again. First they didn't spy on members of Congress, now they deleted the documents because of National Security concerns. so how did they know that Senate staffers were accessing the documents? These documents were on CIA computers in a secure location that did not have access to the CIA computer network. The CIA says that staffers accessed documents above their security clearance level, but the CIA placed those douments on the system they gave to the Senate to use. So how did they know a) that the documents that they placed on the system were of a higher security level and b) how did they know the Senate staffers were accessing the documents if the CIA wasn't spying on the senate staffers?

CIA feared that documents shared with Senate could lead to exposure of crucial intel sources - The Washington Post.

Report on CIA Black Sites and Torture May Provoke a Constitutional Crisis

On Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) accused the Central Intelligence Agency of violating federal law and undermining Congress’ constitutional oversight powers. She alleges that CIA officials monitored secure computers used by Capitol Hill staffers to prepare a report that reveals the agency’s Bush era legacy of black detention sites and enhanced interrogation programs – methods many have denounced as torture.

This is the latest development in a long-standing feud between the intelligence agency and Congress. Wrangling over the report, which runs over six thousand pages and cost the government $42 million to prepare, has led to what some are calling a “constitutional crisis.”

Report on CIA Black Sites and Torture May Provoke a Constitutional Crisis | NationofChange.

"Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name": NSA-Backing Senate Intel Chair Blasts CIA for Spying on Torture Probe

The C.I.A. Torture Cover-Up

It was outrageous enough when two successive presidents papered over the Central Intelligence Agency’s history of illegal detention, rendition, torture and fruitless harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects. Now the leader of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, has provided stark and convincing evidence that the C.I.A. may have committed crimes to prevent the exposure of interrogations that she said were “far different and far more harsh” than anything the agency had described to Congress.

The C.I.A. Torture Cover-Up - NYTimes.com.