Dianne Feinstein Charges CIA With Spying on US Senate

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in security on (#3FN)
story imageBurgess Everett and Manu Raju report at Politico that Senator Dianne Feinstein set off a political firestorm when she took to the Senate floor to accuse CIA officials of potentially violating the Constitution in conducting an unauthorized search of her committee's computers to turn up documents related to a congressional investigation into Bush-era detention and interrogation programs.
Feinstein, who spoke to President Barack Obama about her concerns, said her panel will vote to declassify the report into the interrogation practices sometime this month, something that could embarrass the intelligence community. "We're not going to stop," says Feinstein. "If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted."
CIA Director John Brennan forcefully pushed back against Feinstein's allegations, prompting senators to begin calling for a larger investigation into the matter. John McCain called the situation "very disturbing."
"Heads will roll," Graham said if an investigation confirms Feinstein's allegations. "If what they're saying is true about the CIA, this is Richard Nixon stuff. This is dangerous to a democracy, heads should roll, people should go to jail, if it's true," Graham said. "The legislative branch should declare war on the CIA - if it's true."
Is Senator Feinstein's outrage justified, or is she a a hypocrite as Snowden charges?
Reply 8 comments

Hypocrite Quotes (Score: 5, Informative)

by scott@pipedot.org on 2014-03-11 22:30 (#GD)

Feinstein had given firm support for the NSA's phone call tracking program just last month while criticizing Snowden for being a runaway whistle-blower who could have instead turned his documents to Congress.

"What keeps me up at night, candidly, is another attack against the United States. And I see enough of the threat stream to know that is possible," Feinstein said at a Pacific Council on International Policy dinner in Century City.

"But the way we prevent another attack - and this is tricky - is intelligence," she said. "You have to know what's going to happen, because it's too late otherwise."

"There are all kinds of things that are going on. And for some reason, the fear of our government for a bona fide reason, which is to prevent a terrorist attack, raising this kind of concern, when there are only 22 people in our country who have access to this database and every one of them is vetted,"

Re: Hypocrite Quotes (Score: 2)

by aighearach@pipedot.org on 2014-03-12 22:17 (#H9)

Apples and Oranges. Try to remember that because somebody disagrees with you on one issue, they may in fact just have different views and may not be some sort of government robot.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the NSA, Snowden, or anything else you quote.

And there is no reason it would. This is about Congressional oversight of the CIA. I would hope everybody in Congress, regardless of their views on National Security policy, the Patriot Act, etc., would all agree that the CIA should not spy on and intimidate Congress.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Why either/or? (Score: 5, Insightful)

by snick@pipedot.org on 2014-03-11 23:04 (#GH)

Senator Feinstein's outrage is justified, and she is a hypocrite as Snowden charges.

Her mistake wasn't getting upset when they peeked under her skirt. It was justifying every other instance of spying (on us) as ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY OR OMG THE TERRORISTS ARE GONNA WIN!!!!

Re: Why either/or? (Score: 1)

by aighearach@pipedot.org on 2014-03-12 22:18 (#HA)

Do you even realize that the CIA and NSA are different agencies?

re: Why either/or? (Score: 3, Interesting)

by carguy@pipedot.org on 2014-03-12 00:19 (#GJ)

Can't wait for the Daily Show and/or Colbert take on this. Could be tonight, could be very pointed (and/or funny). Unfortunately, I guess that outside the USA it's not easy to access the Comedy Central website for web-video.

Re: re: Why either/or? (Score: 3, Informative)

by huls@pipedot.org on 2014-03-12 06:58 (#GT)

I heard they now have kickass.to option for that web-video.

False Dichotomy (Score: 3, Insightful)

by dgoodmaniii@pipedot.org on 2014-03-12 01:48 (#GN)

"Is Senator Feinstein's outrage justified, or is she a a hypocrite as Snowden charges ?"

Yes. Or no, really. Does it have to be one or the other?

Re: False Dichotomy (Score: 5, Insightful)

by danieldvorkin@pipedot.org on 2014-03-12 02:53 (#GQ)

I'm going with "yes" to both questions. So it's not only an "or", it's also an "and"!