Back of about nine months down the memory hole one of the C.I.A.'s most sensitive intelligence gathering operations was exposed to the enemy: the American People. The C.I.A. even distrusts those who supervise and oversee its activities on behalf of the American Public, our elected Senators and those who assist them in that task.
After trying to evade the charge of spying on its own oversight committee for months the C.I.A. finally admitted the spying on the Senate Committee investigating the C.I.A.
CIA admits to spying on Senate committee
By Meredith Clark
Central Intelligence Agency officials spied on computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was investigating controversial Bush-era detention and interrogation programs, an internal investigation has found.
The reports summary states that five agency employees, including two attorneys and three IT staffers, were involved in “improperly” accessing the committee’s computers
According to CIA spokesperson Dean Boyd, agency director John Brennan apologized to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the chair and vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, respectively.
Feinstein confirmed that she met Tuesday with Brennan and called the apology and the inspector general report “positive first steps.”
Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Thursday for Brennan to resign, and said that he failed to deliver on promises of change at the CIA. “From the unprecedented hacking of congressional staff computers and continued leaks undermining the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program to his abject failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing by the agency, I have lost confidence in John Brennan.”
If the Central Intelligence Agency doesn't trust the democratically elected Congress they why does our Congress give the C.I.A. such wide latitude? Especially when their actions using abhorrent torture have brought such disgrace upon the United States? Why isn't the Congress' oversight of this secretive agency much tighter than it has been? When the C.I.A. exhibits this kind of disregard and contempt for the very institutions of democratic governance that are supposed to control its actions?