CIA Accused: Sen. Feinstein Sees Torture Probe Meddling 187
A reader writes with this news from the Washington Post: "In an extraordinary public accusation, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee declared on Tuesday that the CIA interfered with and then tried to intimidate a congressional investigation into the agency's possible use of torture in terror probes during the Bush administration. The CIA clandestinely removed documents and searched a computer network set up for lawmakers, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a long and biting speech on the Senate floor. In an escalating dispute with an agency she has long supported, she said the CIA may well have violated criminal laws and the U.S. Constitution."
Turf war (food fight!) (Score:5, Insightful)
The NSA hates the CIA
It's the *Pot & Kettle Show* (Score:5, Insightful)
They are of the same kind, not dupes.
On one side we got scumbags.
On the other side we got assholes.
In other words, it's a showdown between the scumbags and the assholes.
Assholes accusing scumbags of torturing people, but in the meantime it was the assholes who defended the scumbags when they violated the Constitutions, ignoring the Bill of Rights, invading the privacy of Hundreds of Millions of the American Citizens, and billions more people outside of America.
How fitting... (Score:4, Insightful)
...for Feinstien, of all people, to get in a hissy about somebody breaking laws and violating the Constitution.
She doesn't even get out of bed in the morning without trying to think up five new ways to break laws and violate the Constitution.
Maybe we can send her and the CIA agents responsible to the same remote, desert island.
Re:It's the *Pot & Kettle Show* (Score:5, Insightful)
Assholes accusing scumbags of torturing people, but in the meantime it was the assholes who defended the scumbags when they violated the Constitutions, ignoring the Bill of Rights, invading the privacy of Hundreds of Millions of the American Citizens, and billions more people outside of America.
No, I think it is far simpler than that.
We have a bunch of people who think anything goes "for the good of the country" (in the name of War on [*Something*]), until the second it affects them directly. Then, they suddenly remember laws/Constitution/human rights/etc.
This is not new, for example Video Privacy Protection Act [wikipedia.org].
But..... (Score:5, Insightful)
She calls US paranoid for thinking that the government would ever trample our rights.
LK
Suck it Diane, you Statist bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
How's your own medicine taste now?
PS: DIAF.
Did we forget the video torture tapes erased? (Score:5, Insightful)
How quickly we forget. The CIA erased all the torture (interrogation!) interviews, and was pardoned.
No, the assholes that should be hung by balls will never see a jail.
Elitist America (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are not a member of one of various elites, you have no expectation of privacy, protection under the law, or economic security.
If you are a wealthy investor, top tier business executive, elected to a nationwide office, or famous and rich for any reason, your wealth and position will be protected by the economic, political, and military might of the US. Note: entertainers, particularly pro-athletes and popular musicians, can be dropped at any time. Heavily right wing affiliation will keep you in good standing. See Steven Seagal and Ted Nugent for examples.
The only real crime is interfering with a member of the elite. You can have every economic transaction, phone call, medical record, license plate tracking data and email in a secret database, but if anyone spies on a Member of Congress heads will roll, bureaucrats will loose their jobs and institutional budgets will be slashed.
Suck it up. You count for nothing.
Re:We Don't Deserve It (Score:4, Insightful)
We, as a nation, were not given a constitution.
We made a constitution, and by doing so, in that same act, deserved it.
If we are not unmaking it, then by that same act we no longer deserve it.
"We" as a nation, that is. We each, as individuals, deserve to be part of a nation that would make (and in doing so deserve) and defend such a constitution.
Those of us who would support the making and defending of it, at least.
Pit bull (Score:5, Insightful)
If you create a mean and vicious pit bull, do not be surprised when it turns around and bites you. D'oh!
Pot and Kettle Show (Score:5, Insightful)
The Guardian:
Once you have told operatives to take their gloves off and fight dirty on the road they don't just start playing by Queensbury rules at home.
Those openly called on to flout international law in the interests of a higher good do not then suddenly submit that goal to domestic law once they've gone through customs. Once the state has deliberately created space for power to be exercised without accountability those who occupy that space will protect it against enemies domestic and foreign. When your war is global and unending it inevitably comes home and keeps going. The monster the US has unleashed on the rest of the world is steadily devouring its own.
I saw it coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally someone in Congress speaks up about the overreach of the executive branch. What boggles my mind is why Congress talks so much about it but does so little. These executive agencies exist only because Congress allow them to. If Congress wants them to stop then they should make it stop. One sure way to make it stop is to dissolve the agency responsible.
The issue of government spying is, IMHO, a symptom of professional politicians. Senator Feinstein has spent her entire life in government. She knows nothing about living a life outside of the privileges of a government paycheck. She must think she's "better" than those that voted her into office. That she's "more equal" than the other animals.
I used to think that no one should be able to serve more than two terms in the same office. Now I think that no one should be able to serve more than one. The terms "re-election" and "incumbent" should be foreign to us. There are more than 300 million people in this country, it's nearly statistically impossible that we cannot find someone better for the job than her. She's 80 years old and has served as a Senator for 22 years, it's time she retired.
So, Senator, you don't like the government spying on you? Welcome to the party, there's a lot of us that don't like the government spying on us. The difference between you, Senator, and me is that you can make it all go away with a vote. As a Senator you can have anyone you deem responsible fired, including the President of the United States.
I know you won't though, Senator, because the people that are spying on you work for the same entity that you work for. I don't mean the federal government, I mean the Democrat Party. If there was a Republican POTUS right now you wouldn't be talking to reporters right now, you'd be hauling people in front of a Senate committee and have them answering uncomfortable questions under oath.
Senator, you allowed this beast to be created, now you and I have to live with it. You are the reason we need term limits, you just don't know when to quit. I suspect that you will be like many of your predecessors, the only way you will leave office is feet first. So, FOAD already.