CIA Director Brennan Admits He Was Lying: CIA Really Did Spy On Congress 266
Bruce66423 (1678196) writes with this story from the Guardian: The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the
agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials. Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on a CIA network, called RDINet, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture." (Sen. Diane Feinstein was one of those vocally accusing the CIA of spying on Congress; Sen. Bernie Sanders has raised a similar question about the NSA.)
Re:When will we... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want an apology.
I want to see the files on congress, the last 10 executive branches and staff, the supreme court down to the clerks and all nationally known reporters.
Any lawyers readying a FOIA suit?
Re:When will we... (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, fine.
If there is no oversight, and I don't mean a FISA court whose job it is to say everything is rosy, then you can't have an agency like this.
Having the CIA directly lying to congress about their activities, and actively spying on the people who are supposed to oversee them is something straight out of fiction -- only it's no longer fiction, they're doing anything they please, and no longer accountable to anybody.
Fuck, hit them up with a RICO suit. Do ANYTHING.
What next, he'll go into private industry as a security consultant for corporations? Oh, wait ...
This is bloody scary. Neither Americans nor the rest of the world signed up for a fucking security agency which is no longer under anyone's control except people who feel they can do anything they want.
This might be the one thing that gets Congress to (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress didn't much care when the NSA was spying on us peons. Now that Congress-critters are the ones being spied on, I'm thinking they just might do something about it. Thanks for pissing of the right people, CIA.
Did he lie? (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, Congress will make itself exempt (Score:5, Interesting)
And Congress *ONLY*.
Consider the following; Until very recently Congress were the only individuals exempt from insider trading laws. Congress is exempt from TSA searches when boarding a plane, Congress is exempt from *not* being paid during government shutdowns.
Congress takes care of itself, NOT the people on the United States. Therefore, Congress will pass a law making itself exempt from CIA/NSA spying and the rest of the country be damned.
Trust me on this one, if there's one thing Congress is consistent about, with 100% bipartisan support, it's about making sure they are elite, untouchable, and completely corrupt.
Re:When will we... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And no one will go to jail - just like bankers! (Score:4, Interesting)
in fact, given the increased US involvement and the general unrest in the Middle East it probably pushed back their goals somewhat
Not at all. It made the position of Islamist groups that were arguing from more moderate positions, and generally preferred a democratic transition to their goal (like Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots), much weaker. At the same time, it made the position of groups arguing for violent jihad much stronger - especially since, with foreign intervention in Muslim countries, they could declare jihad to be fard ayn (individually obligatory for any observant Muslim) on scriptural grounds. It also created lots of martyrs.
Think about where things were before the intervention, and where they are now. Taliban is rapidly regaining control over Afghanistan, and in the meantime Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are also rapidly Islamized by similar Salafist strains. In Pakistan, military and intelligence are stuffed with Taliban-friendly Islamists. In Iraq and Syria, large swaths are under control of an armed jihadi group that has officially declared itself to be the Caliphate, and which practices the version of Islam that even many other extremist Salafi organizations find too brutal - and they keep expanding territory and getting a steady influx of volunteers. Volunteers, I must add, that come from our own countries, and are in many cases not only our citizens by law, but are born and raised here within our culture - and yet falling under the influence of extremist preachers who convert them. Do you really think that we could see anything on that scale without the free (to them) advertising that the West gave to jihadis?