The Voice of America reports (via Global Security) that on March 5, 2014, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) told reporters that the Central Intelligence Agency has launched an internal review into allegations that its officers had improperly monitored congressional staffers assigned to investigate the agency’s interrogation program.
In so doing, Feinstein confirmed earlier reports by The New York Times and McClatchy Newspapers.
Feinstein is the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which conducted a four year investigation into the CIA’s now-defunct terrorist detention and interrogation program, which began under former President George W. Bush.
In December 2012, the committee approved a 6,000-page report that concluded the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which held suspected terrorists in secret overseas prisons and engaged in harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, yielded little or no significant intelligence.
Under an agreement between the committee and the CIA, the spy agency had provided computers for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s staff members so they could review millions of pages of classified documents. But CIA officers allegedly conducted unauthorized searches of those computers to monitor the staffers’ activities, which lawmakers say violated the agreement. Some lawmakers have suggested the alleged monitoring may have also violated federal law that prohibits unauthorized access to a computer.
CIA Director John Brennan said he was “deeply dismayed” by the committee’s “spurious” allegations.
Both the Times and McClatchy said the CIA’s inspector general, who is handling the internal probe, has referred the matter to the Justice Department.
Of course, since both the CIA and the so-called Justice Department are in Obama’s pockets, I seriously doubt anything will come of either’s “investigation.”
Call me a cynic. Smirk.
~Eowyn
