Two top Senate leaders declared Tuesday that the CIA’s recent conduct has undermined the separation of powers as set out in the Constitution, setting the stage for a major battle to reassert the proper balance between the two branches.
Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), in a floor speech (transcript; video) that Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) immediately called the most important he had heard in his career, said the CIA had searched through computers belonging to staff members investigating the agency’s role in torturing detainees, and had then leveled false charges against her staff in an attempt to intimidate them.
“I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution, including the speech and debate clause,” she said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”
She concluded: “The recent actions that I have just laid out make this a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community. How Congress responds and how this is resolved will show whether the Intelligence Committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee. I believe it is critical that the committee and the Senate reaffirm our oversight role and our independence under the Constitution of the United States.”
She also accused the CIA of obstructing her committee’s torture inquiry in general, and of disputing findings that its own internal inquiry had substantiated.
The document at the heart of this confrontation is an internal review conducted by the CIA of the materials it had turned over to Feinstein’s committee during the course of the four-year congressional investigation into the Bush-era torture practices.
Feinstein said the document, which has become known as the Panetta Review after then-director of the CIA Leon Panetta, was first discovered by committee staff using CIA-provided search tools in 2010. It became particularly relevant later, after the committee completed a scathing 6,300-page report in December 2012, and the CIA sent its official response in June 2013.
The committee’s detailed report is still classified, but it is known to be highly critical of both the CIA’s role in the torture regime and its campaign to deceive Congress about it. The CIA vehemently took issue with those conclusions.
“Unlike the official response, these Panetta review documents were in agreement with the committee’s findings. That’s what makes them so significant and important to protect,” Feinstein said.
Based on the CIA’s extensive record of removal and destruction of evidence, which Feinstein detailed in her floor speech, committee staff decided “there was a need to preserve and protect” a copy of the review, which meant bringing it back from the CIA-leased offices in Virginia where staff had been forced to conduct their investigation to secure facilities in a Senate office building.
In December of 2013, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) revealed that the intelligence committee was aware of the internal report, which he noted “is consistent with the Intelligence committee’s report, but amazingly it conflicts with the official CIA response.”
Feinstein said that a month later, John Brennan, the current director of the CIA, informed her that CIA personnel had conducted a search of the committee’s computers in the Virginia facility, including the standalone network that contained the committee staff’s own internal work product and communication.
The senator was outraged, she said, and fired off a letter expressing her concerns that the action was illegal and unconstitutional.
“I have asked for an apology and a recognition that this CIA search of computers used by its oversight committee was inappropriate. I have received neither,” she said.
“Besides the constitutional implications, the CIA search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.”
Feinstein said she later learned that the CIA’s own inspector general had made a criminal referral to the Justice Department regarding the search of the congressional computers by CIA personnel.
But what seemed to really set her off was the CIA’s counter-charge, made through acting CIA general counsel Robert Eatinger, that her staff had illegally accessed and removed the document.
“Our staff involved in this matter have the appropriate clearances, handled this sensitive material according to established procedures and practice to protect classified information, and were provided access to the Panetta Review by the CIA itself,” she said.
“As a result, there is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting counsel general’s referral as a potential effort to intimidate this staff, and I am not taking this lightly.”
She added: “I should note that for most if not all of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, the now-acting general counsel was a lawyer in the CIA’s counterterrorism center, the unit within which the CIA managed and carried out this program. From mid-2004 until the official termination of the detention and interrogation program in January 2009, he was the unit’s chief lawyer. He is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study.
“And now, this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of Congressional staff — the same Congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers, including the acting general counsel himself, provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.”
Feinstein’s fighting words were in stark contrast to her role as a champion of NSA surveillance. In most cases, Feinstein has served as an example of how badly oversight over the intelligence community has failed, serving as an accessory to the very kind of excesses her committee was established, in the 1970s, to prevent.
But torture has been the exception for Feinstein, who in stark contrast to President Obama has demanded an authoritative, official accounting of what happened during the Bush years.
Feinstein made it clear that she is eager for her committee’s report to become public. “If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to insure than an un-American, brutal program in interrogation and distension will never again be permitted.”
When Feinstein concluded, Leahy called for dramatic action. “We are supposed to be the conscience of the nation,” he said of the Senate. “Now let’s stand up for this country.”
In a statement, Leahy later continued: “This is not just about getting to the truth of the CIA’s shameful use of torture. This is also about the core founding principle of the separation of powers, and the future of this institution and its oversight role. The Senate is bigger than any one Senator. Senators come and go, but the Senate endures. The members of the Senate must stand up in defense of this institution, the Constitution, and the values upon which this nation was founded.”
Brennan, in remarks at a Council on Foreign Relations, said the CIA wants to put the torture controversy behind it. “Even as we learn from the past, we must also be able to put the past behind us.”
Misrepresenting Feinstein’s charge as one of CIA “hacking”, he denied it. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We wouldn’t do that. That’s beyond the scope of reason.”
And he said he would leave it to the Justice Department to sort out the dueling referrals, and figure out who was in the wrong.
UPDATE: Virginia Sloan, president of The Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal watchdog group, issued the following statement:
We are outraged by Senator Feinstein’s description of repeated efforts by the CIA to thwart critical and legitimate congressional oversight through delays, attacks, intimidation and attempts to conceal. This is not a partisan issue. Such conduct strikes at the heart of our nation’s constitutional system of separation of powers.
This is truly a defining moment, not only for congressional oversight of the intelligence community, but also for President Obama’s legacy on torture. The White House cannot allow the CIA to drive this process any longer. The president must ensure that the committee’s report is declassified to the fullest extent possible, as well as the CIA’s response to the committee’s study and the so-called Panetta review. But President Obama should not stop there; he should declassify the rendition, detention and interrogation program itself.
Statement from Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.):
The actions the chairman outlined are the latest events that illustrate why I directly pushed CIA Director Brennan to acknowledge the flaws in and misrepresentations about the CIA’s brutal and ineffective detention and interrogation program. Unfortunately, the CIA responded by trying to hide the truth from the American people about this program and undermine the Senate Intelligence Committee’s oversight role by illegally searching committee computers. The U.S. Constitution is clear and Coloradans agree: The separation of powers and aggressive oversight are fundamental to our democracy, and Coloradans can count on me to continue to protect these foundational pillars no matter who is in the White House.
Statement from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.):
I commend Chairman Feinstein for shining a light on the unprecedented invasion by the CIA into computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee investigators. The CIA’s own recent court filing makes clear that the work product on these computers was and is ‘the property of the Committee.’ I share her concern that this search may have violated both federal law and the US Constitution. In addition to the grave implications for the Constitutional separation of powers, I am extremely troubled that the CIA leadership has neither responded to specific questions about this search nor even acknowledged that it was inappropriate. This is simply not acceptable in a democracy.
I will continue to support Chairman Feinstein’s efforts to get more answers and accountability from the CIA about this search. In my judgment, the Intelligence Community leadership’s misleading statements on interrogation and many other issues has undermined their credibility. I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that the facts about the CIA’s detention and interrogation program are made public, so that the American people can make up their own minds about what happened and prevent the mistakes of the past from being repeated.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.”
Also see: The Inverse of Oversight: CIA Spies On Congress, March 5, 2014
three comments / replies and nothing shows up…….censorship????
It must be that the bogeyman doesn’t like you and is sending your claimed comments/replies directly to the bit bucket. I’ve posted dozens of times and seen some delays at times but all my comments and replies have posted. And some of my comments/replies may have warranted being censored but weren’t.
I think it is a high probability (P=1) that accusations such as yours re “censorship” are false and wholly designed to disparage The Intercept, both the technical staff and its journalists.
The CIA cannot be fixed. JFK stated the remedy.
Screw separation of powers. How about standing up for separation of citizens and state now and again.
I don’t understand your point. In a constitutional democratic republic, the collective citizenry IS the state sovereign.
Gee short memory ??? Valarie Plame..an active C.I.A. operative…outed by Scooter Libby . . . no prison time
I find it useful to check the facts before I comment.
Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent, was “outed” by Robert Novak of the Washington Post on 7/14/2003. His admitted source was Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State under Bush Jr.
Scooter Libby, on 3/6/2007, was convicted of obstruction of justice, making false statements, and two counts of perjury. He was given a fine and a jail term. His jail time, not his fine, was commuted by Bush Jr.
Libby was the only Bush official convicted of taking political revenge on Valerie Plame for the actions of her husband in exposing one of the biggest lies that the Bush Administration had used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003: that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. The fact was that Iraq had shut down their nuclear program in 1991.
Feinstein said OK when spooks watched us but squeals like a pig when Brenner spied on her. The government no longer responds to the will of the people. Lets see what influence Feinstein has.
Did secret CIA whistle-blower leak to the Senate?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0312/Did-secret-CIA-whistle-blower-leak-to-the-Senate
Operation Northwoods
Operation Mockingbird
The assassinations of every major voice for reform in the sixties, including our elected leader.
COINTELPRO
Iran-Contra
The Iraq War
Domestic surveillance
Propping up more dictators and staging more coups than I have time to name and generating blowback
Can we honestly say with a straight face that our intelligence agencies are serving the interests of the American people? We like to think that we are in control with our elections and “free press”, but who is really calling the shots? Are they serving us or are we serving them?
Yes, they are.
If they weren’t, they couldn’t exist. The Intelligence Community is merely the best, of the best, with honors, that America has produced. The people working for it are living the dream, being the most successful people in our age. They move markets, change regimes and kill millions of people to advance the interests of America. They grasp exactly what is NATIONAL SECURITY. It can only be achieved through total submission of the adversaries. It does not lead anywhere to ask ourselves whether we “serve them” or not; what leads us somewhere is catching up with the details of what they do.
Now what’s REALLY INTERESTING is that First Look media DOES NOT MENTION one of the crucial pieces of Feinstein’s speech: CONTRACTORS. Listen carefully and you’ll understand that the real outrage was when the CIA hired contractors… To oversee the Senate Committee’s work! WHO? Who are these people that can go through documents that the CIA has deemed too sensitive even for elected officials?? There has to be a contract somewhere that names the companies involved. Where is it? Why doesn’t Feinstein mention the names, only referring to them as “contractors”?
If you want to take a real look at who’s hijacking the Intelligence Community, who’s really “calling the shots”, you shouldn’t go further than these contractors…
Yes, there’s a real disconnect as to who works for whom – with those tasked with “protecting” their employers (the citizens who pay their salaries) actually having more say in what the final work product will be than those who hired them for the job in the first place.
In the end, these “citizen employers” are getting worked over by the very same fellow citizens they hired to do the work – a clear case of the tail wagging the dog.
Unfortunately, it’s very hard to discipline those you employ when you’re not sure they exist; or when you finally think that you do know they exist, you cannot find out who they really are – and as a result, who they really work for.
Can anyone believe that the Iron-Lady of California is truly shocked and applaud when she is herself the head of the Arms Intelligence Committee and has so for many years, you mean to tell me that we have people on such crucial committees and they had no idea what the NSA and CIA were up to. Listen, you can’t keep the building like the one in Utah a secret forever including the loss of over $3.5 Trillion dollars from the pentagon budget just the day before 9/11 and find out that the new budget office that was reinforced and refurbished is the area that got hit by whatever at the pentagon the very place where the budget records and commuters are. Very Interesting
Paul Lewis, at the Guardian, has an excellent backgrounder/overview on this story.
Well worth reading:
The documents that disappeared: how a furious CIA-Senate row erupted
As at least one commenter has already mentioned, it would be very helpful to have the Like/Dislike capability.
I clicked on this link and read the article.
It’s a must read along with Marcy’s analyses for anyone wanting more detail on the he said/she said and he took/she took details on the internal CIA Panetta “”torture report” and the ongoing battle between the Senate Intelligence Committee / Diane Feinstein and the CIA / John Brennan.
The Rude Pundit has some questions for the Senator. Rudy, take it away.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2014/03/some-questions-for-senator-dianne.html
Another good, and short, summary of the “torture” report battle now underway. Be aware, the author fittingly uses profanity for clarity.
It is called playing politics with an eye to the mid-terms. Anything to change the subject from the economy, the ObamaCare disaster and the terminal Obama weakness in foreign policy.
You, the Intercept team, are naive.
So, you think that this is somehow a ploy on the part of Democrats to influence the upcoming mid-terms?
Umm. . .
One of the “naive” Intercept “team” has a different take. But she, Marcy Wheeler, actually provides some substance to her take.
“Yesterday, I predicted the CIA and its Republican apologists would try to use the torture crisis to knock off a few Democrats in an attempt to retake the Senate. If that happened, Richard Burr, who would become Senate Intelligence Chair, would surely kill the Torture Report as one of his first acts.”
From previous post from Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel):
“And all this assumes Democrats retain control of the Senate. That’s an uphill battle in any case. But CIA has many ways to influence events. Even assuming CIA would never encourage false flags attacks or leak compromising information about Democrats, the Agency can ratchet up the fear mongering and call Democrats weak on security. That always works and it ought to be worth a Senate seat or three.
If Democrats lose the Senate, you can be sure that newly ascendant Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr would be all too happy to bury the Torture Report, just for starters. Earlier today, after all, he scolded Feinstein for airing this fight.
“I personally don’t believe that anything that goes on in the intelligence committee should ever be discussed publicly,”
Burr’s a guy who has joked about waterboarding in the past. Burying the Torture Report would be just the start of things, I fear.”
“It sure didn’t take long to be proven right.”
She explains in post at link
What now to expect? — yet more of that homicidal bitchin’ that goes down with all the snitchin’ /
to determine who will serve and who will eat. — Sail on, sail on, O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need / Past the Reefs of Greed /Through the Squalls of Hate / Sail on, sail on, sail on …
Jay Carney said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.”
Well, of course he does! They work for him just like they worked for Bush, kicking at the foundations of democracy. The “National Security” apparatus is not a separate branch of government, it is entirely under the care and control of the executive branch. Obama tried to cover up Bush’s torture regime and it is coming back to bite him. Brennan, Clapper, Obama and Bush are criminals who should be removed from society. What insane arrogance does it take to spy on your biggest supporter in the Senate? Go tear President Kill a new one, DiFi !
Sooooo, Feinstein has finally decided that she has oversight responsibilities, now that her own self-importance and personal power is challenged? Or has she acquired a conscience? About time…and probably won’t last long…just until they find something good to blackmail her with in their cash of secret recordings. One has to wonder how many members of Congress are already being blackmailed and how many are so far only afraid of being blackmailed. I think it’s already gone too far for a majority of them to be able to really rebel. This is either a last gasp or just for show.
Here is John Brennan’s statement to Andrea Mitchell at the Council on Foreign Relations.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/03/11/CIA-Director-Brennan-Shoots-Back-At-Feinstein-Charges-Nothing-Could-Be-Further-From-The-Truth
Am I the only Citizen, who has a problem with our Government Officials subjugating themselves, and going to the CFR on bended knee?
Feinstein: “If the Senate can declassify, we will be able to insure than an un-American, brutal program in interrogation and distension will never again be permitted.”
Could we get specific, without all the hyperbole? If citizens are to judge “brutality”, we need more information than what pols and biased media whores use to demonize their political opponents. Give John Q the hype-free facts, with no preconditioning toward outrage, and leave him to form an opinion. He usually gets it right.
Wyden: “I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that the facts about the CIA’s detention and interrogation program are made public, so that the American people can make up their own minds about what happened.”
Interesting that American citizens will be allowed to judge – of course after all the pompous hyper-partisan pontification our overlords and biased media can muster. The ‘jury’ is tainted. This level of back-biting has led directly to the demise of individual liberty in our representative republic – but resembling a bloodhound locked on a scent, the DC elite are obsessed with pinning the donkey-tail on GWB/Cheney/GOP. Anyone who fails to grasp that our problems don’t run down party lines, is hopelessly lost.
NEWSFLASH! This CIA activity was underway long before 9.11.01, but isn’t this clown-show is a nice distraction from the painful reality of ACA.
If congress has been reduced to the status of a debating society it’s because they surrendered their authority without protest.
Ouch!
That stung.
Sadly, the truth hurts.
What would you do in their shoes if you knew the NSA and CIA had the capabilities that Snowden only recently exposed? wait..wait….don’t tell me.
Here are some relevant thoughts.
Those in the “computer age” the geeks and such, are twenty and thirty-somethings. Versus Senators who are in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. The computer people are at the top of their game, meanwhile folks like Diane Feinstein and John McCain are suffering from imbecility and dottage. Their greatest concerns are did I put my “Depends” on prior to taking to the Senate floor, and where did I last leave my teeth.
One camp is at the top of their game.
The other camp doesn’t even know what the game is……….
The question is, what would Frank Church have done if he had been in Feinstien’s position in 2010?
Keep it quiet? Write letters to the president?
I submit, this battle isn’t about just about the Torture report. It’s about exposing the truth of what the CIA really is and has done in our name. But it AIN”T GONNA HAPPEN. JFK was living proof. Feinstien et all know it. And so does the CIA. Here is why.
In reality, the day Truman signed the Central Intelligence Act of 1949 in WDC, this nation became something very different than the day before. Very few people understand the nature of this insidious law. Unless you read it in it’s entirety, you won’t understand what is happening this very minute between the Congressional Intelligence committee and the CIA, as this battle is a fight to expose the truth of what the CIA REALLY is and has done. Ain’t gonna happen. JFK was living proof.
After researching every single CIA director, I can honestly say the CIA is a criminal Cartel of unimaginable and unaccountable power. However, James Garrison , District Attorney of New Orleans, who tried to prosecute one of the conspirators in the coup d’etat of November 22, 1963, sums it up succinctly in a Playboy interview circa 1967…….
quote:
PLAYBOY: Many of the professional critics of the Warren Commission appear to be prompted by political motives: Those on the left are anxious to prove Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy within the establishment; and those on the right are eager to prove the assassination was an act of “the international Communist conspiracy.”
Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum — right, left of center?
GARRISON: That’s a question I’ve asked myself frequently, especially since this investigation started and I found myself in an incongruous and disillusioning battle with agencies of my own Government. I can’t just sit down and add up my political beliefs like a mathematical sum, but I think, in balance, I’d turn up somewhere around the middle. Over the years, I guess I’ve developed a somewhat conservative attitude — in the traditional libertarian sense of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism of the paramilitary right —particularly in regard to the importance of the individual as opposed to the state and the individual’s own responsibilities to humanity. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to formulate this into a coherent political philosophy, but at the root of my concern is the conviction that a human being is not a digit; he’s not a digit in regard to the state and he’s not a digit in the sense that he can ignore his fellow men and his obligations to society. I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession,I’ve always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I’m concerned about all of this because it isn’t a German phenomenon; it’s a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man. What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one of the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough,seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it’s based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we’ve built since 1945, the “military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we’ve seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can’t spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can’t look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won’t be there. We won’t build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We’re not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn’t the test.The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same. I’ve learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the state and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I’ve always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government’s basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I’ve come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long onces aid, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America…
in the name of national security.”unquote
In the name of national security. Indeed. He predicted the United States of today…almost 50 years ago. Look around. While you may not agree… I’d submit he was dead on. I also submit we are on the verge of witnessing a fight of biblical proportions that will make Watergate and the Church Committee hearings look like a birthday party. I can hardly wait.
This deserves repeating…
quote:”In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. “unquote
It’s scary how right he was.
Agreed. This is some scary prognosis. If our Congress/Senate gives up the fight with the CIA and accepts that they are, in fact, just a debating society, our country, once blessed by our founding father’s vision of individual freedom and rights, is Kaput. Really kaput. Garrison, in 1967, was likely put on the CIA watch list and would have been “disappeared” if he made bigger waves. Maybe some of the older Senators will fight the good battle for us as they have lived a full life and may now be concerned with the future in store for their children and grandchildren. I hope this battle isn’t over before it has begun. I hope we aren’t history.
Thanks for posting this 1967 Playboy Interview. I’ll go look to see if I have that issue – I was single back then.
book published years ago:
“Friendly Fascism”
Let one citizen, at least, be unequivocally Clear:
As regards..Specifically…ANYONE from CIA or the “Intelligence Community” actually “Paying” for ANY of their CRIMES..Murders..Torture..Kidnapping..Theft..Rape..Lying to Congress/The People…….Let…Me…Be..Clear:
NOTHING….WILL…..HAPPEN!
NOTHING!
This is smoke and mirrors.
Bread And Circuses.
“The Big Con”.
The LONG CON.
As ALREADY DETAILED in their own leaked documents.
This…the fauxe “Outrage”…the utterly Disingenuous and sickeningly Fake ‘Cries For Justice’ from literal (at this point very literally) FASCIST Feinstein..who has been systematically disemboweling the Constitution for more than a DECADE..let alone her “Colleagues” at the Federal Level who DAILY (again no mere figure of speech) rubber stamp every criminal action imaginable from outright MURDER to the release of Murderous “Soldiers” (Haditha anyone? Gitmo? Ad Infinitum Ad Nauseam) and their “Officers” to the sickening mealy mouthed excuse making in the face of DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE by CIA regarding Torture (Remember the Tapes? what was it? 18 tapes destroyed? “Oops gosh we’re sorry..”) to Clapper LYING and yet….what? NOTHING!
N-O-T-H-I-N-G!
We are “There”.
The “Transition” from Democratic Republic to Corporate Fascist State is complete.
Done!
Achieved!
TO pretend otherwise is to be in Deep Denial.. umm how shall I say..”Climate Change Denier Territory”..The Ignoring Of All Evidence!
There will be NOISE!
And That Is All There Will Ever Be!
For They Know…one ting For Certain..they are Completely Aware of this one FACT:
YOU..will NOT…stop PAYING their Salaries!
Literally “No Matter What They Do To You Or Your Freedom!”
Period!
This is now a foregone conclusion.
They know what you refuse to accept:
“Continued Payment = APPROVAL!”
So you pay!
You APPROVE!
As long as they continue to get every cent they Require..This…Will…Never…End!
Again…Period!
None of this is happening in a Vacuum.
This time its not really about “Ideology”..but rather its 100% about MONEY!
And that “Revenue Stream” is SECURE!
So its going to be just fine for CIA and the Criminals therein.
Just Fine!
But hey..Enjoy The Noise! After all..YOU’RE paying for it!
I am likely mistaken but I will hold out hope until our Congress has been neutered and journalists like Glenn, Laura, Jerry, Dan, Ryan, and others are silenced. There are now six million government employees. How did that happen on our watch?
Now Feinstein is speaking up? I guess because shes not on the inside on this one? She got burned and now is making it public as a retaliation….its comical really. She is a hypocrite. She will sit there and claim oversight over the intelligence agencies is sufficient and that the domestic surveillance is justified and legal but when she gets spied on directly, “oh whoa that’s violating the 4th amendment” hahaha what the hell? Where is that argument when the NSA is spying on the entire country!? Really disturbing to see her reaction
Or maybe the CIA could take Feinstien up about 5 miles and throw her out without a parachute.
You don’t know how close you are to certain truths.
At the risk of accidentally double posting due to the disappearing comment crap that happens here…
I submit, this battle isn’t about just about the Torture report. It’s about exposing the truth of what the CIA really is and has done in our name. And it AIN”T GONNA HAPPEN. JFK was living proof. Feinstien et all know it. And so does the CIA.
In reality, the day Truman signed the Central Intelligence Act of 1949 in WDC, this nation became something very different than the day before. Very few people understand the nature of this insidious law. Unless you read it in it’s entirety, you won’t understand what is happening this very minute between the Congressional Intelligence committee and the CIA, as this battle is a fight to expose the truth of what the CIA REALLY is and has done. Ain’t gonna happen. JFK was living proof.
After researching every single CIA director, I can honestly say the CIA is a criminal Cartel of unimaginable and unaccountable power. However, James Garrison , District Attorney of New Orleans, who tried to prosecute one of the conspirators in the coup d’etat of November 22, 1963, sums it up succinctly in a Playboy interview circa 1967…….
quote:
PLAYBOY: Many of the professional critics of the Warren Commission appear to be prompted by political motives: Those on the left are anxious to prove Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy within the establishment; and those on the right are eager to prove the assassination was an act of “the international Communist conspiracy.”
Where would you place yourself on the political spectrum — right, left of center?
GARRISON: That’s a question I’ve asked myself frequently, especially since this investigation started and I found myself in an incongruous and disillusioning battle with agencies of my own Government. I can’t just sit down and add up my political beliefs like a mathematical sum, but I think, in balance, I’d turn up somewhere around the middle. Over the years, I guess I’ve developed a somewhat conservative attitude — in the traditional libertarian sense of conservatism, as opposed to the thumbscrew-and-rack conservatism of the paramilitary right —particularly in regard to the importance of the individual as opposed to the state and the individual’s own responsibilities to humanity. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to formulate this into a coherent political philosophy, but at the root of my concern is the conviction that a human being is not a digit; he’s not a digit in regard to the state and he’s not a digit in the sense that he can ignore his fellow men and his obligations to society. I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau; I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there has haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession,I’ve always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets at a time when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I’m concerned about all of this because it isn’t a German phenomenon; it’s a human phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man. What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one of the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough,seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it’s based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we’ve built since 1945, the “military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions; and we’ve seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can’t spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can’t look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won’t be there. We won’t build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We’re not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn’t the test.The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same. I’ve learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the state and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I’ve always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government’s basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I’ve come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long onces aid, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America…
in the name of national security.”unquote
In the name of national security. Indeed. He predicted the United States of today…almost 50 years ago. Look around. While you may not agree… I’d submit he was dead on. I also submit we are on the verge of witnessing a fight of biblical proportions that will make Watergate and the Church Committee hearings look like a birthday party. I can hardly wait.
APPARENTLY ITS ONLY CONSIDERED A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS WHEN ITS WASHINGTON ROYALTY THATS BEING SPIED ON.
What are the chances we’ll see criminal charges come out of all this? A serious investigation would lead inevitably, ultimately, to Bush and Cheney and their gang of war criminals. So I would say the chances are slim to none. But it’s wonderful to see Feinstein get her knickers in a twist when it’s her computer being monitored.
The separation of powers, and our representative democracy as a whol,e are often compared to the tip of an iceberg, a misapprehension of the larger structure of power beneath. The so called Deep State. But its a bit of a paradox that this vast “industrial complex” requires the credibility of “the tip” in order to function as it does. Great power goes to great lengths to maintain the image of a genuine constituency, while undermining its actual manifestation at every turn. One of the more under appreciated aspects of the Snowden Effect, imo, is that week after week, the image of our constitutional republic has been forced into a kind of perpetual damage control. The regime of public relations, Edward Bernays’ America, has never had to work so damn hard, for such an extended period of time, on so many different levels. What the long term effects of this might be leaves me oddly hopeful, because it represents a legitimate tension where there used to be none. Tension leads to change. A data dump couldn’t accomplish this.
Well said. I find the ‘shoot the messenger’ meme with respect to Ms. Feinstein’s culpability to be a redherring, and this certainly isn’t about her own ox being gored, since government functions are supposed to be on behalf of the people. She didn’t have to stand on the tip of the iceberg; she has done so, as have others. I think it is smallminded indeed to take the position she is there to be attacked.
I like very much your statement that tension leads to change. Wasn’t that what we voted for way back?
” We the people are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts, not to overthrow the constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution. ”
Abraham Lincoln
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJZ1QJlcKjg
Oddly, dis-honest Abe was definitely into busting the US Constitution….strange quote from that bearded tyrant!
These Reps are the same ones who voted for The Patriot Act. The fools only represent themselves.
Agreed. Funny to hear Feinstein of all people yammering about 4th amendment rights. Seems they only matter when she thinks hers have been violated. And not that this is not a very important topic, it is. The timing of it all makes me wonder if it is not just more political theater for distraction.
Torture is not an issue. The conversation, “Tell where the WMD are else we kill you” One Hundred and ninety-seven cases of pre-meditated murder is the issue.
Where is the 197 from? A linky to that claim would be much appriciated
That’s the number of children killed by American drones in Afghanistan. Not a hard thing to google–try 197 murders.
It will be interesting to see how the CIA manages to discredit or “disappear” a U.S. Senator.
Will she suddenly fall ill? Have a mental collapse? This ought to be popcorn-worthy.
Maybe you raise a valid concern Cmolster
http://www.dcdave.com/article5/080406.htm
Good riddance, Dianne!
Imaginative juxtaposition with the Russia that is showing the US to the world to be the collapsing empire the US has been for several decades. Russian public media have consenting voices; ours has only rubber stamps.
Were it not for blogs like this one, we would have to go to Al Jazeera for news and respectable opinion all the time.
ANNOUNCER: … made possible by the Aventine HIll Charitable Trust. And viewers like you! Thank you!
GWEN IFILL: … the denunciation by Sen. Diana Feinstein of the Roman Intelligence Agency. For that story, we have the analysis of Livia Drusilla of the Plato Institute, and former consul Aemilius Sejanus of the Center for Strategic Studies. Welcome all.
LIVIA: Thank you, Gwen.
GWEN: So, this week, the commander of the Praetorian Guard is caught spying on the Roman Senate.
SEJANUS: It had to do with some RIA scrolls, a report Sen. Feinstein wanted, having to do with torture. Something about some crucifixions in Judaea. The RIA stalled the request while a third party contractor vetted the scrolls, and then it comes out that, inter alia, the RIA was spying on Sen. Feinstein’s committee scribes.
GWEN: Any other reactions in the Senate so far?
SEJANUS: Sen. Lucretia Graham broke a fingernail.
LIVIA: The details are still coming in. Certainly the question of “quis custodiet ipsos custodes” comes up; it’s a question of whether the watchdog has a master or is simply poking its nose into the Senate’s privy. Who’s the dog and who’s the master, now? “Cave canem.”
SEJANUS: “Carpe canem.”
GWEN: Or maybe certain Senators were worried about their personal privacy.
LIVIA: Plenty of Senators with a mistress or two or three of various genders, so they have plenty of reason to worry.
SEJANUS: Everybody knows that the Senators have their little amusements.
LIVIA: But they don’t want them out on Visagebook walls all over Rome, for plebeians to giggle at.
SEJANUS: The patrician class isn’t worried, yet. This is about the spies’ antics, nothing to do with banking misdeeds. So far.
LIVIA: Well, Tiberius did take it seriously enough to cancel his vacation at Capri and return to the capital to deal with the crisis.
SEJANUS: Yes, and there’s somebody whose love life on Capri might not stand up to RIA spying. What was this about the Emperor and that boys’ choir from Numidia?
GWEN: I don’t think it would be wise to look into that. And now for the latest on the economic situation, here is Paul Solmon in Achaea. Paul?
PAUL: Thank you, Gwen. The imperial governor in Athens, Pliny the Younger, has weighed in on the collapse of the Spartan Central Bank …
You are brilliant. Speaking from the vomitorium as I do, I can only say…. I hurl in your general direction.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.”
Of course he has confidence in them , been working for them since he was in College. They got him a sweet little gig golfing and playing basketbal and pretending to be president.
+100
I find it difficult to not believe that the multiple spy agencies are now in reality a shadow government. It’s too strange that nothing is done, at any level of the three branches of government, to rein them in, when there really is no question that Snowden documents reveal a spy apparatus clearly and plainly in total violation of the 4th Amendment, and attempting to violate the 1st Amendment. Yet nothing is done.
I can’t help but think that the NSA/CIA/FBI have some real dirt on the President. How else to explain how a candidate elected on a transparency/open government platform could turn 180 degrees and become a solid neocon? We may have lost our democracy. The maze may be too deep.
Agreed. Funny to hear Feinstein of all people yammering about 4th amendment rights. Seems they only matter when she thinks hers have been violated. And not that this is not a very important topic, it is. The timing of it all makes me wonder if it is not just more political theater for distraction.
He didn’t turn. He didn’t become someone other than who he is. He lied, said what he had to say to get elected, and you believed him. If you stop making excuses for the man you’d be able to see, behind the
guile, the president.
Why is Diane Feinstein bringing this up now? She has known that the CIA and NSA have been wiretapping God & everyone for more than a decade. They have to admit to snooping on congressional staff and representatives before she says a thing about what they talk about in the intelligence committee every day?!? Talk about placing personal good over public good.
Dianne Feinstein is warped and cloistered and walled off. A paraphrase of Kanye West’s statement about Bush would fit well about Feinstein: Dianne Feinstein doesn’t care about millions of ordinary people outside of her circle of millionaires and power mongers.
“It is right that Ms Feinstein should raise this. It is a huge issue, one that at the very least will see calls for Mr Brennan’s resignation. Her pursuit of the CIA is the fulfilment of her role as chair of the intelligence committee. It is what she should be doing, the monitoring of the spy agencies.
“The exasperation with Ms Feinstein is that she directs her sense of outrage only at the CIA. It seems restricted to issues that impact on her. She is outraged when the CIA allegedly hacked into her committee’s computers. She is upset over the alleged intrusion into the privacy of her own staff. And yet this is the same senator who could not empathise with Americans upset at the revelations in the Snowden documents of millions of citizens whose personal data has been accessed by the NSA. It is the same senator who could not share American anger over the revelation of the co-operation in surveillance of the giant tech companies, whether wittingly or unwittingly.”
the double life of Dianne Feinstein
My fellow Americans,
I know you are all upset about the recent revelations concerning the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Perhaps also you are concerned with the recently leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyat. I want to assure you all that I have your best interests, and I will never let you down.
Some of my fellow Americans have become cynical in the face of great challenges. They will say I haven’t closed Guantanamo, or even make up conspiracy theories about NDAA sections 1021 1022. Americans, I’m here for you.
Tomorrow I have Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk coming to visit the White House. Some will say that he is a member of a rump parliament without legitimacy. I say, Americans, let’s accept this great freedom fighter, like all the great freedom fighters we have accepted throughout our long and storied history.
And, finally… Live, from Sevastopol it’s Saturday Night Live!!!
CHINON CASTLE–Royal spokesperson Sir Jay Carney officially denied that King Henry II had anything to do with the unpleasantness at Canterbury Cathedral. “What His Majesty really said, was, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent heartburn.'” Meanwhile, at Canterbury, the Archdiocese announced that Thomas Becket was re-united.
-30-
I can’t help reading in a George Bush style for some reason. What is George doing these days?
Painting portraits of his dog Barney and Jay Leno.
Can you believe that the Obama, who proclaimed “Yes We Can” and gave us hope when running for president, is now so Evil as to make statements like this:
“White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.”
How did we get so “conned” that we voted a sociopath/psychopath to be our president? How did we? I ask forgiveness for voting for him.
Given our the option at the time I’m not sure we had a choice. I can’t even imagine if “he who must not be named” was in office. I shudder to think…
You don’t seem to understand that the game is rigged :)
Touche. I forgot. What was I thinking…
Right,
We have the right to vote for one of the two candidates the oligarchs will allow.
How did you get so “conned” by Obama the sociopath/psychopath/spy-state sycophant? By willful blindness and willful ignorance. By misplaced “white guilt” and a blind bet on affirmative action for the highest political office in the nation. By voting for an unknown and unvetted candidate whose predominant record before the Senate was to vote “present” rather than take sides on issues. A “constitutional professor” who is the only known editor of the Harvard Law Review who never wrote a scholarly law article for publication. That’s a start to how you got conned…
And the two alternatives, McCain and Romney, were worse. The USA! USA! USA! is in a world of hurt.
You could of voted for a third party like I did and will do again.
People really need to stop mentioning this ignorant concept of white guilt, I’m not buying it.
When was the last time we elected someone who was not a sociopath/psychopath?
1976.
Favorite snippet of the day, so far:
Obama battles to contain CIA-Senate feud
This is what Amnesty International said about Obama:
Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International called on the White House to publish the committee’s report. “President Obama, who has claimed to have the most transparent administration in history, should move immediately to declassify and release the report. Otherwise, the legacy of torture he inherited will become his own,” he said.
So true about Obama inheriting the legacy of torture and having it become his own!
Obama became complicit, both legally and morally, in the outrageous criminal misdeeds of the previous administration when he chose just days into his term to sneeringly defy the law by shielding and protecting the perpetrators of those crimes and preemptively obstructing any attempt to investigate or bring charges based on that criminal misconduct. See: “accessory after the fact” and “obstruction of justice”.
He did the very same thing with rewarding Wall Street’s banking & finance criminals with billions upon billions upon billions of public dollars for their gross incompetence, moral and fiscal, bringing on the permanent depression the end of which is no longer even anticipated.
I’m afraid “gross incompetence” does grave injustice to the reality. I think they are very “competent”, that isn’t the issue at all. In fact excusing their brazen crimes–probably the largest systemic frauds in human history–as incomptence distracts from the heinous criminality of those frauds. Wall Street is literally a den of thieves who happen to be tragically good at thievery.
Actually ordering drone strikes to carry out extrajudicial killings is kinda problematic, too, IMHO.
I spy with my little eye,
Di-Fi’s Wi-Fi gone awry.
How desparate the moment, if hope is placed in a party creature like Feinstein, to show Government Transparency.
From Miller’s Crossing :
Eddie Dane: Up is down, black is white.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100150/quotes
John Brennan, the current director of the CIA authorized the water boarding and tortue under President George Bush. He is covering up his crimes!
ARS/Technica provides the in depth explanation of Brennam’s staff deleting documents which the senate staffers had already examined and saved!
This is why he uses President Obama as a shield. Just like Clapper and Alexander.
Protecting these three criminal is Obama’s greatest failure.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/how-cia-snooped-on-senate-intel-committees-files/
Agreed. Protecting war criminals makes Obama an accessory.
Obama, as soon as he became president, gave all the government officials who authorized torture and those that did the torturing immunity forever – “We need to look forward, not backward”. He continues to protect the torturers in the CIA, WH, and DOJ and their repeated efforts (2010 – 2014) to subvert their Senate overseers and the Constitution. Obama repeatedly supports the CIA efforts to keep the Senate “Torture” report (6300 pages) from being released to the public. He is a “Judas” to the American public and to our Constitution.
In her speech today, DiFi claimed that “the White house has indicated publicly and to me personally that it supports declassification and release” of the committee report. I, and I imagine you as well, remain skeptical.
How could effective congressional oversight be undermined when practically none existed during Feinstein’s long, disgusting tenure? Complicity would be a much better term for her actions supporting the numerous unconstitutional activities our alphabet agencies have engaged in for more than the past decade. Nice to see her getting some of her own medicine though! Best they tear themselves apart before they totally destroy the country.
Ms. Goose, meet Ms. Gander; Ms Gander; Ms Goose , now will one of you please pass the sauce?
Can’t pass it; they are drinking it.
“… numerous Americans do not believe that Congress conducts appropriate oversight anymore. They have watched people like Feinstein herself and concluded that senators are far too willing to work with intelligence agency officials at the expense of challenging their abuses of authority and possibly illegal or criminal actions.
“With regards to the 6,300-page study that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) produced, let’s consider what the CIA has done. Personnel conducted searches of committee computers and a network. “This search,” according to Feinstein, “involved not only a search of documents provided to the committee but also a search of the standalone and walled off committee network drive containing the committee’s own internal work product and communications.””
Companion Piece by Kevin Gosztola
It’s ironic that Mrs. Feinstein takes exception to surveillance of her staff’s computers, but supports surveillance of the public’s computers. Perhaps this new perspective will cause a change of heart?
Somehow I doubt it.
I believe even an old dog can learn new tricks. I have. Her address in the Senate today gives me hope that she, after years of unconditionally supporting the CIA (and other national security agencies), finally reached her tipping point with the CIA. Her address today provided a detailed timeline of all the activities of the Senate Intelligence staff working on the “torture” report, and all the CIA delay, “hacking”, and interference with the Senate staffer’s authorized and lawful actions.
I am very pleased that her address was so detailed and comprehensive in addressing the CIA actions since 2009 when the Senate authorized “torture” report commenced. She makes clear that the CIA provided drafts of the Panetta report as part of the millions of pages given to the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers. The CIA wanted it back at any cost and were willing to subvert the Constitution to get it.
I hope all those implicated, especially Brennan and Eatinger, go to jail.
Isn’t it time that the American people started to openly and explicitly discuss revolution? Not just in principle, but actual tactics – and start information gathering, such as location of National Guard in each state, military locations, security of radio and TV stations (which will need to be seized) etc.
All that hot air on Capitol Hill is achieving nothing. Restart America using the constitution.
That is a dangerous, and slippery slope.
Have you seen how well that has worked out in the Ukraine?
Or Libya, or Iraq, or Egypt, or Algeria?
You can’t outrun a radio.
Or an email.
Or a cell phone.
Or a Drone.
Or a C-130.
You’ll only die tired.
There has to be an other way.
I guess you’re right. But the point is – when the Executive no longer has any respect for the Constitution, and there’s no prospect of that ever changing, how can America be steered back to the path envisaged by the Founding Fathers without revolution?
The path forward depends upon the Founding Fathers you envisage. Not sure I’d want to follow in the footsteps of Washington, Adams and Madison. Jefferson would be a little better if he wasn’t a slave owner, and Franklin would be a good tour guide for a day in Paris. Let’s contemplate what Lincoln stood for, or better yet Fredrick Douglas. Harriet Tubman has a great quote, and I am not sure if it is apocryphal, but it goes something like this “I freed a thousand slaves, and I would have freed a thousand more if they knew they were slaves.”
“It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government… Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital… Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Abraham Lincoln
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/lincoln-congress-speech-_b_1127058.html
Brian Jones: Karl Marx and the US Civil War:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzhPhMuKJq8
America no longer believes those words of Lincoln. Witness how adamantly even the poor middle class fights to preserve the privilege of the rich, which is primarily to treat human beings as any other commodity, to be gotten for the cheapest price, and discarded when no longer useful.
It’s not about the constitutions on per se………
IT IS about the BILL of RIGHTS without which the constitution would be nothing but scrap paper……
@DC … I Agree with @CitizenSane. 100%. I would add that, IMHO I think your suggestions are inflammatory and incite emotions that are unwelcome here. No one needs an invitation to accusations of treason and violence. And no one has suggested it the way you have done so.
Please don’t inject that kind of language or suggestion into the conversation. This is not Blackwater. The vigilantism that exists here has been very civil. There are enough people trying discredit and challenge all the excellent work being done by The Intercept. Your suggestions are the last thing we need. So I’m asking as nicely as I know how – please don’t infect the dialogue of the positive community we have here with that kind of talk. You won’t find it here.
There is another way: “Everybody All At Once”. See, NotTwoIsPeace.com
Great Wisdom on a non-violent solution.
I wouldn’t worry about that. The US doesn’t have NED funding or a US embassy.
Its never been about revolution, Just paying attention to who you vote for. Encouraging your friends and family to do even a little research before going to the polls. For me personally I get a list, research some of the issues and check off my choices before I get there. The largest issue in our democracy is that we let the money spent on an issue decide the outcome.
We don’t have elections…..
We have…”selections”…..
Within a duopoly…….
I know we are a republic……
But, we are supposed to have “democratic processes”……
Which we do not have “anymore”…..
We have and have had a creeping kind of “friendly fascism” (a book incidentally ) since passage of NSA 68 in 1948……
A must read…..is the Church Commission Report….1976………
You can keep beating your head thru the voting system, but eventually the way our political/military/industrial/spy system is going you will be forced to “take to the streets”….
Why do you think most all the states/municipalities have equipped themselves with so much firepower?????
“Brennan, in remarks at a Council on Foreign Relations, said the CIA wants to put the torture controversy behind it. “Even as we learn from the past, we must also be able to put the past behind us.””
The report hasn’t even been released to the public and he’s already downplaying the noise? “Move along folks – nothin’ to see here. Go Home.” Meanwhile in Congress, Diane would like an apology and acknowledgement of guilt. News at 11.
WTF is this fuckery? Srsly – the winds of global horror and outrage haven’t turned a single blade on the fan of shit that’s about to blow — and they’re ready to change the subject. The level of arrogance is truly astonishing.
Has anyone else noticed how they willy-nilly inject the word “TERROR” in caps lock at every time press conference whenever there’s a inter/national tragedy — yet they completely fail to apply the same concept to themselves. Have they ever known terror? I would think if I were in this position I would be terrified for my family and their future. But they’re only using reverse psychology on themselves to try and dumb folks down. When it’s unknown it’s TERROR – when it’s known is business-as-usual. Honestly – if I were those guys – I’d be lining up for a lifetime supply of colostomy bags. I’d hate to be locked up after facing war-crime tribunals. That’s a life sentence that would require doubled up diapers at the bare minimum – just to prepare me for the inevitable grim reaper. That’s a lifetime to imagine the hell fires they’ll face after a very uncomfortable sit down. And suicide would only hasten the barbeque. that’s – real – terror – ….
John Brennan.
Just the mention of his name gives me a visceral reaction.
All I can think of, when I hear his name, is Niccolo Machiavelli.
John Brennan is the Original Dark Prince.
I believe he is evil personified.
PS-
TERROR is their favorite word.
Their all purpose catch phrase.
Their go to source for increased funding.
It worked for the Fadderland, when developing the Department of Homeland In-security.
It worked for their gawd-damned Patriot Act.
These sorry sumbitches have to be check mated.
I know, right? And their illusion of “worst-case-scenario” is charming compared to the one running on a loop in my head. Word to the wise … DON’T piss off the red-head! It’s the color of fire for a reason. I’ve prayed to my God that they suffer, for even one day, the damnation I’ve been stoking -just for them- in MY raging inferno hell hole. And my WCS kicks their WCS’s ass from here to high heaven and back again!
Justice will be served one way or another. And I have the patience of a saint just to sit here and … Wait. For. It. ….
Release the report…with an addendum, exactly who ordered the torture and came up with the idea of American gulags in the first place. They might also add that senior officials from the Bush administration were making the rounds of the hedge funds (heavily invested in the defense industry) in December 2002 and giving them a start date for the Iraq war. They might want to add who made millions and billions. From what I hear Feinstein’s husband is on this list. Did this blood soaked monster suddenly find God (and outrage) that a report was being suppressed. Gee compared to the NSA running a worldwide surveillance operation that includes psychological operations against US targets (totally illegal) which was kept out of the worldwide press, spying on Angry Birds (profiling children) and the Yahoo chat naked pictures in your bedroom… that barely made the news.
When is the last time anyone did an internal review and produced a report at NSA (No Such Agency)? Oh, only after the president discovered he was consistently be lied to. I bet no member of Congress or their staffers have ever stepped foot inside Ft. Meade, let alone read internal reports. Feinstein is working for someone and it’s the man behind the curtain.
It’s Fronkenstein
Seriously.
I didn’t know she was eighty years old.
All I can do when I look at her, is shake my head, and mutter “Bless her little ol’ heart………….”
Until today, I was ashamed that I voted for her. She is eighty, older than me, but she delivered her 40-minute address to the Senate more passionately and pointedly than a Senator 1/2 her age. I was and am impressed. She did Good.
I anxiously await the next chapter of this Constitutional crisis caused by the CIA unlawful spying on the Legislative Branch of our government.
You can demonstrate you support for Mr. Snowden. Requirements only include your name, e-mail address, and zip code. (About 1700 people signed within the last 24 hours)
‘President Obama: Grant Edward Snowden Immunity Now’
46,358 people support this campaign. Help us get to 50,000!
https://www.aclu.org/secure/grant_snowden_immunity?ms=web_acluaction_131217_carousel
46,415.
Come on, folks.
You can also go to the Free Snowden site and donate to his defense fund.
https://freesnowden.is
Pardon my cynicism, but Feinstein’s tantrum – about her not being actually ‘in the loop’ of power but being just a highly recompensed but lowly pawn – is hardly helpful, even if she is (for now) off-script.
She will be either back on script or just shut up soon, but certainly the vapid status quo will resume shortly.
The point in truth is simply that the US tortured people, and should be held legally accountable for its atrocities. But to whom? The government IS every department from the actors to the overseers. It is, like voting, a rigged game.
The fact that people even begin hoping Feinstein would ever be truly patriotic and noble at any point is an indication of how low the bar is now set in parts of the anti-establishment mindset. The hideous behavior of the US is documented already. This bizarreness just stretches out the illusion that true accountability is really our nation’s wish at all.
If I remember correctly, wasn’t Michael Hasting investigating John Brennan before he was killed in a car crash?
Yes, he was.
But the official comment on that is “Look Squirrel………!”
In times of trial and tribulation,
it is easy to become despondent.
Don’t despair!
Ask Zelda.
Zelda, what do you think about this current clusterphuck?
Dear @Citizen,
Even I, the legend that once was, see the stark handwriting on the wall. Pink slips are scheduled. Additional lay offs are imminent. This is my last post. The time of taking names and cracking skulls is now. Run for the hills!
Or if you want to retain any measure of self-esteem whatsoever – why don’t you try whistle-blowing your way out of the situation. Only our government and ignorant, enslaved sheeple will call you a turncoat. You might be separated from your entire family, friends, loved ones – but you’ll either live abroad … or in a jail cell … or both, perhaps indefinitely. But either way – Self-Loathing is a different, unparalleled type of prison. There is no escape. Not even in suicide. Not even in death. The terror is crippling.
Whatever you decide – do your family a favor. Do this for them. Don’t your parents, spouses, siblings, extended families – and your children – deserve to be left with a little dignity and pride? Lead by example. Leave a lasting legacy of your ancestors some measure of pride. Honor your good name. After all, they had to die so you could live.
Let your conscience be your guide. Just do the right thing … for you and for them. Then suffer the whatever fate or wrath that may fall down upon them … and you.
Control {Alt} Delete,
Zelda
As I swivel my head and look around at the current State of the Union, I am at a loss for words.
Ridicule is my normal default position, but it now goes stronger with each passing day.
CONTEMPT is probably the best word to describe what I think of ALL of THEM.
Everyone is talking about John Brennan and there have been a couple of references regarding the CFR. That is the thread that needs tugged on. Grasp it and pull firmly. You’d be surprised what will unravel.
“Ridicule is my normal default position, but it now goes stronger with each passing day.”
Yes, we understand your growing passion for understanding your own capacity to change that which effects not only the protection of your family, but your place in the universe at large. You are not alone.
My place in the universe at large?
Don’t you know?
Haven’t they let you in on the joke?
Everyone here on earth, every being?
We are the science experiment of a fifth grader from a far off galaxy……….
I understand that one person, even the “leader of the free world”, can’t be expected to captain a fleet who vessels are spread as far and wide as ours are. However, in asking for our help and support he has said many times “you will have to push me”, “you will have to make me do it”. Originally, all of us thought that was a plea, an invitation to participate in a democracy. As it turns out, he was actually throwing down the gauntlet.
Many have reached out to him over the past 5 years and his response on every occasion has been to arrest and prosecute, slander and undermine, ignore and marginalize.
Right on Chris, best analysis of Obama’s behavior I have seen in so few words.
@Chris … your words are perfectly expressed. I couldn’t agree more.
You know when the head of the CIA can’t even bothered to reply or apologize for the sake of PR that he considers himself and his department above the law.
Apologies amount to admissions … they can’t afford to be sorry at this stage of the game. Like those times when my mother used to say, “We can do this the easy way – or the hard way. Your choice” … I’d prefer the easy way. But it’s never. gunna. happen.
I don’t understand the new found sympathy for Feinstein and the rest of congress. They have signed off on the shredding of the constitution over the past decade but suddenly they are concerned about separation of powers and your’re wringing your hands with them?
If there is to be any hope for Congress — if there is to be even a remote possibility for it to move beyond its current rubber-stamp status and to function as an actual legislature, it is incumbent upon those who desire that outcome to support members of that body when they show signs of awakening, of growing spines, etc.
It has nothing to do with sympathy; it has to do, rather, with understanding how politics works in a multi-polar reality.
Letting decades long liars such as Feinstein off the hook just because they had their nose rubbed in their own stool isn’t “understanding how politics works.” Feinstein’s whining and whaling don’t change or alter the reality of what a monstrous tool she has been, still is, and will continue being as long as she holds power. Greenwald, for example, in spite of the fact that Feinstein’s case is solid about the CIA in her complaints, isn’t showing any “sympathy” or “support” for Feinstein on his twitter feed. He is mocking her relentlessly. I’m down with that!
Where did you see that proposed? Straw man or reading comprehension problem?
@Doug … “Where did you see that proposed? ”
I actually agree with @Kitt. It’s never been “proposed” – it’s been granted during back-door deals and legislated into loopholes. TARP? Whose heads rolled? Clapper lying to congress and DiFi herself? Getting off SCOTT FREE and keeping his job and pension???
None of it is ever “proposed” … It didn’t have to be – it’s been grandfathered into their entire Deep State shenanigans. They all protect each other and no one gets hurt – except us. I’d say that qualifies as “off the hook” by any estimation.
In fact, I hope this is only the tip of the iceberg. I mean maybe the CIA will start killing them off with anthrax or something.
Damn… even for me that’s pretty dark humor! But I still laughed.
Dark humor?
It would be hilariously high drama, if they all started killing each other off.
Started by a NSA computer algorithm………..
YOU KNOW WHAT @Citizen??? There’s been a little door I was too embarrassed (or whatever) to open on the subject of algorithms. Conspiracy theories aside – and logically speaking – you made me wonder about the days following 9/11. There were a lot of people talking about Web Bot predictions and the algorithms. When the Snowden case broke – and I knew for sure about the mass data collections – I wondered if there was a correlation. With either the the folks at Web Bot or as inspiration to try and reverse-engineer something similar. They also sell their predictions. Is their any merit to my line of thought?
Watergate was a violation of the tacit rule that you don’t spy on other elites. (No one would have cared if Nixon was bugging the Socialist Party HQ.) Merkel got upset when her own email accounts were invaded, after initially dismissing US NSA activities. Feinstein is pissed because it happened to her–she doesn’t like being targeted, probably thinks she is above the fray. I don’t think her response indicates any great moral turnaround, but maybe we, the public, can nevertheless spur her annoyance toward CIA unconstitutional activities into action. It remains to be seen what she will do, and whether this response is anything but rhetoric.
Now if we can unearth a memo about how the CIA has been spying on the POTUS, maybe Obama will be annoyed enough to actually do something about it. Probably a vain hope, tho.
@PC … “Now if we can unearth a memo about how the CIA has been spying on the POTUS, maybe Obama will be annoyed enough to actually do something about it.”
I would assume that any president has an understanding that anything they do would never be private. And that it’s part of the deal. Anyway – the way Obama has been handing out brass knuckles to the NSA I can’t imagine he’d do anything about CIA spying. Hate to dash your hopes… but he’s no American hero. How pitiful – he had such promise and I believed in him. FWIW – given the options I think we probably got the lesser of the evils – but that’s not even saying much. His legacy is a done deal.
Well, Larry, in the end, it’s the number of votes that count.
It’s on par with voicing support for Jim Sensenbreener’s effort to repeal the Patriot Act. There is no overriding need to agree with his political stance on any other issue, and we should honour that fact that he can elicit support from a wider range of people.
While DiFi will always have a credibility gap, we can appreciate the special character of having her lead the charge.
Inarticulate, with all due respect, it is not the number of vortes that count.
To paraphrase Uncle Josef Stalin, “It is the person counting the vote that counts.”
Anyone that still thinks our problems can be fixed by “voting,” or frankly by any iterative means, is lost, and is part of the problem, and should get out of the way.
She only takes exception when she’s not the one doing the shredding…
By the way,Nate:
“Corroborating a remark made by her committee colleague Mark Udall last week, Feinstein said the White House had been aware of the obstruction since 2010, but did not approve of it.”> href=”http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/cia-intelligence-committee-senate-crisis”>–Spencer Ackerman
The link I meant to put in preceding comment:
“Corroborating a remark made by her committee colleague Mark Udall last week, Feinstein said the White House had been aware of the obstruction since 2010, but did not approve of it.–Spencer Ackerman
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/cia-intelligence-committee-senate-crisis
Kitt – your analysis is not only wrong, but easily verifiable.
So we do know that the White House knew about the first instance. Did they stop it?
According to Feinstein’s actual testimony from today:
Followed by:
This sure sounds like an effort to stop it to me.
Further down:
So once the first instance occurred, not only did the Obama administration find out but it instructed the CIA to stop this. But the CIA later ignored that and violated the “White House assurances” as Feinstein said.
Therefore, all you have managed to do was prove my point was indeed correct! LOL, thanks. I’m glad my skepticism paid off.
P.S. your own linked article above doesn’t even draw this conclusion.
Assurances are nothing but patting on the head. No evidence that Obama ever ordered anyone at CIA to adjust its behavior in accord with his nice assurances.
Since the same behavior was repeated, it is probable that Obama gave no such order.
Would you have preferred Obama materialize out of thin air once the CIA defied the WH assurances and again monitored the SSCI workstations? maybe doing some ninja moves before disarming and arresting the perpetrators?
Yes, I would have preferred that as well but that doesn’t make the statement that Obama did nothing to stop the CIA’s snooping any more true.
And what evidence do you want? Unless the CIA or WH denies such a meeting occurred, I’m going with her word.
@Nate – Your comment that I quoted can be seen above, so I won’t re-quote it. You were wrong about “nobdy” said Obama knew but didn’t stop it. Udall said Obama knew, Feinstein said Obama knew. And, as Mona posted in regards to “assurances,” basically, with this corrupt gang assurances give you what, exactly? Nothing. You actually think it’s funny that you said they stopped it, when they did no such thing? I don’t see any humor it that.
Oh Kitt – way to cherry pick a single word out of my quote, thereby decontextualizing it and assessing just a piece. You cannot just ignore what would have been the most controversial part: I.e that Obama did nothing to stop it.
And unlike last week when this broke, we did not know there had been two instances. Convenient for you to ignore! And worse, you are now trying to hide behind some illogical literal interpretation, implying that Obama should have actually stopped the CIA from surveilling the SSCI. If only Obama were omnipresent – dammit Obama!! I don’t care if you told them not to do it, you should have made it impossible.
All this to mask the real discussion from March 5 (that I refuted) that claimed Obama knew about the CIA surveillance but did nothing to stop it.
Again, I appreciate your fact checking of my comments, but my skepticism of that guy’s claim was correct, and you are wrong.
Lastly, as I said before – your own link doesn’t support your conclusion. Don’t forget to gloss over that again in your next response.
As both Udall and Feinstein have said, Obama knew about it and he didn’t stop it. That doesn’t read like, “Who said Obama knew about it and didn’t stop it? That’s right – Nobody!”
It’s as simple as that. No nuance or “cherry picking” needed. If you want to pretend that Feinstein saying that Obama supposedly made “assurances” solves your dilemma and wins you some kind of word exchange game, you’re easily comforted by your duplicity.
Kitt – if what you say is the case, shouldn’t Obama’s supposed failure to act also be plastered across the news!? How utterly odd that it isn’t. I wonder why!!!
That’s nice. I, too, trust DiFi when she says Obama gave her some pretty words constituting “assurances.”
What I don’t see any evidence for, however, is that Obama acted on those assurances. That the CIA continued to misbehave is some evidence that he did not.
Do you even have a point!? What type of action should Obama have taken other than what occurred? If your boss says stop doing something and you ignore him, the boss is usually not the problem.
Unless Obama lets them get away with it. That will be determined down the road. I expect nothing less than Obama to accept the resignation of Brennan in the next month. If he doesn’t do so, then I’ll cast my stones as well. Until then, you and Kitt don’t know wtf you are talking about.
Okay, well, good luck. This is what we have from Obama so far: “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.” Super encouraging!
So, assuming arguendo that at least some senators WANT to do something about this, what CAN they do? Refer it all to Justice and let Eric Holder sort it out? Yeah, no. Hold some CIA officials in contempt? What, 72 hours in a Capitol Hill cell and then free to live their lives? Seriously, what’s an endgame in all this in which the responsible people receive at least something approaching proportionate punishment?
Because I’m not seeing one.
Although Senators cannot start impeachment proceedings against a cabinet member, they can introduce a Senate resolution urging the House to start impeachment hearings.
That act would get some attention.
“We are supposed to be the conscience of the nation”
Whatever.
More from her transcript:
“I went up to the White House to raise this issue with the then-White House Counsel, in May 2010. He recognized the severity of the situation, and the grave implications of Executive Branch personnel interfering with an official congressional investigation. The matter was resolved with a renewed commitment from the White House Counsel, and the CIA, that there would be no further unauthorized access to the committee’s network or removal of access to CIA documents already provided to the committee.”
So, she confronted the OWH and the Company with this in 2010 and they promised to stop it. And didn’t. What’s more, they were even then going into the Committee’s files on the investigation and removing documents they’d handed over. Contempt of Congress? or withholding evidence? I’m sure no committee likes its investigation material deleted by the investigatee. and she is charging violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 USC 1030, a criminal law, the very law used against Aaron Swartz).
https://www.eff.org/issues/cfaa
“Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee’s computers. The CIA has still not asked the committee any questions about how the committee acquired the Panetta Review. In place of asking any questions, the CIA’s unauthorized search of the committee computers was followed by an allegation—which we have now seen repeated anonymously in the press—that the committee staff had somehow obtained the document through unauthorized or criminal means, perhaps to include hacking into the CIA’s computer network.”
So they not only roto-tilled her archives, but then started making selective leaks of their own to the press. “Repeated anonymously”.
Troubling, when you think about it, this connection to Aaron Swartz. I wonder if Dianne was aware of this coincidence?
Dear CIA Agent sitting safely at your desk reading this column and the comments,
Maybe you were directly involved in the CIA’s torture program, or maybe you were only on the periphery, or maybe you’d only heard rumors and mumblings. Maybe you fear your own precarious position, maybe you have a growing sense of disgust, or maybe you feel both sentiments. Maybe you’re feeling paralyzed at the same time you feel compelled to act. Leak the torture report.
Maybe you feel a growing sense of dissociation from your leadership. Maybe you’re feeling disloyal for your sense of the agency’s tarnished honor. Maybe you’re feeling disenchanted with the agency’s mission. Or, maybe you still feel loyal to your agency, your colleagues, and your mission at the same time you have a profound sense of regret for the near history now chasing the agency like a ghost that will not rest. Leak the torture report.
Maybe you hope this will all die away, that some other scandal will come to occupy the media and public’s attention. That these troubled waters will still, ebb, and float out to sea. You know that won’t happen but you hope anyway, that your integrity and loyalty will not be tested. The the opportunity will be lost if you just wait and are patient. But, what if it doesn’t? Leak the torture report.
What if someone else takes the initiative and is absolved, or given immunity, at the same time that you dither indecisively? What if that immunity could have been yours? But you let the opportunity slip away. And, even if all remain silent and resist the opportunity for a chance at “safe harbor,” what about that little voice that nags you now… that little voice that will follow you for the rest of your days. That little voice that will appear suddenly when you think you’ve banished it for good? Whispering. Endlessly whispering that you should have done the right thing when you had the chance. Leak the torture report.
So, get it over with CIA Agent reading safely at your desk. Someone is quite likely to be a hero. Why can’t it be you? Why shouldn’t it be you?
Tally-Ho!
@TALLY-HO!!! I was actually cheering you on. Hi-5!!! It’s the perfect challenge for good people, of whom are many, to stand up and do the right thing. Or circling the wagon around an ever losing battle. (Talk about terror!!!) And I honestly believe that they would also feel better about themselves and their purpose of life.
I know this is OT – but I personally would like to thank you. I am a prayer. I’ve had many interesting conversations with atheists. We’ve always left the table fair and square. It’s taught me a lot. While I tend to pray that the truly responsible parties’ lies are caught and exposed, and justice is served – you have demonstrated, for me, how that conversation might carry on in the mind of a truly good person who isn’t a believer, or who has lost their faith, and who has made a mistake and wants to correct it – not even for themselves. Whatever. Regret after-the-fact and death bed confessions are just not good enough after you get caught. There is still nobility in being wrong or an accomplice (wittingly or not) and admitting it just to try and make it right. This taught me A LOT. Thank you for putting it the way that you did.
That was beautiful Tally!
Splendid, THG. And maybe we can dedicate this one to agent HGW XX/7, in gratitude.
Courage is contagious. Leak the torture report.
As always, good job.
If not the CIA, then I hope it at least inspires someone fro the NSA, whom we know is reading along.
Nicely put. But as we know, of the tens of thousands at the NSA and their contractors, only one very brave individual stood up for truth, justice and the American way, and is getting pummeled for it by the Feinsteins and Obamas of the political elite (and Dems wonder why I don’t vote Dem anymore). And others have been persecuted and gone to jail (John Kiriakou of the CIA) for doing exactly what you are calling for TallyHo. It will be the rare individual indeed who steps up.
“Brennan, in remarks at a Council on Foreign Relations, said the CIA wants to put the torture controversy behind it. “Even as we learn from the past, we must also be able to put the past behind us.”
Jan/2009-OBAMA: “We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. … My orientation is going to be moving forward.”*
Monday,Torture: look forward not back. Tuesday, Wall Street fraud: Look forward not back. Wednesday, CIA misconduct, look forward not back…The notion of “Look Forward not Back” as quoted from the annual Groundhog Day press hand out is a marvel of efficiency and economy just fill in the blank daily as needed.
*http://thinkprogress.org/security/2009/01/11/34654/obama-special-prosecutor-torture/#
With all that looking forward, not back, I’ll bet Obama is a terrible parallel parker.
I’m sure with a little digging, we can find an impeachable offense.
Fingers crossed it’s criminal enough to stand a tribunal and sentencing. Throw the book at him and let it not have Shrugged in it’s title. I’m ready for a little old school justice to be served on an engraved silver platter and spoon fed to them all with a matching ladles!
It’s remarkable just how sanctimonious people can suddenly become when the crows land in their own back yard. Feinstein, who has been the No. 1 cheerleader and apologist for the intelligence community, all of a sudden gets a clue.
Nah, She just realizes that they have all her skeletons for blackmail. She’s their bitch for life.
As much as I look forward to the public slap-fight between the Surveillance State and its formerly loyal Congressional enablers, does anyone really foresee anything useful coming from it beyond entertainment value?
No.
On a related topic. What about the Stasi Zersetzung-like stalking tactics that are being used on everyday US citizens to drive targets to suicide or to discredit? What about the use of covert weapons being used on the same targets inside their own homes to torture and deny sleep? This is also a form of torture/murder, it’s just covert and if you try to speak out against it they will viciously discredit you as “mentally ill”. You know those cute little “tin foil hat” phrases that were spread all over the internet and through youtube comments sections? Guess who that was.
I’m sure they used the same “you’re crazy” tactics on victims of cointelpro, mkultra, and NSA surveillance, that is until the documents were leaked proving it was really happening. Would the average citizen have believed that ANY of those types of activities were truly being done by our intelligence agencies against our own people? The answer is no. Even with the documents to back it up, some people still refuse to believe it, or rather choose to believe the propaganda that it’s only being used against “terrorists”. When can ALL the victims of US government sponsored torture finally get some peace in their lives?
What a beautiful world it could be if some hackers could grab a cache of criminal evidence and jam the American peoples’ fist up the asses of the executive branch and the legislative branch for a turn of the tables.
Hackers, federal employee turn coats, military (active duty or veteran) … Hell, it wouldn’t even matter if they were American or not. Just one more good person. Let the dominos land where they may.
“But torture has been the exception for Feinstein…”
I would ask you to consider, Mr. Dan, it’s an issue she instead wanted buried back in 2007.
https://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071106_a_vote_for_mukasey_is_a_vote_for_torture.
It could just be a dog and pony show for the public. I won’t hazard a guess which is which though, and I also won’t be surprised if OUR country learns very little after all this time and nobody is ever held accountable.
Oh nice, a link to a “guilt by association” article!
Here’s how it goes: Mukasey didn’t acknowledge (nor did he deny) that waterboarding is torture. Feinstein votes for Mukasey’s appointment to AG, and therefore the article’s conclusion is that she not only “voted for torture,” but according to NFJTAKFA, it was an “issue she instead wanted buried back in 2007.”
Keep up the good work.
Like Jeremy Scahill I have difficulty splitting a frog’s hair for any members of the “War Party.” When they quit being that and pass any legislation curtailing military imperialism or especially the excessive abuses of so-called intelligance agencies following no country’s Rule of Law, including OURS, I might believe they’re even slightly thoughtful about oaths taken.
Keep up the weak trolling.
I read this as meaning that you have abandoned all hope that “our” Congress can or will act in a meaningful or useful manner. That may very well be a reasonable conclusion to reach, but is also a conclusion suggesting that all efforts to reform the system “from within” are, ipso facto hopeless.
If that’s the case, one might more profitably focus on emigration, secession or revolution than on these irrelevant proceedings of our corrupt governments, no?
Apologies for the delay, off fixing and eating dinner. Big salad night…
Perhaps your read was a stretch that created some of it’s own meaning / conclusion, especially concerning my supposedly feeling hopeless whether any reform is still possible. I’ll also just politely bypass your suggested solutions that seems to include somehow, “profitably focusing on revolution?” One might likewise choose to read that as meaning all sorts of things.
“They” were very specifically a reference to the War Party members of Congress (as recently defined by Scahill, includes both sides of the isle) that write endless blank checks for a very offensive defense department – while also declining to provide a shred of worthwhile civilian oversight. I have little forgivness for longtime lawmakers only becoming concerned for their laws and military funding when some little agency overreach begins negatively affecting them. I neither believe every member of Congress is War Party or that all hope is lost. But I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t think ‘most’ are corrupted by the thousand different lobbyists’ bundled campaign contributions, delivered almost daily from one or another industry / business sector seeking favorable law.
And Senator Feinstein’s voting record, like all public servants, speaks for itself.
Peace
Says the person who ignores my legimitate and direct criticism of his claim and then starts spewing off about something totally irrelevant. I’m no troll; in fact you should be happy that somebody actually listened to your point, read your article and took the time to refute it. You owe me one :)
Americans fight for their rights and spread the light, Europeans sit and wait. It is not that simple I know. I learn a lot and do not yet know wherefore. Maybe it does not matter at all, maybe it does. Let´s hope it is not the last CIA story on Intercept. I love Win Win solutions.
Not me. Where torture is concerned, I’m fine with Old Testament justice. Screw win-win.
@Lex … Preachin’ to the choir! Amen and Hellelujah!!!
“If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to insure than an un-American, brutal program in interrogation and distension will never again be permitted.”
If these clowns – playing the part of US Senators – were serious they’d read their report into the congressional record. Unlike Edward Snowden, they are protected by the words of our Constitution itself. I hope that everyone in our country is noting the difference between an individual of conscience and flock of Senatorial sheep. Unlike Edward Snowden … the senators are cowards and insincere.
John Brennan runs Barack Obama and Whitehouse. He and the CIA have just made a bid for the legislative branch too. Barack Obama has obediently backed the CIA. What we’re watching is a coup attempt by the CIA.
Kill the CIA and jail Brennan, That is the only way to resolve this crisis and to begin to reclaim our government.
I recently wrote a letter to Senator Feinstein about super surveillance. I recently got an e-mail from her office assuring me that the US government does not spy on its citizens. I hope her form letter now will be more truthful: yes; it certainly spies on all of us! If you are reading this, know that your defense of super surveillance reeks to high heaven. While you’re investigating torture, start investigating other war crimes & crimes against humanity beginning with the Bush II administration: invasion of a sovereign nation with one million Iraqi dead, maimed or missing, extrajudicial executions by drone with terrible collateral damages, extraordinary rendition to black hole prison sites that routinely use torture, suppression of freedom of the press, suspension of habeas corpus, the extraordinary, unconstitutional power grab by the executive branch, the elevation of president to divine right monarch with power to kill anyone, anywhere, secret courts, secret laws. You won’t have to dig very deep, Senator Feinstein. Most of us have known these facts for quite some time.
Senator Wyden pisses me off:
As he could have done w/ many of the Snowden documents, Wyden could simply read the Torture Report into the congressional record, as Sen. Mike Gravel did w/ the Pentagon papers over four decades ago. For that matter, DiFi could also do that (I know: snowballs in hell).
The public is entitled to learn the details of an American torture regimen. It shouldn’t take someone with the balls of Manning or Snowden to release information to which citizens of a democracy are entitled.
Senators have the constitutional privilege of immunity for remarks made on the floor of Congress. Yes, it is still risky, but any actual patriot would do it.
Wyden was one of the few that at least tried to warn everyone about the level of spying that was being done to us all. Most everyone else said nothing at all.
This is even less of a “risk” to any Senator who would read it into the record than the information that Wyden spent years hinting about that Snowden finally released, because it all has been compacted into a report by the Senate for the explicit purpose of releasing to the public.
Human Rights Watch shames Wyden, Feinstein, Udall and everyone else who is in a position to release this report from the floor of the Senate, if not just outright release it.
Release the Senate Torture Report
This, from the transcript of her speech:
“While we viewed this as unnecessary and raised concerns that it would delay our investigation, the CIA hired a team of outside contractors—who otherwise would not have had access to these sensitive documents—to read, multiple times, each of the 6.2 million pages of documents produced, before providing them to fully-cleared committee staff conducting the committee’s oversight work. This proved to be a slow and very expensive process.”
Outside contractors? Who otherwise would not have had access? So the CIA wasn’t just messing with her committee but delegating the documents review to a third party who didn’t have the right access or clearance to begin with? “So, Mr. Chairman, they wouldn’t share it with my committee but did share it with Boozy Malice Madison over in Silver Spring.”
And — didn’t we have some problem with another intel contractor and one of their employees named, Edmund Snowstorm or something like that?
Thank you coram.
I have been disturbed by this bit since I first saw the story in the NYT. The very last paragraph mentioned that the docs were reviewed by a contractor. They weren’t specific that it was an outside vendor so I assumed it was a contractor who was already (still?) employed by CIA and that might be mentioned in the docs. Somehow, they managed to make even that scenario seem ‘least worst’. :-s
Agreed @coram and @Pedinska … they’re doing the same thing with TPP. Written by lobbyists and special interest. Not allowing any public scrutiny whatsoever. Restrictions limiting powers by governments but granting them all to corporations. Once they all signed off it was a done deal. Even the senate committee in charge of itself entirely blocked from seeing the legislation while it was being fast tracked by the WH – but hundreds of individuals from outside “special interests” had full access while it was being drafted and negotiated!?! I’d just like to know when and where the boys club met? Bohemian Grove? Bilderberg? Palm Springs? How do you even GET that kind of power, influence, and control at these levels? (That last part is rhetorical of course)
“White House spokesman Jay Carney, meanwhile, said “The president has great confidence in John Brennan and confidence in our intelligence community and in our professionals at the CIA.””
In other words, yea don’t worry about congress. They’ll pretend to be mad for a few days and we’ll secretly tell them about some terror threat or something and this will all blow over.
Isn’t this the very Senator who was defending NSA spying? Well, Senator…how does it feel when the shoe is on the other foot? It is OK to spy on average citizens world-wide but don’t dare touch Senators. What a bunch of shameless hypocrites.
Yes, so funny to see her all in a snitt when she (or her committee) is the victim. And at this point she is only going after the scalp of the CIA, not her precious NSA. But this may be an indication that leading politicians now believe public opinion has turned and the politically wise approach is to demand openness and accountability. Wyden and Udall may not be so lonely any more in their calls for reform. A thousand thanks to Edward Snowden!
If the media ignore this one then it will pretty much confirm every conspiracy theory about the CIA secertly running the government. Anyone remember this charming episode?
“When The New York Times took on Barack Obama in an op-ed last year, the paper called out the president for relying on Hollywood to help boost his image — only, however, after delivering a draft of the diatribe to the CIA before firing up the presses. …Now it’s been discovered that, even before Dowd’s final draft was published in the Times, Mazzetti made sure a copy was sent to a CIA spokeswoman named Marie Harf.
In an email dated August 5, 2011, Mazzetti forwards a copy of the op-ed before it was published, adding, “this didn’t come from me… and please delete after you read.See, nothing to worry about!” ”
http://rt.com/usa/cia-new-obama-dowd-862/
“But what seemed to really set her off was the CIA’s counter-charge, made through acting CIA general counsel Robert Eatinger, that her staff had illegally accessed and removed the document.”
– – –
Well, yes. If the Company really did think that her staff had committed a crime, they should have filed criminal charges with the US Attorney’s office, and everybody would have been in deep trouble. Instead, it seems to have been frivolous. And self-serving: do, everybody, check out Marcy’s analysis.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/03/11/robert-eatinger-lawyer-who-approved-torture-tape-destruction-tries-to-intimidate-senate-investigators/
This is what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you.
“Two top Senate leaders declared Tuesday that the CIA’s recent conduct has undermined the separation of powers as set out in the Constitution, setting the stage for a major battle to reassert the proper balance between the two branches.”
Call me jaded but I’m pretty sure that means the CIA is fixing to show them who’s boss.
Well, it’s easy to understand why many assume that the spooks are the real bosses; we have had so little evidence to the contrary for a very long time.
That’s not, however, entirely certain. And we should definitely encourage any tendencies in Congress to establish an alternate reality (the one envisioned in our foundation documents, for instance).
so they only don’t like it when its them being spied upon, hmmm
Yea it was ok when they did it the American people. They don’t understand that we know whats best for them.
And yea it was ok when they did it to Angela Merkel, she’s just a smelly foreigner and not an American.
But goddamn it they can’t do this to me!!!!!
The FBI investigates the CIA who refers the Senate committee to the Department of Justice. DoJ’s Holder is deeply implicated, together with Obama in CIA extra-judicial assassination (drone strikes on American citizens) whose secret memos we’ve not seen, Brennan had been close to the torture program at issue & designed Obama’s ‘kill list’ …. and finally, FISA friendly Feinstein has been an unapologetic defender of every so-called ‘anti-terror’ measure conjured out of the imaginations of those paranoid personalities who define the USA as the “Homeland” as though the planet were our colony. Meanwhile the NSA comes up with a program to spy on its spies who spy on us … I expect it seems like a lonely world for the likes of Ron Wyden at times. For some of the rest of us, DC looks like a meeting of various Klingon cliques fighting turf wars over who controls the apparatus of empire.
Feinstein didn’t give a plugged nickel for our Fourth Amendment rights until it became a case of the ‘chickens come home to roost’
Klingons have a better sense of honor. Maybe you’re thinking of the Cardassians? Or the Ferenghi?
Definitely ferengi. Compare:
http://img2.findthebest.com/sites/default/files/3357/media/images/_893632.jpg
http://withfriendship.com/images/j/45512/Ferengi-picture.jpg
Let’s NOT FORGET where the Torture Report leads to: the post-9/11 torture programs which were run by the CIA under Dick Cheney’s command…Apparently torturing suspects wasn’t enough–they then went further and based part of the 9/11 Commission Report on the faulty intelligence…Then they destroyed the videotapes of the “interrogations,” remember??? Ironic that they spent $40 million on the Senate Torture Report–but just $13 million to investigate 9/11…
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-03-15/911-commission-deceived-unintentional-work-fiction-based-cheney’s-torture-pro
excellent website and aptly named: intercept the interceptors! great to be reading Dan Froomkin again! during the eight-year Bush Debacle, Froomkin was always fresh, credible, up-to-date, reliable and trenchant. disgraceful how wapo had deep sixed his remarkable work. welcome back, Dan! the CIA is just stupid for attacking Feinstein’s pet project. the Constitution is set up for the branches to be able to directly compete. since the NSA and the CIA don’t appear in the Constitution, they are like wildcards–extremely nasty, unprincipled and unpredictable wildcards. under the Brennan & Alexander regimes, one of their most tevealing attributes is their insolence. Brennan–the conscience of the CIA–claims that they would never “hack” the Intelligence Committee. their snide comments will be they’re undoing. such comments are not in the least intelligent. they are revealing of a attitude and perception. it reveals that they are basically incompetent in the matter of handling intelligence. as i said, it should be interesting how this plays out with the Brennan and Feinstein fighting in public over Feinstein’s dolly.
Look, I am sorry I said that. We’re fine now. The 911 call was a mistake. Never mind.
If one of these fine senators really wants to show some courage rather than bloviating, why not follow the lead of Sen Revel during the Pentagon Papers era and read the CIA report into the Senate Record thereby declassifying the report. The Senate has the power to declassify, and given the CIA behavior outlined here, would be completely justified in getting this information out in the open. Enough already with this “national security” red herring, the American people have a right to know the truth.
That was Senator Mike Gravel.
Have e-mailed my senator (Mark Udall) suggesting that he do this. We’ll see.
Diane owes Edward Snowden an apology now that she’s learned she’s merely “one of us”.
But…But…If there is a fight between executive and legislative then it is up to the supreme court to hear the case and decide. Given that chief justice John Roberts is the man who appoints FICA judges and as a result deeply compromised: How then can the court proceed with him as chief justice?
Oh gag me. Devastating allegations come out and the WH sees it fit to toss some compliments to the CIA into its response.
Um, it sounds more like “let me praise Caesar before I bury him.” Then he gets a Medal of Freedom and the ambassadorship in Paraguay.
So far the comments have been so fixated on drawing a parallel to Dianne Feinstein’s perceived hypocrisy with regard to the NSA, that there is little actual discussion on the contents of her testimony about the CIA.
So my thoughts – I think Feinstein deserves credit here because her testimony is not only extremely detailed and easy to follow, but convincing and absolutely damning against the CIA. And the fact that we’ve basically heard nothing from the CIA’s side is telling – Brennan said some boilerplate stuff last week but that was about it. Based on what Feinstein said, I don’t know how you could describe the CIA’s actions as anything other than willful violations of the law (and it happened twice!). And this doesn’t appear to be a very complicated matter, or rely on some nuanced interpretation of law – these violations seem as clear as day. Specifically, Feinstein’s reference to the CIA’s potential violation of E.O. 12333; you really have to read the text to understand how blatant of a violation this looks to be.
Executive Order 12333, Section 2.4 (http://atsdio.defense.gov/Library/EO12333.aspx)
Good luck to the CIA arguing for those exceptions…And that doesn’t even touch on the fact that they’re undermining and spying on a Congressional oversight committee, thereby violating the separation of powers principles. Lastly, the nerve it takes to not even communicate with the SSCI or answer Feinstein’s questions, and then send a criminal referral to the DOJ…It’s just stunning. In fact, the SSCI was “created in the nineteen-seventies, after a series of investigations revealed that the N.S.A. and the C.I.A. had, for years, been illegally spying on Americans.” (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/16/131216fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all). So it apparently has come full circle.
I hope the media treats this as the scandal it is, because so far it seems a bit muted, but there are signs it may be picking up steam. After all, Lindsay Graham said: “Heads should roll, people should go to jail if it’s true” so his loudmouth could help keep this in the news and make this a bipartisan issue.
Anyways, if what Feinstein says is the truth, Obama should shit-can Brennan, the General Counsel, every CIA staffer/supervisor involved in the actual monitoring and authorization of the monitoring. And I hope the DOJ presses criminal charges against them all. Of all the real and fake scandals over the past several years of the Obama administration – Benghazi (fake), IRS (fake), Fast and Furious, NSA-Snowden, spying on the Associated Press and the guy from Fox News, this – along with some of the NSA revelations – is the worst.
There is no question that she is throwing the CIA under the proverbial bus in a very persuasive and powerful way. That obviously preconceived, fully vetted, and carefully crafted maneuver is fun to watch, in the same way that watching a snake eat its own tail is fun to watch.
Nonetheless, her outrage is quite narrow and does not seem to apply to the equally unconstitutional and outrageous violations routinely perpetrated by the NSA. In all of her carefully articulated outrage, I have yet to hear Feinstein thank Edward Snowden, much less recant her calls for his prosecution.
Thus Feinstein’s hypocrisy and total lack of insight is really the most stunning part of this story. Among other alarming things, it shows just how far removed our elected reps are from the rest of us. In that regard Feinstein’s calculated outrage is analogous to her posting a selfie with her head in her own ass. #Justchillin
I believe you greatly conflate the CIA and NSA issues and the notion that her comments and conclusions on one impacts the other. Feinstein’s outrage over the CIA matter is narrow because the CIA issue at hand is narrow. Meanwhile the NSA revelations are extremely broad, encompass several programs, are often quite complicated, and still unfolding. I don’t even know what NSA program or matter you refer to but seeing how you mention constitutionality and the metadata lawsuits are cruising through the federal court system, I’ll assume you meant it.
So focusing on the metadata program, I hate to burst the civil libertarian bubble that encapsulates the Intercept’s comments section, but there is not a general consensus that it violated the Constitution. Judge Leon out of DC believes it is unconstitutional while Judge Pauley out of NYC believes it isn’t. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/us/nsa-phone-surveillance-is-lawful-federal-judge-rules.html?_r=0) This is going to the SCOTUS and will depend on its interpretation of Smith , Miller , and third-party disclosure principles. While I agree with Leon’s argument (which is much better written and accounts for the digital age), I at least acknowldge that this could go either way.
As for the statutory legality of the metadata program, that is also muddled. For example, the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies concluded that “…the Review Group found no evidence of illegality or other abuse of authority for the purpose of targeting domestic political activity” [Review Group Report page 78/308], while the PCLOB said that while “the Board believes that this program has been operated in good faith….Section 215 [Patriot Act] does not provide an adequate legal basis to support this program.” [PCLOB Report page 61/238], The PCLOB also said NSA shouldn’t be collecting the data (saying the law indicates the FBI should), and that it violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act [PCLOB p. 98/238] The PCLOB decision to call the metadata program illegal was itself a nail-biter based on a 3-2 vote of the board members. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/01/23/pclob-votes-3-2-to-call-nsa-program-illegal/
Now to loop this around and compare it to the CIA issue. If what Feinstein said about the CIA is true, I don’t think there is going to be any mention of “good faith” efforts and statutory ambiguities. The application of the law and the constitution seem quite clear, and the willful actions of the CIA appear criminal in nature.
Link to The President’s Review Group [PDF]:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2F2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf&ei=GHUfU4nkD83YyAHooYH4Ag&usg=AFQjCNECWMLdrUPs5Y3eiS_8G9CndI6kMw&sig2=r49-Eq4IZ6feY4ocv5TgPQ&bvm=bv.62788935,d.eW0
Link to PCLOB Report [PDF]
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pclob.gov%2FSiteAssets%2FPages%2Fdefault%2FPCLOB-Report-on-the-Telephone-Records-Program.pdf&ei=bnUfU_uOCcSMyAGGxIC4Bg&usg=AFQjCNGHc-ES34u8vSOEx8XjxnkezwrnUg&sig2=narmW-4_GkOH9DnKjKVuRQ&bvm=bv.62788935,d.eW0
Your compelling need to be “right” is duly noted. As are your logical fallacies, your highly selective facts, your unsupported assertions, and the way you didn’t actually respond to my comment.
On that note, how did we go from the NSA’s clear, multiple, and indisputable violations of the fourth amendment to an eager lecture on the collection of metadata?
I also take issue with anyone who takes the elitist position that “this legal mumbo jumbo is all just too complicated for us little people to understand so I’ll just have to trust my government leaders to do the thinking for me.” Bullshit. That’s precisely how democracies fail. And I don’t give a fuck about the “statutory legality” of the metadata collection program or any other data-type collection program. The fourth trumps any statutes that don’t comply, including and especially the [Orwellian named] Patriot Act.
The crux of the issue really isn’t that complicated, certainly not to the extent your word salad suggests. It involves 2 questions: 1) What constitutes an unreasonable search under the fourth; and 2) Do private citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their electronic communications?
Yet you don’t describe the alleged logical fallacy. You don’t state what assertions are supposedly unsupported, and don’t state which facts are supposedly selective and why. I get it, you don’t want to discuss this stuff!
Are you serious? The metadata program is currently the most controversial program in terms of constitutionality. The judicial rulings cover it. If you weren’t talking about this, what exactly are you talking about!? Specifically, what action or what program?
Strawman argument time!? I said no sort of elitist comment. The NSA is much more broad and complicated than this CIA issue. That is a verifiable fact.
And if you don’t care about statutes, then why did you refer to the “outrageous violations” in addition to the perceived unconstitutionality. Do you have any idea of what you are talking about!? Legality is pretty goddamned important!
No shit. What did you think those federal judges I mentioned earlier were ruling on!? Zelda’s newsletter!? It is you that is hopelessly lost. My only mistake was engaging you with my “eager lecture,” for which I made points that directly refuted your claim. It wasn’t some copy pasta, I actually looked stuff up in an effort to engage your argument! But don’t fret, I made a mental note of your name and will avoid discussion with you in the future.
http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/surveillance-suits
And guess which suits pop up on that list?
Klayman et al v. Obama
And
ACLU et al v. Clapper
Those are the two I mentioned previously. Although I wasted my time discussing all this to you when you clearly don’t give a shit, I appreciate the link – this is an awesome tracker of a boatload of lawsuits!
Ain’t it funny how things change when the good senator herself becomes the target. Snowden terms it “the Merkel effect”. That’s spot on, I’d say.
The question is, has she had a change of heart or it it simply that the CIA is not providing funding for her re-election campaigns, as the NSA has been doing. Her new found zeal on our behalf against the illegalities of the CIA may be driven by her wounding over her championing of the NSA, this being an opportunity to redeem herself. We, the public of the world, may be the benefactors of this possible motivating circumstance, as she goes after these rogues with a ferocity that we expect but seldom see in reality.
She hardly needs a bigger war chest.
Looks like someone forgot to tell her: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Like.
“Brennan, in remarks at a Council on Foreign Relations, said the CIA wants to put the torture controversy behind it. “Even as we learn from the past, we must also be able to put the past behind us.””
Torture is not a controversy, it is a crime. And so to ‘put it behind them’, as Brennan hopes, is to ignore international & domestic law and evade justice, which of course in the point for our elites now, as illustrated in Glenn Greenwald’s clear-eyed ‘With Liberty and Justice for Some.’
And, of course, Mr. Obama could declassify the torture report, but won’t. Wasting our democracy one inaction at a time.
Can Snowden also say “let bygones by bygones”? Why dwell on leaks that occurred in the past? Let’s look forward, not backward.
Sounds like they got hoisted on their own petard.
She’s mad as hell, and she’s not going to rubber stamp anymore.
Looks like Senator Feinstein is suffering from the “Merkel Effect” – She’s ok with domestic spying, as long as she’s not in the target list. She’s such a hypocrite.
“But it’s equally if not more concerning that we’re seeing another ‘Merkel Effect,’ where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated”
“elected official”?, … oh did everybody miss something? (again.)
So now that we all know the CIA is president of Germany (among others…), Can we establish an approximate date that this occurred? Because when we examine the “beneficiaries” of events in Germany in recent memory, the exact time seems to be unclear.
Allot of the Nazi doctors were given jobs at the CIA studying among other things MKULTRA/PROJECT ARTICHOKE etc.
And we just happen to be discussing torturing people most of whom are extracted from the center of Yemen, nomadic indigenous sheep herders…. who simply don’t want the CIA to be their president.
Who’s property is that “intelligence”, they’re stealing? What are they “actually doing with it? Who does it belong to?
It’s a direct violation of international law to derive benefit from torture. They’re doing this to everyone.
Snowden was referring to Feinstein, — the elected official — not Brennan. Feinstein, same as Merkel, is going nuts because she was spied on. But neither she nor Merkel expressed outrage that “ordinary citizens” were and are being spied on. In Feinstein’s case, she has been a huge enabler of the very spying that she is yelping, screeching and harrumphing about now.
Snowden Critiques Feinstein
I was referring to how “our” CIA decides who benefits it the most and then obviously works to get them elected.
The question I posed is when did this begin, before or after WWII because the “population genetics trend” indicates prior.
Furthermore the CIA took in Nazi doctors and all their “testing results”, gave them jobs in MKULTRA/PROJECT ARTICHOKE…
ZOMG!
Word for the day: hypocrisy</em
Twist hanky
Pound the desk
Swoon
Retire to a fainting couch
Grab the smelling salts
Summon the paramedics
Lecture them indigantly
Spit
Feel vindicated
Utter: Harrumph!
Truly. We’re in an epic struggle with the forces of Blanche Dubois today. They rely upon the kindness of strangers, and are appalled by every instance of naked self-interest. Well!
Bless their hearts!
I shall be stealing this lovely bit.
No Sally Bowles or Norma Desmond metaphors need apply?
I think the NSA is done for. A turf war has already started between the Pentagon, CIA and FBI over the choicest bits of the carcass. I’m not sure that Diane Feinstein is picking the right side. She is getting close to retirement and is perhaps allowing her wounded pride to obscure her judgement. But I stand by my earlier statement that as the prey, it’s foolish to root for a winner.
Blanched ‘Tater
Word for the day: hypocrisy
?Twist hanky?
Pound the desk?
Swoon
?Retire to a fainting couch
?Grab the smelling salts
?Summon the paramedics
?Lecture them indig[n]antly….
I don’t know why you made this comment on a Froomkin article, it is much more apropos Glenn Greenwald.
Oh human condition…. ONLY when it personally & directly effects YOU, do you choose to take a stand! That is the underlying problem with all social & political issues of today, not just government agencies and politicians, but everyday people as well. Yes, indeed it is another perfect example of the hypocrisy in which are nation is running on…..I digress…..
shades of padre Neimuller!!!
Hope that the effort to reassert the “proper” balance starts with the most important balance between We the People and Our Government (that includes all branches.)
This reminds me of the fact that no one is as brutal in doling out punishment for theft than a victimized thief. At least Feinstein cares about the privacy of her staff. The rest of us can fuck it.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
It would be laughable if it weren’t so outrageous: Diane Feinstein, one of the CIA’s and NSA’s most vocal backers, has the unmitigated gall to denounce the CIA spying on her and her staff. She has no problem with the CIA and NSA spying on every single American, but she and her personal servants are off-limits.
This is not to say that she shouldn’t be angry. Congress should have impeached Bush and Cheney over these programs years ago, thus setting down the law for all future administrations as to what the consequences are for high crimes. But the utter hypocrisy on display here is sickening.
There’s plenty of evidence to support the numerous comments above that this is a turf war, and that Feinstein is wrapping herself in the Constitution because it looks good and by sheer coincidence it is agreement with her position on this occasion.
The key indicator is that rather than attack the DCI, who after all was in charge of the CIA branch responsible for the torture, she vents her wrath on the consul general, pardon me, ACTING consul general. This sends a clear message to Brennan that all he really needs to do is have the acting consul general fall on his sword, issue a weak apology, and all will be forgiven.
This is really opportune for Feinstein, because a few of her fellow Californians have apparently discovered that she’s not such a swell Senator after all, what with her chumminess with the NSA and channeling all that gummint business to her hubby.
“This is really opportune for Feinstein, because a few of her fellow Californians have apparently discovered that she’s not such a swell Senator. . .”
Feinstein is 80 years old, not up for reelection until 2018, not likely to run again, and nearly bulletproof in California politics in any event.
Whatever may be going on here, it has nothing whatever to do with careerism on her part. Nothing. Guaranteed.
It’s one thing when the CIA conduct questionable searches on Mrs. Feinstein’s committee staff. Outrageous.
Another, when (as her recent letter to constituents claims) NSA “does not conduct mass surveillance on US citizens.” While her outrage in this regard is commendable (if late) her two-facedness escapes none of those who received said letter in response to petitions and letters in protest on 2-11-14.
“Outrageous”
Unclutch your pearls Miss Blanche. I know, I know, there is a cockroach in your etouffee, but it was always there, it always will be there, and one needs to eat in order to live.
Just eat around it.
It won’t hurt you, it’s just sleeping.
Just out of curiosity…….. have any of you purity trolls ever participated in democratic governance at a local, municipal or county level? At a nonprofit? Have you been committee members within any organization? You guyz ever sat a round a table to get anything done?
Benefiting from a confluence of interests is part of how THINGS GET DONE, at every level in our society. Cooperating with wretched assholes is fundamental to success in any group endeavor, but it’s especial critical in governance.
@FluffytheObeseCat
I’ve not trolled “purely” here yet, but yes I have “participated in democratic governance at a local, municipal or county level”
While it’s true that one must deal with diverse interests, or as you say, “wretched assholes” in order to GET THINGS DONE, it does not mean that you must break the laws or rules that are supposed to govern us all in order to reach that end.
That, I think, is what is to be taken away from this discussion – that we’ve had too much of this hunkered-down “get ‘er done for the American people” mentality within our government agencies, while ignoring the very voices that they are supposed to protect and represent – those of we, the people.
I think you might have missed that whole confluence of interests thang. Also conceptualized as co-incidence of values at a port of trade.
“That, I think, is what is to be taken away from this discussion – that we’ve had too much of this hunkered-down. . .”
No, I beg to differ. The important takeaway from this discussion is that politics is the art of the possible and makes for strange bedfellows.
When a scoundrel like DiFi takes a position with which we agree, the advancement of which would likely help to advance our own, larger, cause, it is impolitic (and dumb) not to support said position.
@Doug Salzmann
You forgot to include the remainder of the sentence, which gives it the context needed to understand what was meant:
That said, I completely agree with your point that:
This information sequestration has festered far too long already, and the boils need bursting in order to quell the infectious disease our government is riddled with, which is to “do as I say, not as I do.”
“You forgot to include the remainder of the sentence, which gives it the context needed to understand what was meant:”
= = = = =
el•lip•sis (??l?p s?s)
n., pl. -ses (-s?z).
1. the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words understandable from the context that would complete or clarify the construction. . .
But it’s yet to be determined that her position is a position with which I can agree. All I hear is her protesting the injustice foisted upon her privilege. I’m not getting that she’s any more an advocate for protecting private citizens than she was when she was defending this spying activity.
“But it’s yet to be determined that her position is a position with which I can agree.”
Oh, really? You don’t agree that it is an outrage and indicative of a full-fledged constitutional crisis for the spies to spy on their overseers in Congress and to attempt to thwart oversight and threaten members and/or staffers? Are you certain about that?
“I’m not getting that she’s any more an advocate for protecting private citizens than she was when she was defending this spying activity.”
But that’s not the issue under discussion in this case, is it? Must the senator agree with you about every related matter to secure your cooperation and support on any issue? If so, and if this is how you normally approach thorny political matters, I think you should expect failure to be a rather routine outcome.
Let’s not forget that it is of the utmost importance to create a WIN/WIN when participating in governance whether it be a a local, state, or federal level…..*key* WIN/WIN……”what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
DiFi is not breaking the law when she throws her weight around. It is a disgusting spectacle in some ways, given her track record, but that is unimportant. She is attacking a significant 2nd or 3rd tier security apparatchik because he meddled with her people. She is generally enhancing the power of the Legislature, by using that power out loud in public.
These are useful actions. That they are hers…………… oh well. Say la vie.
FluffytheObeseCat,
I think most of the “purity trolls” “just happen” to have jobs at the NSA, fusion centers etc, operating “our” stolen advanced automated technologies to simply make sure 51% of certain people in the middle of large social networks never go to this site. They all become “suddenly busy and distracted” at just the right time, then they “just happen” to hear other news sources and “just happen” to have an epiphany while listening to Brennan, Clapper, and the like.
Excellent point overthrow-r1b, and I’d like to ad it certainly is coincidental how that entire class of girls in was it freshmen or sophomore year walked out of class distraught crying and saying they’ve just been tortured and badly brainwashed with some technology and “it seemed like the goal was to make sure they all were “comfortable” mating with those one shit people when they grew up” and they said “they’re trying to make them hate men”, and then they begged you for help.
Certainly is coincidental how certain women just don’t seem to have a choice of who they’re going to end up with.. There always “just happens” to be something going on that prevents proximity to non-r1b’s..
Likewise all the Human Rights organizations seem to be headquartered in the west, I sign up for Amnesty international and they instantly send me a bunch of petitions to sign…. just happen to be all targeting the center of non-r1b populations with of all things “women’s rights”!.
Was it Australia that came up on genetics testing where their aboriginal population had 60% western european Ydna and less than one percent western european MTDNA?! Its hard to remember what western governed country because all the results are so similar…
Hey I don’t even want to be here, all i’m trying to do is leave this shit country, get me out of here please. They keep stealing all my money, torturing me and arresting me for no reason every time I try to leave.
Fluffy, it would seem a more principled stance had she taken this position the day the NSA revelations were made. She did the opposite and became one of the most vocal supporters of that organization and condemned Snowden. That said, the important thing is that we assemble a group willing to challenge the NSA and dismantle it; for that to happen we do need people to change their minds, so I think you’re right in suggesting that nothing much is gained by applying “purity tests” that nearly everyone will flunk. It would help if she could publicly acknowledge how wrong she was in terms that specifically take herself to task, and then invite others to join her in her more enlightened position.
Either the Constitution is sacrosanct, or it isn’t.
“She also accused the CIA of obstructing her committee’s torture inquiry in general, and of disputing findings that its own internal inquiry had substantiated.”– Quoted from the article
I just wrote yesterday, on a Guardian thread about the CIA, about the need to correctly label it as a terrorist organization.
I don’t have time to re-frame this:
I’ve said this on every single thread where the word CIA is invoked: by any name it is a terrorist organization. When you brag openly about “toppling” democratically elected leaders, talk about “destabilizing” sovereign nations, plant spies and torturers in nearly every country in the world, admit, again openly, to killing those who have never had a trial, many of whom don’t even know they’re on a wanted list, you are committing crimes of the very worst kind.
Those espousing those ideas and enacting them are terrorists. Period. Slapping an acronym on those activities does not change the nature of the crimes.
I think we need to think about that “openly.” If this is what they admit to publicly, can we even begin to imagine the full force of what they do?
———————-
Andy discussion about the CIA needs to be grounded in the truth that it’s a criminal organization responsible for grave crimes against humanity. One nation should not have power to set itself up as a godhead and make decisions about who gets to live or die based on its whim of the moment.
Your accurate. Thanks. What nobody hears about is how the CIA is using “our” stolen technology for rape, theft, genocide on a ground level which in the end amounts to complete coverage of the entire population. Everyone’s effected. If the military can’t go in and take control, apprehend them then we can encourage leaks in every direction against the entity because on all accounts it’s an emergency. We need some kamikaze leakers, congressional martyrs, but of course they only hired them because they lack that exact ability.
They claim their technology stockpile is far beyond any realm of public access, but if you returned it to who it belongs to or get rid of what was obtained from torture and redesigned for their use only, that would account for the discrepancy. Those people don’t have the right to operate an umbrella or a pez dispenser let alone our intel agencies.
@Citizen … as usual you delivered a bouquet!
@Overthrow … “We need some kamikaze leakers, congressional martyrs, but of course they only hired them because they lack that exact ability.” My only disagreement with this I -have- to believe that other kamikazes and martyrs have either been intimidated or are waiting for others to lead by example. What Snowden did was incredibly courageous. No less than Channing and Assange and other whistleblowers. But where are they sitting? I believe that fear is a motivating factor in discouraging bravery. I also think individual “best interests” play into it as well. It’s how those interests are served and who speaks up, and when. I wouldn’t know how to measure courage or bravery – but there is nobility in taking chances … or blowing the lid off something if you were complicit … wittingly or not.
Snowden wasn’t the first – and I hope to see more. I actually pray to my God that the government makes more mistakes in covering their tracks with people they place in positions of trust. I also send a shout out to St. Michael (patron saint of warriors) to call on the conscience of those good soldiers and ask that one more person falls on their sword. And in my wildest dreams I would cry like a baby to see an entire platoon of defectors step out of the shadows like other bad asses that I have met along my path in life – even if they weren’t American. Those warriors might just drive Camry’s and sit in cubicles. It doesn’t matter. I -have- to believe that they are the *only* ones who have that ability – and will exercise it. Otherwise this is all just blah, blah, blah.
I’ve been calling the CIA the world’s biggest terrorist group for years… glad to have company. It seems obvious when you look at their record of torture, assassination, kidnapping, murder, and the overthrowing of Democratically elected governments around the world…. and they have their own private armies and drone wars.. awesome!
Sen. Feinstein’s high regard for her staffers is to be commended. The CIA’s (rather obvious) effort to intimidate her people was foolish. She is 80 years old and her current term runs through 2018. What the fuck do they think they can do to her? She can step out on the floor of the Senate and rape them with complete impunity, courtesy of the Constitution.
She’s a thoroughly vile, corrupt, craven politician. I don’t trust her as far as I could throw her……….. and I don’t give a shit. She is a critically useful component in any ongoing effort to constrain our runaway Executive branch security state. Her present anger and public statements are………… delightful.
Thank You for your comment – that just about says it all – “She’s a thoroughly vile, corrupt, craven politician. I don’t trust her as far as I could throw her…”
You can add John Brennan to your astute assessment. I, a lowly citizen, begged the Senate un-Intelligence Committee not to confirm him.
WOW! Now tell us how you *really* feel. You, my kitten, I will be careful not to tangle with. I forgot all about “craven”. I’m adding it to my vocabulary immediately. Thank you. Srsly!
The second I saw that this charge is being led by DiFi I skipped over the article and all the comments. First impressions are everything. I will re-boot my neurons and follow through with Mr. Foomkins report, immediately. I’m sure I’ll chime again, once or twice.
I just find it galling that SHE is calling the battle cry for justice?!?!?!? She doesn’t even meet the minimum requirements to that would qualify her to peel the potatoes served in this mess hall!!!
I’ll gladly take DiFi in this situation because IMO it’s a good thing to have one of the Security State’s fiercest defenders saying “this time they’ve gone too far.”
That’s very generous you. There’s a part of me that knows you are right – but it only counts, in my book, when you raise your hand and admit your part in the party … before negotiating the immunity of yourself and all your collaborators – or burying the secret and leaving the rest of us twisting in the wind. Sometimes it’s ok to be a mother bear. And I appreciate your humanity. I’m just over here growling….
Diane Feinstein knows that if Congressional oversight becomes too toothless, then the Intelligence Committee Chair starts to become irrelevant. She didn’t get where she is by being a pushover. So she’ll defend her turf and she’ll defend the Constitution when it suits her purposes. But I won’t go out of my way to praise her, since in the final analysis, she is simply looking for the opportunity to wet her beak. She wants to be the person the Security Complex turns to, when it needs someone to turn a blind eye on its activities. They need to make it worth her while to not publish that report.
“she is simply looking for the opportunity to wet her beak.”
Welcome to representative democracy. When it functions, it’s both awesome and amusing to watch.
Except that the people have lost control of the levers of power (although in fairness, perhaps they were only ever given a toy steering wheel). So the battles of the custodians of this ‘representative democracy’ are just the machinations of predators striving for the right to devour us. They will no doubt wound each other in the process but, unfortunately, not fatally.
“But I won’t go out of my way to praise her, since in the final analysis, she is simply looking for the opportunity to wet her beak. She wants to be the person the Security Complex turns to, when it needs someone to turn a blind eye on its activities. They need to make it worth her while to not publish that report.”– Common Tater
—————–
Very astute. The only truly principled and commendable stance when it comes to this criminal organization is the one that demands it be dismantled.
“Diane Feinstein knows that if Congressional oversight becomes too toothless, then the Intelligence Committee Chair starts to become irrelevant.” Role reversal … Now that the CIA’s teeth are falling out she’ll be the the dentist that will form their dentures. I wish I could believe in her – but she’s eroded all hope in my eyes. Unless someone starts crackin’ skulls and there is an independent, outside investigation that is free from the taint I’m not sure this will amount to anything more serious than a root canal.
I may not expect it from the highest offices – out of all the staff members, judges clerks, federal employees, armed services, private contractors, and every tentacle of the military industrial complex – this is all we got? They’re the ONLY people that saw shit go down? Where are the whistleblowers and why aren’t they coming forward? Out of ALL those people they’re leaving people twisting in the wind who deserve some slack – and complete exoneration. How do those people kiss their kids goodnight, let alone look in the mirrors. SMDH
So, where is the CIA agent with access who has the guts and the technical skill of Snowden? Is the entirety of our agents sworn to “defend and protect the Constitution” cowering under the bed, pissing on themselves, and hoping the whole thing will just go away?
CIA agents are sworn to defend the Constitution, second. First, comes paycheck then the pension. Now you understand?
@TallyHo … you’d thank that out of an entire intelligence community AT LEAST ONE could demonstrate the skills they were taught on-the-job! Either they were taught by a bunch of morons or what??? I’ve lost all respect for lot of them. The biggest scandal of the millenium making global history of biblical proportion?? These are OUR Spy’s on this planet?? No wonder NASA is searching the galaxy for other intelligent life forms!
You’d think at least ONE good guy out of all of their lot would have seen a Bond movie or two – or AT LEAST could pull a Caractus Potts music box out of their ass just to prove they watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a kid. {guffaw!!!}
Shit … ^^ *think* – *were they taught by a bunch..* I’m riled up – sorry!
p.s. Now that I think about it … on also might think that Ryan, McConnell, Bachmann or even Boehner would want in on the “spy” action and turn Benedict Arnold on all their asses – Just for the notoriety and historical significance!!!! COULD YOU IMAGINE THAT??? This sounds like a plan for Rand Paul – You think I should maybe email him a wikipedia link?
Feinstein had no problem voting away her constituents’ constitutional rights. Why is she so shocked to hear that her rights have now been shredded too?
Are you gonna bark all day, little Senator, or are you gonna bite?
The Senate’s answer to Leona Helmsley couldn’t care less if everyone else gets spied on, as long as she doesn’t. When she does bark, she never bites. She’s made noise about passing stuff and couldn’t get it done. The assault weapons bill- which expired in 2004, and then was not renewed even after the shootings in Connecticut– is the only thing she’s passed.
How is she going to bite anyone?
She left her dentures on the bathroom sink.
@Citizen … ” She left her dentures on the bathroom sink.”
You’re treading on dangerous waters friend. I am biting my tongue so hard right now NOT do steal the rimshot way from you!!!
-Brennan: Misrepresenting Feinstein’s charge as one of CIA “hacking”, he denied it. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We wouldn’t do that. That’s beyond the scope of reason.”
How the hell would he know?, They do that every time too.
They intentionally rely on complete lack of supervision of people they knowingly hired to commit abuses for their benefit.
By everyone else’s definition that is lying, stealing, and committing Human Rights abuses.
The people have made themselves clear, anyone who is working for the government, it is your responsibility to wrestle the technology and power from these genocidal torturers. It is not theirs, everyone knows it, get them out of there now.
We paid for it, we invented it, we own it, it is our property, not theirs. They are stealing it and misusing it, get them out of there now. That is what we have said to do. Now do it.
“Hacking” is a pretty vague term, and we know the Intelligence Community likes to play cute word games with their denials. When Brennan says “we don’t hack” it might actually be true by his own weaselly definition of the word “hack.”
Not every media outlet has been fooled. Is our media learnin’? Seems they might be, right along with the rest of us.
While I agree with the Senator on the sum and substance of her outrage one cannot help but shake ones head at the hypocrisy of this situation. How can Senator Feinstein, as the article points out, condemn the actions of the CIA while simultaneously endorsing the NSA’s clearly unconstitutional invasion into private citizen’s records?
I’m sorry, but I just can’t get that, “it’s called keeping America safe” quote out of my craw. Dianne Feinstein is bought and paid for like most in Congress and is all for what it good for Dianne Feinstein and her legacy and not much else. I don’t believe she gives a damn for this country or the high office she holds and has functioned as the chief defender of the abuses of the Obama Administration and his disdain for the Bill Of Rights. I do not believe she has had an epiphany nor a change of heart. She is still the same political hack she has always been.
All you say about DiFi is true, Bob, but none of it alters the fact that a speech like hers, on the floor of the Senate, by a senior member of the majority leadership and the party of the current administration, is indeed an extraordinary event.
Ad hominems are logical flaws even when they are our logical flaws, and even when the targets are such incontestably slimy cretins.
I would say it is time for another “Church Select Committee” investigation of the CIA, circa, 1975. If Congress fails to stand up and fulfill its oversight responsibilities then the Constitution becomes nothing but another piece of paper!
Ironic that we just found out last September that Sen. Frank Church was being spied on by the NSA. This entire article is sourced from just one page of an internal 4-volume history of the NSA (contained at bottom of article)…
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/25/it_happened_here_NSA_spied_on_senators_1970s
There seems to be a theme here where the intelligence agencies are simply ignoring the constitution. In this case, they are ignoring the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. In the programs revealed by the Snowden leaks, they are ignoring the 4th amendment of the constitution.
Well. “The World Turned Upside Down”
When the underlying story broke last week, I suggested that either this is a constitutional crisis or nothing in the real world qualifies. I could hardly have imagined DiFi agreeing in that judgment.
I notice that the senator is “appealing” to the White House for release of her own committee’s report. This might be an opportune moment to remind her, and her colleagues, of the import of Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution: “You could stand up and tell us yourselves.”
I appreciate Feinstein speaking up.. but she is still dripping with hypocrisy. Not until her own little center of power of challenged does she go on the offensive with regards to our rogue intelligence agencies… and only because this spat is revolving around a Bush era crime instead of the current administration.
“she is still dripping with hypocrisy.”
I can’t imagine why this obvious fact is worth mentioning at this juncture; there isn’t a power player in Washington who isn’t “dripping with hypocrisy”. The separation of powers concept was developed and grounded on shrewd knowledge. The Founders knew that high office attracts big egos. Making use of that fact for the benefit of our society is inherent in the structure of our federal government (when it’s working properly).
A democratic government doesn’t need much individual virtue to function effectively. Fighting for ones interests within the confines of the law is part and parcel of how it is supposed to work.
I just hope she stays very publicly angry and privately aggressive in her actions.
What Fluffy says.
This is a critical point. Please, folks, pay serious attention.
“What Fluffy says.”
Huh???? You’re not a former agitator poster are you?
” Leahy called for dramatic action. “We are supposed to be the conscience of the nation,” he said of the Senate. “Now let’s stand up for this country.”
In a statement, Leahy later continued: “This is not just about getting to the truth of the CIA’s shameful use of torture. This is also about the core founding principle of the separation of powers, and the future of this institution and its oversight role. The Senate is bigger than any one Senator. Senators come and go, but the Senate endures. The members of the Senate must stand up in defense of this institution, the Constitution, and the values upon which this nation was founded.”
Great stuff, but the problem is that the CIA 4th Reich has no problem with lies, torture, deception, criminal activity, corruption, drug dealing, black projects, starting wars, revolutions and just about anything that will advance their primary objectives, and BTW they are not democracy, freedom, peace, justice, self-determination and truth. Now this is just the CIA, now how about the NSA and all those other deep way down in the dark groups that suck off humanity and our tax dollars, for their very existence. When will the American public and their so-called representatives be able to get off their “STUCK ON STUPID” mentality?
Apparently DF’s reputation preceded her, and the CIA thought they could do what they wanted. I do not know where she is going with this and do not trust her at all, no matter what it appears. It does appear that certain people within the CIA know that they are not “important” enough to be above the law for certain if the stick pokes too deeply into the wasp nest.
“Apparently DF’s reputation preceded her, and the CIA thought they could do what they wanted.” .
.. given the surveillance state we’re in, it might not be out of the range of possibilities that this *might* be political blackmail. The agencies and their powers of persuasion are not exclusive … of, by, within, against, between, behind … it’s like political porn the way their screwing each other and everyone else. Creepy, sicko, freaky fuckers! I look forward to slut-shaming THEM!
Senator Feinstien has many business conflicts of interest within the security state. It’s likely for those reasons she chairs the Intelligence Committee. I’m not certain she is to be trusted and at the very least should be subject to constant scrutiny.
Feinstein is only against spying when she is being spied on. All other spying is fine under any circumstances.
I’m still supportive of Feinstein on this matter even though I’m well aware of how dismissive she has been of the privacy rights of ordinary Americans. She’s been mostly awful on civil liberties, but we shouldn’t let that stop us from supporting her on the rare occasions when she’s right.
After all, broken clock twice a day and all that…
*facepalm*
this really is amazing coming from DiFei. it’s also a confirmation of how despite its unpopularity the legislative branch is orders of magnitude more democratic and accountable to the public than the executive branch.
No; they are equally twisted, but in a different direction. They are concerned for themselves and disregard the people of the US.
Rule # 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
Folks, I’ll tell you, we are in deep crap.
As citizens, facing a government with all the modern “Toys for Boys” in their arsenal, and every latest tool in their suitcase for information gathering, the only weapon that we have at our disposal, is Ridicule.
“….setting the stage for a major battle to reassert the proper balance between the two branches.”
One of them does not have the will, the other one does not have the intelligence. So that will be a stalemate.
“Intelligence Committee chair Diane Feinstein”.
Great!
The author opened with a joke,
@ Citizen … “….setting the stage for a major battle to reassert the proper balance between the two branches.”
{raised hand, waving furiously} UH – OVER HERE FELLAS!!! What about he proper balance between the two branches AND THE PEOPLE???? I ask you – what IS this fuckery???
“we are in deep crap” … and it’s not even OUR crap! Asshats!!!!
One would never find this sentence in mainstream reporting on this topic:
“Feinstein’s fighting words were in stark contrast to her role as a champion of NSA surveillance. ”
I appreciate the fact that the Intercept does not pretend that all news happens in a complete vacuum, and that official sources are never taken at their word by Intercept reporters and editors.
Just as only Nixon could go to China, it may also be true that only Feinstein can reform the CIA.
Bruce Fein, among other things a constitutional scholar, says that the separation of powers is more important for freedom than the Bill of Rights.
The separation of powers has not been a topic of discussion in the country for some time.
Edward Showden’s documents along with the outcry from the world has exposed the surveillance state.
Snowden in a public statement condemns Feinstein’s hypocrisy by ignoring the spying on citizens until she was the target.
he said
But he accused Sen. Dianne Feinstein of hypocrisy for blasting the CIA for allegedly spying on senators while “not caring” about spying on U.S. citizens.
“It’s clear the CIA was trying to play ‘keep away’ with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that’s a serious constitutional concern,” said Snowden in a statement to NBC News. “But it’s equally if not more concerning that we’re seeing another ‘Merkel Effect,’ where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it’s a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-senate-snooping/snowden-cia-playing-keep-away-senate-investigators-n49881
Don, it is funny how ones thoughts change through the years. Maybe it is wisdom. Ten years ago, my opinion on Edward Snowden would have been that he was a traitor, and he should be executed. Fifteen years ago, I would have gone and found him, and brought him back. Today, I think the kid is a hero.
I was thinking about the Edward Snowden brouhaha this morning.
One always hears the lame statement that “he put many people in jeopardy” etc. etc.
If one were to compare Edward Snowden to Hillary Clinton, and ask the question “how many have died” as a result of each of their actions or inactions, the answer would make most folks in government avoid the question.
CitizenSane
you made a comment to compare Hillary to Edward Snowden
i had a similar thought the other night when seeing Captain Phillips movie. He is the American captain who was captures by Somali pirates and sharp shooters got him out of the jam
he was beaten up and lots of blood
i thought about USA torture like the report that is struggling to be published. The torture and threats of our good guys were as bad as in the movie.
then I further thought about how many people have died because of our actions. Maybe a million over the years in Iraq? Saw estimates of 2 million from Vietnam war. Going forward, the failure to act on climate collapse will lead to millions dying. The Somali pirates were forced to do something after foreign countries cleaned out their fishes. The world’s population adds to the problem, but hundreds of millions will be displaced by climate change and there is a good chance that, like in the past, civilization will not survive
Captain Phillips shows a lot of interesting things like shipping and the insides of war ships, and it is a thriller, but our technology will not save us, and return to quaint documents like the constitution are less hard than doing something with the biosphere which we don’t understand
@Citizen … “he put many people in jeopardy”
The only “people” Snowden put in jeopardy were, for a fact, the very shameless and despicable “people” who have jeopardized and colluded together, in a Deep State revolution, to conquer the liberties and strip the freedoms to enslave the billions of citizens across the globe. In their march towards dominance in our solar system they have also been party to the bastardization of every damn earthling and of raping Mother Earth herself. They even want Mars!!!! (maybe as exile when the burning torches start chasing after them?)
We need to invent vocabulary to describe the magnitude and scope of such revulsion, and the perpetrators. We also need to come up with a new words to describe the Snowden’s, Manning’s, Greenwalds, Assanges’s and other whistleblower heroes of their stature. However their secret documents were acquired and exposed – they are heros. And yet, somehow, that word doesn’t even begin to do them justice,
an old fashioned word to use for Snowden, Manning and the rest of your list, MORAL COURAGE
a written text of a presentation by Chris Hedges for the debate at the Oxford Union a couple of weeks ago
Edward Snowden’s Moral Courage
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/edward_snowdens_moral_courage_20140223
Thank you for using caps lock @Don … and for using caps lock. I get riled up at how ignorant people are of the concept. In this case – I can’t even blame the younger generation … they’re being given a pretty stellar example of what it is NOT. I wonder when they’ll turn Atlas Shrugged into a Disney movie? Can you imagine what the characters would look like???
OH… and thank you for the link, too.
Umm…these Heads of our CIA, NSA, and others have LIED to congress…PBO needs to fire them…
WE THE PEOPLE should be spying on all branches of government. That is the only way democracy can work.
Absolutely!
Not spying, monitoring.
We need to monitor every government employee’s cell phone and computer. They should also wear Google Glasses, so we know what goes on when they meet with people. Upload all of it into a monitoring website where anyone can see what any public servant is up to.
And it should be illegal to allow “special interests” to write any legislation. The way they sneak in their self-serving loopholes before they get passed/fast-tracked is atrocious. I’ve always suspected TARP was a get-out-of-free jail card – no justice served What.So.Ever!!! Given the way TPP and Keystone XL are being handled the next utility bill will be the air we breathe – on a smart meter imbedded it our ass!
I think you’re referring to what Obama once called “transparency.” Remember that promise? Yeah, that was fun.