The CIA spied on the US Congress

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 13, 1435 2014-03-14

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

The CIA has always been a rogue outfit. It has now emerged that it has even been spying on the US Senate Intelligence Committee, the body that overseas CIA's work. Nobody is safe from its tentacles. Perhaps, Obama should check how many bugs does the CIA have in his bedroom.

Washington DC, Crescent-online
March 12, 2014, 19:21 EDT

It has recently emerged that the US Central Intelligence Agency has been spying on the US Senate Intelligence Committee, the very organ of Congress charged with overseeing and keeping in check the spy network. This violates the basic tenets of the US Constitution, including the principle of separation of powers.

While the Congressional Intelligence Committee has usually rubber-stamped some of the most controversial CIA practices, this dispute marks an unusual flare up of tension between the spook network and a Congress that usually remains content to cheer it on.

The dispute involves the US Committee’s report on CIA practices of waterboarding and torture in its secret rendition program targeting the Muslims apprehended in the ‘War on Terror’. It emerged that the CIA was monitoring the Senate Committee, including illegal access to the computers of several Senate aides involved in the report.

According to Tom Carter in an article for the World Socialist Web Site: “The revelations of CIA spying on Congress underscore the fact that America is run by an unelected, unaccountable military/intelligence apparatus. It is this apparatus, in conjunction with the corporate-financial elite, that dictates official policy in Washington, irrespective of which political party is in power.”

The recent revelations underscore a scandal that has been of some duration. Tellingly, it proves that the CIA lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee in order to hide activities. For instance, in September 2013, CIA Director John Brennan submitted a 122-page document to refute the committee’s report on CIA’s illegal practices.

It became known that this document was a fraud when the Senate committee obtained a document on CIA spying prepared for former CIA Director Leon Panetta.

On Tuesday (March 11), US Senator Dianne Feinstein delivered a harsh speech against the CIA alleging that the spy organization was attempting to intimidate and harass members of Congress and that it had illegally spied on Senate staffers preparing the report.

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