150.6 - Spying fan Dianne Feinstein objects to being spied on

Spying fan Dianne Feinstein objects to being spied on

I have to mention this quickly. I haven’t talked much about spying of late, not because there is nothing new to report but rather that in the short term other things seemed more important to address. But this I just had to mention now. I couldn't let it go by.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has been conducting a study of the CIA's use of waterboarding and other "brutal interrogation methods" (which they still refuse to call torture because it couldn’t be torture because we just don’t do that) - "brutal interrogation methods" used on terrorism suspects held at secret CIA prisons overseas after the attacks of 9/11.

The committee has been going over millions of documents given up by the CIA, which are now held on computers in a secure room in a secret site in northern Virginia. All very cloak-and-dagger.

Here's the thing: The committee has now accused the CIA of trying to undermine the study by, among other things, searching computers used by the staff of the committee - that is, essentially spying on the committee's work.

This is where it gets funny. Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the committee, has denounced this in no uncertain terms. She called it illegal, a violation of separation of powers, and unconstitutional. 

Dianne Feinstein has been biggest bootlicker, the biggest lackey, of the national security state in the entire damn Congress. She has repeatedly defended NSA spying - she said "it's called protecting America" - and has called Edward Snowden a traitor.

But when her committee is what’s being spied on, when it's her people that are monitored, when it's her computers that are the target, suddenly it’s “Illegal! Unconstitutional! Outrageous!”

The whole story will soon be online at WhoseOxIsGored.com. [Unfortunately necessary note: not a real website.]

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/feinstein-cia-searched-intelligence-committee-computers/2014/03/11/982cbc2c-a923-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/sen-feinstein-cia-hacked-congress-and-possibly-violated-constitution-20140311
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/dianne-feinstein-on-nsa-its-called-protecting-america-92340.html