Yes, The CIA Spied On Congress
dish.andrewsullivan.com
dish.andrewsullivan.com
Chilling effects indeed.
And for those inclined to brush that away as implausible, it might be time for a refresher on J. Edgar Hoover and his secret files on political leaders. [1] 50 years later, our tech is a lot better, so it would be much easier to gain inordinate power through surveillance.
Seems some on Wikipedia disagree...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Congressional_staff_edits_...
[2] https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Staffer+edited+Wikipedia
[1] https://github.com/patriotpie/wiki-sanitize [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributi...
It's a problem that all of this stuff has to remain vague. It gets in the way of our reaching conclusions. But assuming the lack of information is information in and of itself is problematic for me in this case. I think it's fair to wait and see what the justice department's investigation, if any, reveals. If there's no investigation, then we have to make do with the information we have.
The fact that the CIA has been shown to be doing all sorts of terrible stuff doesn't mean that our obligation to be skeptical about allegations in general needs to be suspended. To me, it's likely that this is true, but I won't tout it as fact until something clearer than the current foggy tangle of vague statements emerges.
As a side note, I think the greater question to arise from this is the fact that during a Congressional investigation, it was through agreement that the CIA wasn't supposed to be monitoring Congressional investigators. Why is that sort of thing not clearly ensconced in law?
> The Computer Crimes and Abuse Act...expressly "does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective or intelligence agency...of an intelligence agency of the United States"
>Congressional aides involved in preparing the Senate Intelligence Committee’s unreleased study of the CIA’s secret interrogation and detention program walked out of the spy agency’s fortress-like headquarters with classified documents that the CIA contended they weren’t authorized to have, McClatchy has learned.
>After the CIA confronted the panel in January about the removal of the material last fall, panel staff concluded that the agency had monitored computers they’d been given to use in a high-security research room at the CIA campus in Langley, Va., a McClatchy investigation found.
>The documents removed from the agency included a draft of an internal CIA review that at least one lawmaker has publicly said showed that agency leaders misled the Intelligence Committee in disputing some of the committee report’s findings, according to a knowledgeable person who requested anonymity because of the matter’s extraordinary sensitivity.
>Some committee members regard the monitoring as a possible violation of the law and contend that their oversight powers give them the right to the documents that were removed. On the other hand, the CIA considers the removal as a massive security breach because the agency doesn’t believe that the committee had a right to those particular materials.
[...]
>While eating lunch during a visit to New Britain, Conn., with four New England governors, Obama was asked by a reporter if he had any reaction to the allegation that the CIA monitored Intelligence Committee computers.
>“I’m going to try to make sure I don’t spill anything on my tie,” he responded.
I don't get what that means or adds to the story. Is he ignoring the question? Dismissing the question? Didn't hear the question? Or so stunned by the allegation he just sprayed soup across the table? Or is it something I've missed?
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/release-senate-int...
I'd like to think that if agencies started hiring their own armies and created their own version of law enforcement zones from other countries, and started killing people who opposed them, that someone would actually do something to stop that... right?
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/release-senate-int...
https://www.aclu.org/secure/tell-senate-intelligence-committ...
Did you guys never hear of intelligence agencies before Snowden leaked his docs? This is normal and expected. It's the reason intelligence agencies and spies exist. They're supposed to spy on the most important people in the world, and make sure that the important people don't plan anything the agency's employers may consider ... untoward.
Except of course for the part where the CIA is explicitly legally barred from domestic US spying, and where they were spying on their employers.
Am I surprised? No, not at all. I'm from Norway. Most people would probably consider Norway less likely to be involved in sinister surveillance activity than a country like the US.
Yet 20 years ago, an investigation into the Police Security Service finally got underway, and everyone were shocked - shocked, I say - to find out that the several decades of illegal surveillance of left wing groups that any member of either of the communist parties or socialist groups had known, and publicly alleged, were happening had actually been happening (they knew, because members of the security service made it abundantly clear, by e.g. occasionally stopping people on the street and making fun of them over details of conversations they'd had in the privacy of their own home).
When the establishment finally accepted that the security service had to be reigned in, a parliamentary commission was established. During the investigation into the security service, it quickly became clear that they were still engaged in the illegal surveillance while the commission was investigating them. Not only that, but it was revealed that they were illegally spying on the chairman - a well respected member of parliament - of the commission investigating their illegal spying.
So I'm not the least bit surprised. But that does not mean it is legal, or what they are "supposed" to do.
Congress. They were created by an act of Congress, and the only ones with oversight powers are the intelligence committee that they spied on.
> Spying on Congresspersons on behalf of the American citizenry makes sense.
Except it is explicitly illegal for them to do so. The same act that authorised the creation of the CIA - the National Security Act 1947 - also bars them from domestic spying. Anyone tasking the CIA to do so have at the very least participated in a crime, whether or not they can be charged with anything.
> If one of these Congresspersons were to go rogue and cooperate with a terroristic unit
That being so, that would fall under the remit of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security or - in the case they communicate about this with foreign interests - the NSA (!). Only if they were to do something stupid like attend in-person meetings outside US borders would it fall under the remit of the CIA, or even be legal for the CIA to pursue.
> It completely makes sense for an intel agency to spy on persons that have that type of capacity, regardless of title or location.
Not when they are barred by law from doing so, it is the responsibility of other agencies if any, and the persons they spy on are the very people tasked with providing the checks and balances against the CIA going rogue. And in fact, in this very case they were explicitly investigating claims that the CIA had committed gross violations of human rights. In that case there's a massive conflict of interest - the CIA has every reason to want to minimise their findings, and possibly even to try to strongarm them into silence.
And in fact, the CIA has repeatedly made public statements to try to discredit this report - that in itself is shocking to the extreme; in any other organizations, heads would be rolling if a department started a PR campaign against a board committee, which is the closest equivalence.
And do I have to remind you that the CIA has decades of history of horrific operations behind them, including the illegal overthrow of multiple democratically elected leaders, a long range of assassinations, dealing drugs to fund illegal operations, and more, - they've proven time and time again that they badly need more oversight. When was the last time a member of the intelligence committee went rogue again?
Well, unless you count the times they were complicit in illegal CIA cover-ups, that is.
I understand that now it's a little different because we had hard evidence, but it shouldn't be as surprising as it seems to be to people!
It is obvious that if something can be done and can benefit folks with enough money, it will be done. There are no "checks and balances" on the level of intelligence agencies, because by definition we pay them to do things that would be prosecuted if discovered.
It smells to me like the "hammer and nails" proverb in reverse. Spies are building super sophisticated hammers and people really, really don't expect them to use those hammers to nail things everywhere?
And any such person was filtered out long before reaching the position of power. No one will let you take the presidential chair if you're a danger to their interests.
Heck, Clapper lied _openly_ and admitted it later, only to get away scot free. (Yes, I have read the entire account in detail. He lied. There's no doubt about it.)
This technique is how everyone at the CIA got the hook for destroying video evidence of torture which had already been requested by a congressional committee and a federal court in 2005. It's also explains Yoo's farcical torture memos -- they may not pass the straight face test but they still were a major barrier to criminal liability for those who procured them.
------illegality recursion too deep-----------
But seriously this is a critical test for Pres. Obama. These agencies shouldn't be allowed to pull this kind of Shit without suffering serious consequences.
Time for the Executive to step-up, fire a bunch of high-rankers and NOT sweep this under the carpet as some sort of "Bad Apples" or "Mistakes were Made" whitewash.
Otherwise all that Hope & Change sloganeering will be empty rhetoric.
Where have you been?
The "Hope & Change" looks a lot more successful when you judge it based on an intent of returning US politics to somewhere near the centre, than if you take the unrealistic proposition that it would bring the US to some point well left of Clinton which a lot of people seemed to have thought and hoped it might.
Somehow, we will find a way to compromise. Some people are 100% against any surveillance, some are okay with 70%, some are okay with 40% and some are okay with 100% of surveillance. The end result of compromise may end up ugly like a bandaid.
Myself, I'd propose a battle royale between the CIA and NSA. Do a giant wargame, see which can pwn the other faster/better. Two agencies enter, one leaves.
The surviving agency is then split into foreign and domestic branches, with a sane level of cooperation.
Will?
A critical test? He doesn't have enough power to do anything about it. He can't even get rid of Guantanamo, which was central to his campaign. His response to the Snowden leaks was entirely supportive of the intelligence community, against the general public's perception of what happened. A political figure like him supporting Snowden would have made a massive difference in the public's perception of the events that took place, but he had to side with the NSA.
You're absolutely wrong if you think he has even the slightest bit of control over the CIA. The executive agencies that are supposed to be directed by the president are probably much more directing the president than the other way around.
Maybe you consider it to be conspiratard nonsense, but there's a bit of history behind what happens to presidents who are at odds with the intelligence community.
And it's also very difficult to say whether the reason is that the President is incompetent, complacent, inherently aligned with the intelligence community, or threatened by the intelligence community, or a combination of any of these things.
I find this another reason to stay as far away from politics as possible if one wants to really change anything in this world.
If this is indeed true, then it would mean that the US political system (which is regarded as the best example of democracy, globally) is corrupt from the core and the idea of checks & balances is completely bogus.
If this is case, and if we as (Americans? people?) tolerate it, then I guess it's our implicit way of saying "corruption is indeed the best way — it keeps everyone happy" (pan e circo).
If we don't tolerate it and change it somehow, then maybe our particular multiverse trajectory goes another direction.
Who knows if Obama is actually the one to do this. I'm not expecting much of anything from him, no more/less than I do of any other past President. I have no clue what it's like to be POTUS, but I assume it's like inheriting the CEO/President role at a super old, well-known established company, with an even older and power-hungry Board. Sure, they'll let you be the CEO, but they hold all the political "preferred stock" and can make sure the CEO is ousted if he doesn't do what they want.
> If this is indeed true, then it would mean that the US political system (which is regarded as the best example of democracy, globally) is corrupt from the core and the idea of checks & balances is completely bogus.
Ever since someone asked me if I thought GWB was "a good president", I've been mildly interested in what the president is (a) supposed to do, and (b) empowered to do. It turns out both questions are quite difficult to answer, and in particular the answer to (b), as best as I've been able to tell, is "almost nothing". At this point, I'm a little confused as to why the position is so prestigious.
There's nothing physically stopping him - he's in a position where he addresses the world. He could very well stand up at his next speech and say "I'm very worried about the seemingly illegal activities of govt agencies... I've struggled change anything because... There are powers in play would prefer...". As a human being on this earth there's absolutely nothing stopping him from doing that but we all know it's never going to happen.
It's sad really.
But my point is, he's not actually "in power" as far as I can tell. What power is he in? What can he do? And why?
Ilya Somin likes to point out that the government suffers when shark attacks occur, no matter that there is generally no conceivable relationship between them. Is respect for the office of the president backed by anything more substantial?
Come again?! Where did this come from, Hollywood?
In large part of the rest of the world, the threat of "American conditions" or similar is a frequently used political insult.
> regarded best globally
Excuse me?
If one would ease up on the constant "the government of the USA is literally Hitler" nonsense a bit, maybe more productive talk could occur.
I don't believe the USA is Hitler or the worst on the planet but that is not the expectation or standard the US should be held to. It used to be an example to the world (or at least wanted to be one), a shining beacon of hope[0]. Now the standard is "not as bad as China" which is a sad state of affairs and isn't enough to have moral authority in the world.[2]
I haven't seen many (not sure I've seen any) posts saying the US government is Hitler but what I have seen is a number of comparisons to the Stasi. The Stasi were famous for the massive amounts of surveilance and they would have loved the capabilities that the NSA had. That doesn't mean that the results of political opposition in the US are the same as they were in East Germany but East Germany was one of the experiments in the effects on observers and the observed in a mass surveilance society and we should at least look to it for lesson and warnings.
[0] I know that there were always flaws but the aspiration was there.
[2] I'm from and in the UK and I make no claim that we are better in general, while in some ways it feels less corrupt and politically broken than the US sometimes seems we don't bother to restrain GCHQ at all.
I think this goes to what I'm talking about. Not as bad as China? That executes businessmen who are found to be doing corrupt things, systemic forced children policies, wholesale censorship, and the great firewall...Just going on FoxNews half of the Republican party is calling Obama a weak leader and questioning his authority in the Senate daily, this would never happen in China.
err, what? As a foreigner living in the US for the last 5 years I will tell you this: The US political system is regarded as the best example of democracy, by they Americans only. Period.
Having lived and traveled in Europe for the most part of my 30 years of my adult life I have heard no person having this perception of the American political system. In fact, I would say that it is closer to the truth to claim that the American political system is regarded as corrupted, like most of other political systems globally.
I really don't want to hijack the thread but I am kind of tired of this perception that some Americans have of themselves and their country that is ("regarded as") the best democracy in the world.
The american democracy is a representative democracy powered mainly by two private funded right-wing Christian parties.
Not to mention that this political system cannot provide to it's citizens and tax payers the right to public education and public health care.
Anyways, yes in my opinion, it would not be a surprise at all if CIA spied on Congress or if the President (or better the USA CEO) could not do anything about it.
As far as I can tell, Switzerland has the best political system (with the most direct democracy) and it's really a shame that nobody seems to want to imitate it (which of course can be explained by the fact that it means more power goes to the People, not corporations/secret gvt agencies/etc, which are often allowed to buy politicians via "donations", accepted corruption called "lobbying", etc)
In an economy without such high GDP and average household income, I wonder if it would still be such an effective or model system.
What I am saying is that there is a widespread public perception that "America knows best" — the news supports this, Hollywood supports this, and yes, loads of people around the globe support this notion as well.
Please tell me I'm not the one bursting your bubble on this one.
Now what you mention about having lived in Europe/other countries: I hear you. I've lived in other countries as well (Spain, Costa Rica, and a brief stint in Saudi Arabia). Everyone in all of these countries talks shit about the US. It's the cool thing to do. Like us talking shit about Facebook.
But what do they want come their birthdays? Xboxes! Call of Duty! Pizza and Coca Cola!
There is a deeply imbued adoration for America as a model of "all that a country can aspire to be" — and this image is what I'm referring to.
[EDIT:
you know, I knew since this was the internet, someone was going to bring up the whole "hey, did you know pizza is italian". Yes, I did. And as people from NYC or Chicago can tell you, the US has created it's own version which has taken on its own fame.
But while we're on it, did you know that French Fries aren't actually from France?
And to those who are going to take what I said as "because I buy these products I endorse America" , you have clearly missed the broader message of my post.
It's not about the specifics of Coke, Xbox, or fast food (I can't believe I actually have to explain this but, wait, yes I can). It's the overall "image" that America sells overseas. It's the reason why Hollywood movies are popular all around the world, yet not as much the other way around. Again, that is just ONE example, so no need to hyper focus on just that. The fact is, there's an undeniable adoration of American culture abroad --- and it exists RIGHT ALONGSIDE the contempt and disgust for American culture abroad.]
- x buys american products
- x considers US the best political system in the worldThere may have been briefly, just after WWII, but that hasn't been even slightly true for decades. Certainly not since Vietnam.
In my view one part of the success of US is collective belief in American Dream. If you work hard and try you will get Rich. And this leads to kind of prove of infinite monkey theorem: when lot's of people try to achieve something eventually someone will. Of course this will benefit only small partition of people but others are still satisfied since they have a dream, hope for glory even rationally costs are higher than most probable profits ( see Income inequality in the United States, Socio-economic mobility in the United States, Poverty in the United States ).
I'm very happy that monkeys will keep trying and eventually produce great things to me to consume. This doesn't have anything to do with the democracy in the US though.
Ridiculous conflation of politics, culture, economy and military.
Talking shit about US politics isn't just because it's "the cool thing to do", it's also because US politics is kinda shit, and it does affect us over here as well. And apparently all American people are so very helpless to do anything about it, even your president ...
> did you know that French Fries aren't actually from France?
yes, because nobody calls them French Fries outside the US and McDonald's :)
It wouldn't surprise me that if you did a global poll that the democracy in the US would be subjectively be regarded as "best" - for a lot of reasons:
- The size of the US (probably the single biggest factor)
- The fact that a lot of people from the US genuinely believe that their system of government is the best (a view they are perfectly entitled to) and are rather evangelical about this belief
- The strength of US consumer brands that, at least historically, were associated with "freedom". A lot of the US worldview often seems to have remained frozen in a rather Cold War perspective (e.g. referring to the US President as "leader of the free world" - which always makes me grind my teeth when I see it).
The US have been and are still recognized for their military strength.
The US were once recognized for their democracy but this was some time ago. Today the politics - domestic and foreign - of the US is perceived as corrupt and controlled by the economy. Maybe even as stuck in the cold war.
I think this is a fairly typical perception of the US in western Europe, I am quite sure it is here in Germany. Whether this perception is true or false is a different matter. And if you are not living in a well developed country, if you are living in a non-democratic country, you may of course still perceive the US democracy as desirable.
Germany is often looking at Scandinavia because we think they are doing a couple of things in a better way than we do. You would probably have a hard time or have to look quite some time back to find examples were someone suggested we should do it the American way. Even if you forget about politics and look at the economy. Yes, the economy is recognized as really strong, but it is not perceived as superior.
Those checks and balances are keeping Gitmo open.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/26/obama-takes-...
But not yet? We've seen the full first term, and the destruction of the nation's economy and everyone's civil liberties, but umm.. we can't tell if the Hope & Change sloganeering was just empty rhetoric or not?
>>> Otherwise all that Hope & Change sloganeering will be empty rhetoric.
Will be? Will be? How naive can one be, really? It's going on for over 5 years now, and we're still talking as if Obama is just starting up and if he doesn't do this and that then maybe what he said is just words? Maybe it's time to face it - yes, it's just words.