

Feinstein: CIA searched Intelligence Committee computers - pachydermic
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/11/feinstein-cia-searched-intelligence-committee-computers/?hpid=z1

======
rosser
I'm curious, Senator: Would this also be called "protecting America"? Or is it
somehow different when it happens _to you_?

~~~
boguser
That's nice & snarky.

IT looks like this genuine misconduct on the part of a paranoid intelligence
agency trying to cover themselves from an investigation. This is what many
allege the NSA was doing w/ bulk collection- individual people actively
snooping around.

W/ the NSA program, you're just a row in a database, if you're not a
terrorist* and do not associate with terrorists nobody has time to give rat's
ass about what you're doing unless one can relate you to another suspicious
character. That's national security stuff, sorry if ya don't like it, but
tough.

THIS is different. This is real domestic spying by spies.

*"But how do we define terrorism, isn't one man's terrorist another man's freedom fighter wahhhh" -Tsarnaevs & people like them? Those are terrorists. Bad guys, got it?

~~~
CWuestefeld
_IT looks like this genuine misconduct..._

That doesn't make it different. An important reason for (ignored) prohibitions
against what the NSA is doing is _because_ of the possibility of misconduct.
We must expect that, because it's humans running these programs, they will
behave as humans.

So it's incorrect to say that we should view the violations as separate from
the programs themselves. It's all part of the same discussion, which must
include weighing what might go wrong, and the damage that it might do.

 _W / the NSA program, you're just a row in a database,..._

Which vastly multiplies both the opportunity for malfeasance, and the
potential scope of damage that would result from it.

UPDATE: to whoever downvoted the parent, I don't think that's correct.
Although I strongly disagree with its message, it is a common feeling that
needs to be addressed. Even if it's wrong, having the comment as part of the
discussion is valuable, as it allows us to explore _why_ it's wrong. I have
compensated with an upvote of my own.

~~~
dragonwriter
> An important reason for (ignored) prohibitions against what the NSA is doing
> is because of the possibility of misconduct.

Not exactly. FISA wasn't adopted because of the abstract _possibility_ of
abuse of domestic surveillance, it was adopted because of actual and
substantial abuse of domestic surveillance, including for political purposes.

------
a3n
> The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the
> CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of
> congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the
> agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to
> investigate a controversial interrogation program.

> Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to an
> attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: "I am not
> taking it lightly."

I guess the outrage, and constitutional protectiveness, depends on which
citizens are being spied on.

You know, we mere citizens are supposed to have overall oversight on Congress
and the government. Can't we get a little outrage love too?

~~~
phkn1
Glad to see she has belatedly grown a sense of moral indignation about
overreach by intelligence agencies. Once can only hope that this debacle will
add credence to the idea that the US clandestine apparatus is in dire need of
meaningful reform.

------
tibbon
What in the world would the CIA be looking for in searching members of
Congress?

Do they actually think that elected officials are involved in terrorism or
endangering the security of the US? If members of Congress are being watched,
then I really have to assume that everyone is a suspect.

To be honest, the makes the Nixon spying stuff seem tiny in comparison. I have
voted for Obama twice, but if it turns out that this came from his
administration it really does seem like grounds for some sort of hearings (I
really can't believe I'm saying that, because 99.999% of calls for impeachment
are just absurd)

~~~
MrZongle2
_I have voted for Obama twice, but if it turns out that this came from his
administration..._

The heads of the nation's intelligence agencies answer to the President.
Congress may approve their funding, but he provides their marching orders.

If there was ultimately nothing inappropriate about this, then _their boss_ ,
the President, needs to be publicly standing behind the CIA.

Otherwise, if he remains silent and heads do not roll, then he is either
complicit or indifferent.

~~~
revscat
Or powerless. There seems to exist a large, perhaps even predominant, section
of the government that exists outside of the control of the democratic
process. The de jure objection to this is that the Administration can fire and
hire at will, and can affect these agencies with that power. The de facto
reality, however, is that the President only has limited ability to affect
these agencies, much more limited in power than we are taught in school.[1]
Further, the oversight abilities of Congress have been negated in ways that
are well demonstrated here.

I am no Obama fan, especially in this regard, but I do believe his
Administration is the problem. The problem is systemic rather than political,
and these institutions are structured such that they are almost entirely
outside of the ability of the democratic process to change.

To say that Feinstein has encountered face of the real American government is
probably an exaggeration, but not enough of one for comfort.

[1] [http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-
state/](http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/)

~~~
001sky
This is silly. Presidents routinely fire generals, even during military
conflicts. The CIA and the NSA are under his direct perview. Buck stops with
POTUS on this.

~~~
jfmiller28
Generals are easy to fire and rarely have direct effect on the day to day
operations. A new general may attack today instead of tomorrow, but it will be
the mid-ranking officers who determine what set of rape pillage and plunder
happen in the aftermath.

It is the same with the CIA. The director may set targets and direct
stratagity but it is the untouchable civil servants who run the show. Given
the Hall of Mirrors effect, I think it could be possible that the appointed
leaders are mere figure-heads just there to take the blame what a job goes
bad.

~~~
001sky
"Generals are easy to fire and rarely have direct effect on the day to day
operations"

The second half of this sentence doesn't ring true.

The last two major generals Obama fired were McChrystal and Patraeus. Both
hugely influential in structuring day to day operations, if not direct
tactical decision. The latter was the author of
[http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/fm3_24x2....](http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/fm3_24x2.pdf).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus)

------
cgtyoder
Senator Feinstein is shocked, SHOCKED, that the dogs she said should be
trained to bite other people's hands have bitten hers. Never saw this one
coming.

------
raldi
To paraphrase Bender, "This is the worst kind of spying: the kind against me!"

------
ameister14
They threatened her staff; that's why she's speaking out.

I honestly dislike Senator Feinstein. I think she's excused actions that are
unacceptable to me and her conception of her constitutional duties to the
people of the United States seems off.

However, if this is what it takes to get some of this out in the open, so be
it.

------
wcummings
So someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is the CIA really investigating a leak
..... to the oversight committee?

------
pachydermic
And her actual speech here: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/transc...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/transcript-sen-dianne-feinstein-says-cia-searched-intelligence-
committee-
computers/2014/03/11/200dc9ac-a928-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html?hpid=z1)

------
nateabele
Ohhhh, I see.

It only 'raises Constitutional issues' and '[undermines] the Constitutional
framework' when it happens to _you_.

~~~
ixnu
A new category of laws needs to be enumerated: "Laws that only apply to
Congress".

This is the reverse of the "Laws that do not apply to Congress" [0]

[0] Whistleblower Protections; Subpoenas for Health and Safety Probes; Keeping
Workplace Records; Prosecution for Retaliating Against Employees; Posting
Notices of Workers’ Rights; Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Retaliation Training

[http://www.propublica.org/article/do-as-we-say-congress-
says...](http://www.propublica.org/article/do-as-we-say-congress-says-then-
does-what-it-wants)

------
TallGuyShort
Would someone be willing to share with me their impression of Senator
Feinstein? I have thought quite highly of her because every time there's been
an issue I care deeply about, I have noticed her name as one of the Senators
who wrote the relevant bill or supported it very early on. I recently
mentioned this to a friend who had nothing but horrible things to say about
her record and it seems she isn't so popular on HN as well (and the politics
of HN and those of my friend differ greatly - hence my curiosity about what
her reputation is). I feel like I must be misinformed about some other things
:)

~~~
usefulcat
I don't know that much about her in general, but from what I do know she has
typically defended the actions of the NSA. So I would think that for her to
come out publicly against the CIA like this is a pretty big deal.

~~~
kordless
Yeah, I just got an email from her that said:

> First, please be assured that the NSA does not conduct mass surveillance on
> U.S. citizens. Its mission is to collect foreign signals intelligence to
> detect foreign national security threats.

Stating the mission as a rationalization to deflect accusations is just silly.
Frankly, I see little difference between the two agencies. They clearly are
doing whatever the hell they want with our data.

------
higherpurpose
So they _are_ getting charged under the Espionage Act, right? Or is that
reserved only for whistleblowers now, and not for real spies, spying on their
own country? Just wanting to make sure.

------
zmanian
Feinstein's motivations are confounding.

I suspect that she knows that in the long run of history the Rendition,
Detention and Interrogation program will be considered an unambiguous set of
war crime's authorized at the highest levels of the US government and seeks to
be personally exonerated from these crimes.

Anywho, [https://shameonfeinstein.org/](https://shameonfeinstein.org/)

~~~
lukeschlather
Everyone in this thread seems to be conflating the NSA metadata spying and the
CIA torturing people. These are very different things and it seems Feinstein
has been (surprise surprise) consistent in her view that torture is bad and
the CIA shouldn't do it, and that the NSA's activity has adequate oversight.

I disagree on the latter point, but I have to say the former is more important
and can't fault Feinstein for focusing on it.

------
anonymousDan
With my tin-foil hat on, this is just a ruse to improve her credibility.

~~~
VintageCool
At first, I was excited about this and saw it as our generation's "only Nixon
could go to China" moment. The spy agency's leading cheerleader within
Congress accused them of going too far? Wow!

However, according to the NY Times article, the documents were removed from
the computer her staff was using in 2010. It clearly wasn't enough to change
her mind in the past 4 years. That makes me rather cynical about whatever she
is doing now.

------
cle
"The searches, officials said, were conducted in an effort to determine how
committee staff members had gained access to a draft version of an internal
agency review of its controversial interrogation program."

"Feinstein confirmed that committee investigators had received and reviewed
documents detailing the interrogation policy but said she didn’t know whether
they were provided intentionally or unintentionally by CIA officials or by
agency whistleblowers."

These political games are extremely complex and I don't know if we'll ever
know what actually went on here. I suppose it's possible that the CIA leaked
these unauthorized documents to Feinstein to give them a pretext for searching
her computers.

------
Zigurd
Let me know when the perps are put on trial. The rest is noise.

------
Tloewald
"Even the police began to sit up and take notice."

------
erdle2
And they found what we all know, her husband, Richard Blum, has had billions
steered his way in the form of government contracts.

------
Shivetya
Apparently it goes both ways.

[http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/07/220273/senate-
staffers...](http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/03/07/220273/senate-staffers-
slipped-secret.html)

~~~
voidlogic
You could argue that the legislative branch has every right to do this,
regardless of if the CIA knew or approved.

After all, even if the CIA declared legislators broke the law (which they
probably didn't due to their constitutional oversight role in the government
trumping any normal laws), legislators are in fact the only people in
government who could retroactively make their actions legal-

~~~
sigzero
No, I don't think you can. That isn't how classification boundaries work.

~~~
voidlogic
The Constitution is more authoritative than some law, which by definition is
secondary to the Constitution. Congress could also pass a law that gives all
of these committee members full access to everything that exists, and the CIA
would be powerless to stop it without breaking the law.

------
adolgert
Her CSPAN video: [http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4486712/sen-feinstein-
accuses-...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4486712/sen-feinstein-accuses-cia-
searching-congressional-computers)

------
alexeisadeski3
What's the big deal? So long as they've got nothing to hide they shouldn't be
worried.

------
Glyptodon
First reported 5 days ago, only news once Feinstein says something?

------
wil421
The spies will spy. This is nothing new you cant fault them for it. Put
someone on trial and maybe things will change.

~~~
higherpurpose
What you said is contradictory. Either they "can't be faulted" or they can,
and need to be charged.

However, it doesn't make sense to say "spies will always spy". So are you
saying they should have the power to spy on anyone? Even Congress, the
president and their overseers? That doesn't sound very good for democracy to
me. So if it _is_ legal to do that for them now (which I'm sure it isn't),
then it should be made illegal anyway.

~~~
wil421
Spies spy, that's what I am saying. It is in their nature to be deceptive,
that is why I said cant fault them for it. Not in a legal way just it is what
they do. Until you hold them accountable they have no reason to change.

