US SENATE OK WITH ILLEGAL SPYING UNTIL BEING SPIED ON

During her recent tirade on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Feinstein accused the CIA of violating the U.S. Constitution -- like it suddenly matters to her -- and criminal activity in its attempts to obstruct her committee's investigation into the agency's torture program, going so far as to describe the crisis as a "defining moment" for political oversight of the U.S. Intelligence agency. For the NSA, the Senate Intelligence Committee's oversight is virtually non-existent. Feinstein was referencing recent reports that the CIA monitored the computers (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37864.htm [2]) used by staff investigators and the consequential attempts by the CIA to remove evidence of the brutal torture techniques that incriminated intelligence officers from the Senate Intelligence Committee's computer network.
 
CIA officials -- anonymously of course -- are currently conducting a smear campaign in the media to try and discredit and intimidate Senate staff by suggesting that Senate staffers hacked into the CIA's computers to obtain the evidence. The CIA supposedly reported Senate staffers to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) for potential criminal charges by a lawyer at the CIA and the CIA's Inspector General has opened an inquiry into the allegations. Feinstein reported CIA officials to the DoJ for allegedly violating the Fourth Amendment -- which until now hasn't applied to the U.S. public (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/12 [3]) in her eyes -- and laws preventing the CIA from spying domestically. The Senate report is still classified but if history is any indication, the CIA will again be guilty of committing crimes and falsifying information (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/10-5 [4]).
 
AMERICANS NEED TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CIA
 
Since its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been a secretive, rogue organization (link: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174824/chalmers_johnson_agency_of_rogues [5]) that had done more harm than good for the U.S. people. The CIA succeeded the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) created during World War II to coordinate secret espionage activities against the Axis powers for branches of the U.S. Armed Forces (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency [6]). Since 9/11 -- when it was given free rein to break all the laws to play dirty abroad, which has made it difficult for the CIA to stop playing dirty at home (link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37892.htm [7]) -- the CIA has become America's premier International and domestic terrorist organization (link: http://911blogger.com/news/2013-01-06/uss-sordid-history-war-terror [8]).
 
Theoretically the CIA is one of the principal intelligence gathering agencies of the U.S. Federal government charged with 3 traditional principal activities: Gathering information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals; Analyzing that information with other U.S. intelligence agencies; and Carrying out covert and some tactical operations at the request of the U.S. President. Realistically the CIA has a dubious history (link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/5348804 [9]) of criminality, often focusing on deceiving the U.S. public for the powers that be in Washington's culture of corruption.
 
After the George W. Bush cabal's implicit -- or complicit depending on how you look at it -- ignorance that resulted in the so-called "terrorist" attacks of 9/11, the CIA has become even more lawless. When President Obama took office, he let the crimes of his predecessor go unpunished and granted them total immunity. Consequently the lawless actions of the CIA have grown. As more of the CIA's illegal covert actions were shielded from the public, human rights violations by the CIA have become inevitable and routine. As the CIA's criminality has grown exponentially, so too has Washington's. The CIA has quite a dark history (link: http://www.serendipity.li/cia.html [10]) and Americans really should take a closer look at its illegal activities.
 
THE DUBIOUS PRETEXT OF NATIONAL SECURITY
 
The fraudulent lawlessness of the Global "War on Terror" unleashed the CIA and gave them illegal powers without accountability. Now the CIA is using those illegal powers in the U.S. against the people and the U.S. Congress. Because the CIA initially lied about the use of torture and how effective it was in public while internal CIA documents revealed the opposite, the CIA is trying to cover its ass and find out how the Senate Intelligence Committee got a hold of those internal documents. When the truth about the CIA's malfeasance was revealed, the CIA flipped out.
 
To be kept safe under the dubious pretext of "National Security" the public must be misinformed and kept ignorant. The unfettered NSA spying on the U.S. public in collusion with much of the U.S. Congress speaks volumes as to how corrupt the U.S. political system really is. Spying on the very legislative body charged with overseeing and regulating you is, among a myriad of other things, not very smart. If the claims by the Senate Intelligence Committee are true, the CIA violated the law and the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution (link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/178792/senate-investigation-bush-era-torture-erupts-constitutional-crisis [11]).
 
Violating the Constitutional separation of powers leads to tyranny. Despite the founding fathers best attempts to put checks and balances in place to prevent things like the CIA spying on U.S. citizens and their Congress, America's system of checks and balances has been non-existent for more than a decade. The fact that the CIA spied on the U.S. Congress underscores the fact that America is run by an unelected, unaccountable Military Intelligence apparatus that in conjunction with the corporate financial corruption that owns too much of the U.S. Congress, dictates official policy in Washington regardless of which political party is in power (link: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/10/pers-m10.html [12]).
 
AMERICA’S POLITICAL SYSTEM IS PROFOUNDLY CORRUPT
 
Those in charge of Washington's culture of corruption have nothing but contempt for basic democratic principles and the U.S. public. When America's intelligence apparatus can flagrantly violate the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law in general with total impunity you have a totalitarian state. When President Obama decided to "look forward not backwards" all the crimes of the Bush cabal, the NSA and the CIA were justified. When the Executive Office can violate International Law with total impunity while enabling the illegal actions of America's intelligence apparatus (link: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/15/fein-m15.html [13]) you have a dictator not a president.
 
Washington's culture of corruption is terrified that the growing social inequality in the U.S. caused by the fraudulent endeavors of America's felonious Capitalist system will come back and bite them in the ass as a movement by the working class to fight Washington's corruption grows. The ever-growing list of police state measures -- NSA spying, assassination of innocent civilians by drone, imprisoning people indefinitely without trial, renditions, etc. -- are all directed against rising popular opposition. The fact that Feinstein is so pissed off because her committee was spied on by the CIA highlights the hypocrisy of America's out-of-control Police State.
 
Feinstein's anger at the CIA spying on the Senate is a positive sign that the U.S. Congress may start reclaiming its authority as a check on the Executive Branch which has diminished greatly since George W. Bush's appointment to the presidency in 2000 by a corrupt U.S. Supreme Court majority. But it's hard to tell which is more concerning: The fact that Feinstein justifies all the illegal spying of the NSA of U.S. citizens or the hypocrisy of how it suddenly becomes scandalous when a politician finds out the same thing has happened to them (link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/11-4 [14]). The truth is we need a new Church Committee (link: http://www.thenation.com/article/178813/why-we-need-new-church-committee-fix-our-broken-intelligence-system [15]) to fix our profoundly corrupt Intelligence System and we need to get corporately corrupt Congress critters out of office. In the meantime, enjoy the show (link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/13-4 [16]).
 
 Keywords: CIA, Illegal Surveillance, 9/11, Terrorism, Washington's Culture of Corruption, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, NSA, Dianne Feinstein, Department of Justice, Checks and Balances, President Obama, National Security, War on Terror