Dianne Feinstein claims the CIA illegally accessed the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers

  This brings to mind Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote about liberty and security, and I paraphrase: those who would give up essential liberty for a little security will have neither and will deserve neither. 

  According to the article linked to above Dianne Feinstein saw her poll number plummet after she made these comments. She eventually introduced an NSA Reform bill which really didn’t do much, and it turned out that she really did not support it.

 You may remember, for example, that Senator Dianne Feinstein, at the end of October, released a bill that pretended to be about reforming the NSA and its surveillance programs. The bill was spun in a way that was designed to make people think it was creating real reforms, with a fact sheet claiming that it “prohibited” certain actions around bulk data collection, but which actually codified them in the law, by including massive loopholes. It was an incredibly cynical move by Feinstein and her staff, pretending that their bill to actually give the NSA even greater power and to legalize its abuses, was about scaling back the NSA. But that’s the spin they put on it — which almost no one bought. 

Those recommendations were criticized by supporters of the NSA’s programs, including Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has said that taking the information out of the government’s hands could put the country at risk. Feinstein has spoken out against proposed reforms that would require as much, and has sponsored her own committee bill that would preserve the agency’s methods.

“Our bill passed by 11-4, so you know there’s substantial support for the programs,” she said.

In other words, “my bill is for people who already support these programs.” 

  Now we are learning that the CIA might have illegally accessed the Senate Intelligence Committee computers in an attempt to gather information from the Committee and Dianne Feinstein is outraged, and rightfully so:

A behind-the-scenes battle between the CIA and Congress erupted in public view Tuesday as the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the agency of breaking laws and breaching constitutional principles in an alleged effort to undermine the panel’s multi-year investigation of a controversial interrogation program.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA of secretly removing documents, searching committee-used computers and attempting to intimidate Congressional investigators by requesting an FBI probe of their conduct — charges that CIA Director John O. Brennan disputed vigorously within hours of Feinstein’s extraordinary appearance on the Senate floor.

Feinstein described the escalating conflict as “a defining moment” for Congress’s role in overseeing the operations of the nation’s intelligence agencies, and cited “grave concerns” that the CIA had “violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution.”

While she is right to be upset at this illegal activity, if it is true, and while I hope the people responsible for this are held accountable, I find it interesting because it seems as if she is being quite hypocritical here.

  She did not have a problem when the NSA was gathering records of all Americans’ phone records and she didn’t have a problem when it was learned the government was spying on people’s Facebook pages, emails and browsing history, but suddenly she is upset when it happens to her. I guess some people are more equal than others.

  I guess some people are protected under the Constitution and some people are not. Of course we know the Federal government would never do anything that was not on the up and up, right?

I am not defending what the CIA allegedly did, in fact I find it disgusting and deeply disturbing, but I wish Dianne Feinstein cared about the rights of the ruled class as much as she does about the ruling class.