That is the title of this op ed for Tuesday's Washington Post.
Here's the opening paragraph:
The CIA now admits that it spied on a Senate investigation into the agency’s shameful program of secret detention and torture. Do we need any more proof that the spooks are out of control?Trust me, that is not even close to demonstrating the full power of this piece.
Please keep reading.
Robinson goes through some of the history that led up to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence doing its investigation, and what the CIA did to obstruct, obfuscate and more. If you do not know it, the column will give you a good overview.
We of course now know that the CIA was spying on the Senate Committee and its staffers at the same time it was trying to accuse the Senate Committee staffers of having broken the law.
Perhaps a few more snippets are relevant to show how pointed this piece by Robinson is.
There is this, offered after noting the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest defending CIA Director Brennan, saying he did not have a credibility problem:
Earnest is wrong on that score, but the problem is much bigger than Brennan. At stake is the principle that our intelligence agencies — like our military forces — must be subject to civilian oversight and control. The spooks apparently have a different arrangement in mind.Or perhaps this, after reminding people the CIA destroyed the tapes of the waterboarding its agents did:
Ostensibly, the reason was to prevent the tapes from somehow falling into the hands of al-Qaeda. In reality, the CIA was worried that its officers might be held accountable for their actions.Let's stop there for a moment. How would al-Qaeda ever get their hands on such tapes, unless they were made public?
Is the issue that of the propaganda use that could be made of them, or the possible disgust of the American people, or the members of the House and Senate Committees responsible for oversight of the intelligence community>
Would not they have been prima facie evidence of a crime, given the fact that we have previously prosecuted American servicemen for using a form of waterboarding?
Or perhaps we can go back to the incident that led to a criminal referral:
Earlier this year, Brennan complained to Feinstein that her investigators had improperly Eugene Robinson: Time to tame the intelligence monster:
My remarks to the National Society of High School Scholars
My remarks to the National Society of High School Scholars: My remarks to the National Society of High School Scholarsbyteacherken Tweet 4 Commentswhich I delivered yesterday in Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University.I was invited to speak on behalf of the Educators of Distinction, those educators who had been selected by the student members of the organization.This was the third time
by mike simpson / 20h