Quote:Over the past few months, one thing we keep hearing over and over again from defenders of the intelligence community is that everything is under control and "legal" because Congress has powerful oversight. We've shown, repeatedly, how that's something of a joke. The intelligence community has lied repeatedly, has withheld documents and is generally nonresponsive to oversight attempts by Congress. And, with the reports that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, we also find out that for all the bluster and talk of oversight, folks in Congress are actually scared by the intelligence community.

In response to Senator Dianne Feinstein's speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:

"I salute Sen. Feinstein," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I'll tell you, you take on the intelligence community, you're a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth."

Pelosi added that she has always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: "You don't fight it without a price because they come after you and they don't always tell the truth."

A few months back, the ACLU had posted something questioning whether or not the intelligence community might be blackmailing Congress. And, quite frequently when we write about the intelligence community, we see suggestions in the comments that certain politicians probably cover for the NSA and CIA because they know what those agencies "have on them." I've always dismissed those kinds of claims as being a bit far-fetched, even if they have plenty of historical precedent. So far, there's certainly been no direct evidence of that happening.

And yet... Pelosi's comments certainly seem to hint at even more nefarious activity by the intelligence community against politicians who dare to actually do the job of oversight. The point of that ACLU post linked above is that, even if it's not happening, the fact that we can't definitively rule it out is a serious problem for democracy. And just the fact that some of the most powerful members of Congress, who are theoretically in charge of oversight, are now publicly admitting that they're scared of how the CIA fights back when they take them on, suggests that the intelligence community really is rotten to the core. And Congressional oversight, as it stands today, is clearly not able to deal with the issue by itself.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Nancy Pelosi Admits That Congress Is Scared Of The CIA

from the well-that's-revealing dept

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140317/07441526589/nancy-pelosi-admits-that-congress-is-scared-cia.shtml

Quote:Over the past few months, one thing we keep hearing over and over again from defenders of the intelligence community is that everything is under control and "legal" because Congress has powerful oversight. We've shown, repeatedly, how that's something of a joke. The intelligence community has lied repeatedly, has withheld documents and is generally nonresponsive to oversight attempts by Congress. And, with the reports that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, we also find out that for all the bluster and talk of oversight, folks in Congress are actually scared by the intelligence community.

In response to Senator Dianne Feinstein's speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:

"I salute Sen. Feinstein," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I'll tell you, you take on the intelligence community, you're a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth."

Pelosi added that she has always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: "You don't fight it without a price because they come after you and they don't always tell the truth."

A few months back, the ACLU had posted something questioning whether or not the intelligence community might be blackmailing Congress. And, quite frequently when we write about the intelligence community, we see suggestions in the comments that certain politicians probably cover for the NSA and CIA because they know what those agencies "have on them." I've always dismissed those kinds of claims as being a bit far-fetched, even if they have plenty of historical precedent. So far, there's certainly been no direct evidence of that happening.

And yet... Pelosi's comments certainly seem to hint at even more nefarious activity by the intelligence community against politicians who dare to actually do the job of oversight. The point of that ACLU post linked above is that, even if it's not happening, the fact that we can't definitively rule it out is a serious problem for democracy. And just the fact that some of the most powerful members of Congress, who are theoretically in charge of oversight, are now publicly admitting that they're scared of how the CIA fights back when they take them on, suggests that the intelligence community really is rotten to the core. And Congressional oversight, as it stands today, is clearly not able to deal with the issue by itself.

Paul Rigby Wrote:

Kenneth Kapel Wrote:Is Feinstein trying to divert attention from the NSA scandals ? I really can't figure her out, she has been a staunch defender of the American Security State and a foreign policy hawk.

Snowden, Feinstein, CIA, NSA: the internal war

by Jon Rappoport

March 11, 2014

http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/snowden-feinstein-cia-nsa-the-internal-war/

Quote:Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, blows up.

She claims the CIA made efforts to sabotage her Committee's investigation of illegal CIA interrogation/torture of detainees.

The CIA vehemently denies it did anything wrong.

So a new front in the internal war opens up.

The key fact here is: Feinstein's Committee has been carrying on this investigation of the CIA for SEVERAL YEARS. It is preparing a 6000-page report.

For several years, the CIA has been aware of the coming storm.

The damage to its reputation will be large.

What does an agency like the CIA do when faced with such a problem? It tries to mount a major distraction.

Here is one hypothesis to consider:

The distraction was Edward Snowden.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece titled, "Is Edward Snowden lying?" It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when he was handed a treasure trove of NSA documents by CIA pros.

Thus, casting a very bright light of blame on a different intell agency, the NSA.

The CIA wasn't hoping to get away clean on its torture program. But it was hoping to maintain a degree of parity with the NSA, within the US intelligence complex.

The CIA didn't want to be the odd man out with a scandal of enormous proportions on its hands. It wanted company.

For decades, the turf war over federal funding and importance has been going on, between CIA and NSA. At the CIA, for the past several years, the prospect of taking a dagger, for its torture program, and suffering the consequences, has been grim.

Absorbing public shame as the dirty little brother in the US intell nexus, while big brother, the NSA, appeared relatively clean, was too horrible to contemplate.

So the Snowden operation was launched.

Dianne Feinstein has now shown which side she's onand for whom she might be operating as a surrogate. She excoriates Snowden as a traitor, defends the NSA, and blasts the CIA with a charge of trying to torpedo her Committee's investigation.

The NSA stays silent, while privately rejoicing that the CIA is taking the heat recently reserved for it, the NSA.

In this war, there are no real winners. There is only the shifting of blame, and the hope that the enemy takes more hits. If not, then each side can console itself with the knowledge that everyone's hands are shown to be dirty.

Nothing about these events minimizes the importance of the documents Snowden's press surrogates have released, or the importance of true findings about the CIA's torture program.

But this internal war does highlight how destructive and amoral agencies and operatives of the federal government can be, even toward each other, and how low they will go.

Also highlighting the enormous rotting superstructure called the federal government, which continues to move further along in controlling our lives, while it claims to be only concerned about "the greatest good for the greatest number."

Quote:Trevor Timm of the Electronic Freedom Frontier dug up a very interesting nugget. It was embedded in the heralded December 2013 White House task force report on spying and snooping.

Under Recommendations, #31, section 2, he found this:

"Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate financial systems."

Timm quite rightly wondered: why were these warnings in the report?

Were the authors just anticipating a possible crime? Or were they reflecting the fact that the NSA had already been engaging in the crime?

If this was just a bit of anticipation, why leave it naked in the report? Why not say there was no current evidence the NSA had been manipulating financial systems?

Those systems would, of course, include the stock market, and all trading markets around the world.

Well, there is definite evidence of other NSA financial snooping. From Spiegel Online, 9/15/13:

"The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL."

"The NSA's Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely...the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the [NSA] agency's 'tailored access operations' division..."

The NSA's "tailored access operations" division uses roughly 1000 hackers and analysts in its spying efforts.

The next step in all this spying would naturally involve penetrating trading markets and, using the deep data obtained, manipulate the markets to the advantage of the NSA and preferred clients.

The amount of money siphoned off in such an ongoing operation would be enormous.

"Looking over the shoulder" of Wall St. insiders would be child's play for NSA.

Ditto for predicting political events that would temporarily drive markets down and provide golden opportunities for highly profitable short selling.

Like drug traffickers and other mobsters, the NSA could invest their ill-gotten gains in legitimate enterprises and reap additional rewards.

And if the Pentagon, under which the NSA is organized, requires heavy amounts of money for off-the-books black budget ops, what better place to go than their own NSA?

All in all, when you operate the biggest spying and data-gathering operation in the world, the opportunities abound. Yes, knowledge is power, when the distinctions between legal and illegal are brushed off like like a few gnats on a summer day.