Post date: Mar 11, 2014 8:27:58 PM
CIA Director John Brennan denies allegations by U.S. Senate intelligence chief that accuses the Central Intelligence Agency of spying on Senate.
WASHINGTON,D.C. UNITED STATES (MARCH 11, 2014) (COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS) - The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not infiltrate computers of the Senate committee investigating the agency's interrogation and detention program for terrorism suspects, CIA Director John Brennan said on Tuesday (March 11).
"Nothing could be further from the truth. We wouldn't do that," Brennan told the Council on Foreign Relations.Brennan spoke after Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate's intelligence committee, accused the agency of spying on its computers.
A dispute between the Central Intelligence Agency and a U.S. Senate committee that oversees it burst into the open on Tuesday when a top senator accused the agency of spying on Congress and possibly breaking the law.
Senator Dianne Feinstein delivered a scathing critique of the CIA's handling of her panel's investigation into a Bush-era interrogation and detention program that began after the September 11, 2001, attacks but was only made public in 2006.
"I have grave concerns that the CIA's search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States constitution, including the speech and debate clause. It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities" Feinstein said in a highly critical speech on the Senate floor by a traditionally strong ally of U.S. intelligenceagencies.
She said the CIA searched committee computers to find out how staff obtained an internal agency review that was more critical of the interrogation program than the official CIA report.