Following an internal investigation of the CIA by the agency’s inspector general, it turns out that the agency was indeed spying on the group charged with condemning the agency’s widespread spying in no small measure of irony.
CIA’s apologies and admissions
CIA officers apparently created a fake online identity in order to gain access to the computers and computer network being used by members of the committee charged with preparing a damning report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. According to the statement issued by a CIA spokesperson, John O. Brennan, the agency’s director, had already apologized to two senior members of the committee.
The agency also acknowledged that it would set up an internal accountability board to review the issue led by former Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, who could recommend “potential disciplinary measures” and “steps to address systemic issues.”
Just to add irony to an already irony laden situation, when the CIA’s monitoring of the committee became public in March, Mr. Brennan said, “When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.”
CIA – Feinstein then and now
Those comments stand in stark contrast to what she called a “defining moment” in the committee’s history in March when she spoke of its resolution as something that “will show whether the intelligence committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation’s intelligence activities, or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee.”
