The Queens of Stalingrad - 6

Headquarters of The Vassal Spies

Oversight, like elections, is one of the ways of accountability that has fallen by the traditional American wayside.

Yes, fallen like other relics of a once constitutional democracy.

A once constitutional democracy which has financially descended into a plutocracy (The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy).

A once constitutional democracy that has politically descended into a police-surveillance imperialist state through one policy coup after another over the years (American Feudalism - 6, A Tale of Coup Cities - 9).

The Senate committee which is supposed to oversee spy activities was shocked to find they were being spied on too.

They had not flinched when it was only American citizens who were being spied on, but lo and behold when they found out that they, the bosses, too were being spied upon they experienced what the 99% have been experiencing.

According to Rolling Stone, Diane Feinstein, Chair of the oversight committee, made some shocking, out of character for her, statements about the matter:

1. The initial 2009 Intelligence Committee review found that the CIA had misled Congress about its torture program.
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2. When the Intelligence Committee launched a full-fledged investigation into what Senator Feinstein describes as the "the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed," the CIA unleashed documents as if it were trying to bury needles in a haystack.
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3. In violation of written agreements about the handling of documents, the CIA secretly removed documents that had originally been provided to investigators, and then lied when its actions were detected, saying the order to take back the documents had come from the Obama administration.
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4. Included in the document dump was an something called the "Internal Panetta Review" – evidently an in-agency summary of the torture program for then-CIA chief Leon Panetta, that many in the agency did not want the Senate to see.
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5. The Intelligence Committee's investigation into the "Detention and Interrogation Program of the CIA" does not stop with the Bush White House, and delves deeply into the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama presidency.
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6. The 6,300-page Senate report is complete. The CIA has read it and disputes "important parts of it." However, many of the disputed claims are, in fact, backed up by the CIA's own Internal Panetta Review.
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7. Distrust is so high between the CIA and the committee that the committee removed an appropriately redacted summary of the Panetta Review from a shared off-site location, and now keeps the document in a Senate safe.
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8. The CIA was so angered by the Senate having its hands on the Panetta Review that it spied on the work of its Senate overseers.
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9. Director Brennan is stonewalling Senator Feinstein's inquiry into this spying.
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10. Feinstein believes the CIA's actions may not only have broken several laws but violated the Fourth Amendment and the constitution's separation of powers.
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11. Senator Feinstein is battling to have the Intelligence Committee's findings declassified. She believes she has the backing of the White House and that the details will shock America into never again permitting such a torture program.

(Jaw-Dropping Lines From Dianne Feinstein). Criticism directed toward her was not what she is saying is wrong.

Rather, that criticism is about her not caring when it was being done to the 99%, but she does care now when it is being done to her (Ok to spy on Americans, Not Congress).

Thus, according to some who watch closely, the CIA can use the results of her lack of oversight (for years now), to try to drive a wedge between her and others she will now need as allies (Where the Bodies Are Buried).

The policy coup that General Clarke spoke about is sometimes hidden only in plain sight (A Tale of Coup Cities - 2).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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