It’s one thing for the CIA to hack the Senate committee investigating Bush-era torture, but then director John Brennan told a bald-faced lie, under oath, to the Senate Intelligence Committee (his bosses!) about it.
Now, Democrats on the committee are calling on him to admit that he lied, which seems pretty mild, given that he oversaw the commissions of felonies that were a thousand times worse than anything Aaron Swartz ever did (the prosecutors wanted to put Aaron in jail for 25 years for running a script that let him check lots of books out of the library, effectively), and then perjured himself about it.
Brennan initially denied accusations of hacking, but an investigation by the CIA’s inspector general showed his denial to be false. The CIA set up an outside review board chaired by former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), but the board’s final report did not recommend any punishments for the employees who hacked into the Senate’s computer system.
Brennan has not acknowledged any misconduct by CIA employees in the matter.
“It is vitally important for the American public to have confidence that senior intelligence officials respect U.S. laws and the Constitution, including our democratic system of checks and balances,” reads the letter from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).
“In our judgment your handling of this matter has undermined that confidence,” the letter continues. “We call on you to acknowledge that this search was improper, and commit that these unacceptable actions will not be repeated.”
Senators demand CIA director admit he lied in computer-hacking scandal [Eric Geller/Daily Dot]
(via /.)
