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posted by azrael on Friday August 01 2014, @04:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-watches-the-watchers?-the-CIA dept.

It's official, the CIA was interfering with a network of computers created for the Intelligence Committee of the US Congress.

The New York Times is reporting that the CIA did indeed hack into Senate computers, as was suspected several months ago. From the article:

An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program. In a statement issued Thursday morning, a C.I.A. spokesman said that agency's inspector general had concluded that C.I.A. officers had acted inappropriately by gaining access to the computers. The statement said that John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, had apologized to the two senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and that he would set up an internal accountability board to review the matter. The board will be led by former Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana.

An internal investigation? What about a law enforcement investigation for violation of several criminal statutes? Is anyone going to prison for this?

The best part is that the CIA created that "secure" network, called RDInet, to store documents requested by the Committee to keep an eye on... the CIA.

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NPR Interview With CIA Director John Brennan 21 comments

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly recently interviewed CIA Director John Brennan. Here are some highlights:

On the FBI/Apple dispute over the San Bernardino iPhone:

BRENNAN: What would people say if a bank had a safe-deposit box, or a storage company had a storage bin, that individuals could use and access and store things, but the government was not going to be able to have any access to those environments? And so criminals, terrorists, whatever, could use it. So what is it about electronic communications that makes it unique in terms of it not being allowed to be accessed by the government when, again, the law, the courts, say that the government should have access to it? So these are things that need to be worked through.

[...] On whether the CIA is arming and training opposition forces in Syria:

BRENNAN: I'm not going to talk about anything that the CIA might be doing in that area. But the U.S. government has made it very clear that it supports the opposition, moderate opposition inside of Syria. ... There are a lot of various means of providing support to the opposition. And given that the opposition is a patchwork of moderates, as well as extremists, as well as terrorists, there is a need to make sure that any type of support that comes from the outside, whether it be from the United States or other countries, is going to support those moderate elements within the opposition, and not the extremists and terrorists.

On Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambitions:

BRENNAN: I think he has found that he's in a bit of a quandary now inside of Ukraine, in terms of realizing his objectives. Now in Syria, he's had a relationship with the — Russia has had a relationship with the government in Damascus for the past 50 years, has invested a lot of money, and a lot of military support. ... Mr. Putin is very assertive, very aggressive. He pursues Moscow's agenda in a variety of means. He does it with his intelligence and security services when he wants to hide his hands, but also, he's doing it rather overtly right now, obviously, with the introduction of thousands of Russian military personnel and sophisticated weaponry inside of Syria.

Related:
C.I.A. Admits Penetrating Senate Intelligence Computers
CIA Chief: Terrorists Harder to Find, Because of Leaks, Reforms
Two Alleged Teen Hackers Cuffed: CIA Director Brennan Email Hacker, and French XMPP Server Operator


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Friday August 01 2014, @04:21AM

    by Adamsjas (4507) on Friday August 01 2014, @04:21AM (#76240)

    What they meant to say:

    An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found [out that there is irrefutable proof in the wild] that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday August 01 2014, @04:27AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 01 2014, @04:27AM (#76241) Journal
    After all, the US Senate is so alien and hostile to some (most?) US citizens...
    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Friday August 01 2014, @11:46AM

      by Horse With Stripes (577) on Friday August 01 2014, @11:46AM (#76330)

      After all, the US Senate is so alien and hostile to some (most?) US citizens...

      And the CIA isn't alien and hostile to some (most?) US citizens?

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 01 2014, @12:53PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 01 2014, @12:53PM (#76351) Journal

        After all, the US Senate is so alien and hostile to some (most?) US citizens...

        And the CIA isn't alien and hostile to some (most?) US citizens?

        I wouldn't know. Would you?
        (if not, why? Isn't CIA your - I mean, USes' - creation?)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Horse With Stripes on Friday August 01 2014, @07:40PM

          by Horse With Stripes (577) on Friday August 01 2014, @07:40PM (#76501)

          Yes, the CIA is a US creation. But what they do is alien to us, and their actions are definitely hostile to us (as well as other agencies in the US and around the world).

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @05:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @05:00AM (#76249)

    We've now got the CIA openly admitting to running ops on the US Senate.
    What more must the intelligence agencies do to convince us that they are completely out of control?

    • (Score: 2) by redneckmother on Friday August 01 2014, @05:14AM

      by redneckmother (3597) on Friday August 01 2014, @05:14AM (#76251)

      Err, run a private war? Oh, that's right, been there, done that (more than once, it seems).

      --
      Mas cerveza por favor.
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 01 2014, @05:24AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday August 01 2014, @05:24AM (#76257)

      The problem is not knowing that they breach the law.
      It's finding someone clean enough that they can safely take them on (requiring defensive bad stuff to be fabricated, or random gang violence to happen at just the wrong place).
      Being elected to a position where you could fight the TLAs pretty much requires a closet full of skeletons.

      (bonus to the editor for the clever merger of our submissions)

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by mendax on Friday August 01 2014, @08:35AM

        by mendax (2840) on Friday August 01 2014, @08:35AM (#76289)

        Being elected to a position where you could fight the TLAs pretty much requires a closet full of skeletons.

        Indeed. As I was recently explaining to a friend who is a clueless die hard Republican, John McCain and Mitt Romney in my mind lost their respective presidential bigs because of a lack of credibility. A Republican candidate has to appeal to the extreme fascist element of his party so much that he has to seem to become one of them. But once he gets the nomination, he has to swing toward the center and back away from what he said in his stump speeches. He has to tell so many lies to get elected that he simply cannot be believed. This does not mean that Barack Obama has any more real credibility. He is after all a politician which means that he's probably has few moral qualms. It's just that Obama is better at telling lies than his opponents.

        In short, all politicians are scumbags, akin to used condoms. colonoscopy bags, and tampons.

        --
        It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
        • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 01 2014, @08:31PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 01 2014, @08:31PM (#76528) Journal

          I don't think so. I think this is more the Mafia-style "wiseguy" (which Wikipedia assures me is a term that can apply to outsider allies of the Mafia in addition to its members). As I understand it, the Mafia would deal with you, if you had some sort of stake in things, such as a strong relationship with members of the Mafia (relative or long term friend, for example), a history of participation, or a blackmail hold that the Mafia could use on you. I suspect that the last way was how the Mafia worked with most 50s and 60s era politicians (for example at the national level, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Kennedy brothers, particularly, Ted).

          If the CIA can similarly get elected politicians who have blackmail that only the CIA knows about (say because they staged it in the first place), then they have control over their own leash.

    • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday August 01 2014, @08:04AM

      by anubi (2828) on Friday August 01 2014, @08:04AM (#76284) Journal

      I am not all that confident anyone in Congress is squeeky clean either.

      Personally, I remain convinced that Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F, Kennedy and 911 were all "inside jobs" pulled off under secrecy granted to those in authority. It would be a real feather in the cap of NSA to bring out the truth.

      One thing I can observe... I do not think anyone can trust anyone at those levels. Its all a very high stakes poker game. I believe the word "bluffing" is the vernacular for what kind of work is done on those levels. At my level, I have another word for it. I think we all do.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 1) by Freeman on Friday August 01 2014, @04:23PM

        by Freeman (732) on Friday August 01 2014, @04:23PM (#76433) Journal

        There is plenty of evidence that Pearl Harbor was a direct attack on the United States by the Empire of Japan. Any random conspiracy theories to the contrary are exactly that. The Assassination of JFK and 911 both have one thing in common. Most of the people directly involved Died. Which throws out the best way of figuring out what happened. I.E. $5 wrench.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 2) by DrMag on Friday August 01 2014, @05:44PM

          by DrMag (1860) on Friday August 01 2014, @05:44PM (#76456)

          My second favorite response* to the moon-hoax conspiracists is that if we hadn't actually gone to the moon, the Soviets would have made sure to humiliate us by decisively pointing that out. A similar response could be given to these other theories; I'm pretty sure a number of nations out there, including Russia and Iran, would take great delight in showing the world this kind of corruption in the U.S. Were 9/11 really an inside job, I don't think that Al Qaeda would have so gleefully claimed responsibility--wouldn't claiming it was a false flag op do more damage to the U.S.? Unless you want to claim that OBL was a part of the conspiracy, and was assassinated to keep him quiet...

          *My first favorite is, of course, Buzz Aldrin's fist-o'-fury.

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday August 01 2014, @10:33PM

          by anubi (2828) on Friday August 01 2014, @10:33PM (#76561) Journal

          I get the idea we knew about Pearl Harbor. And used it for the reason to enter the war.

          Ever taunted someone just to make him make an aggressive move so you could clobber the guy and avoid all blame?

          One looks awful bad just jumping all over someone, but if you did it because he launched first, everyone is cool with you putting him in his place, big-time.

          The other reply about 911 I believe is the same thing.

          From what I can tell, we used the actions of citizens of one nation as an excuse to attack another nation.

          I believe the JFK thing was banker retaliation because I understand JFK wanted to do away with the central banks and their charter to print what they did not have, then charge usury on that. Bankers have a good thing going and they want to keep it that way.

          I think we have all seen how some people change when they get behind the wheel of a car. I believe people change a lot when you give them security clearances and secrecy/immunity from the law everyone else is expected to obey.

          And I do believe we went to the moon. I have way too many radio amateur friends who listened to the communications. If it was not coming from the moon, they sure had their antennas pointed the wrong way. So I have my tinfoil hat on, but its a cockeyed - Some of the theories I accept, but not all of them.

          I do enjoy seeing other views ( especially if they are backed by any evidence - which is scarce ). Way too much of my belief is backed by suspicion, not truth, and that is why I abhor all the secrecy our Government operates under.

          If we want some real dandies, let's discuss either Roswell or the Bible. My jury is completely out on these.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by captain normal on Friday August 01 2014, @05:17AM

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday August 01 2014, @05:17AM (#76253)

    "Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado and another member of the Intelligence Committee, demanded Mr. Brennan's resignation. "The C.I.A. unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into the Senate Intelligence Committee computers,"he said in a written statement. "This grave misconduct not only is illegal but it violates the U.S. Constitution's requirement of separation of powers.

    "These offenses, along with other errors in judgment by some at the C.I.A., demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences..."

    Well gee, Senator Udall, how about just removing the CIA's funding?

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday August 01 2014, @06:59AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 01 2014, @06:59AM (#76270) Journal

      Well gee, Senator Udall, how about just removing the CIA's funding?

      And you expect the CIA will go down quietly when the congress cuts the funding?
      That would be normal, capt'n, but I doubt it will happen.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by frojack on Friday August 01 2014, @07:26AM

        by frojack (1554) on Friday August 01 2014, @07:26AM (#76279) Journal

        Boisterous chest thumping by Udall will get nowhere.
        How many divisions does Mr Udall have?

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 01 2014, @07:34AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 01 2014, @07:34AM (#76282) Journal

          How many divisions does Mr Udall have?

          I don't know, has he ever (been) multiplied?

          .

          (I'm not familiar with US political mechanisms, the question doesn't make too much sense to me. A "translation" or a link to one will be appreciated).

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by EQ on Friday August 01 2014, @11:17AM

    by EQ (1716) on Friday August 01 2014, @11:17AM (#76325)

    If AG Holder doesn't bring the Justice Dept down on this with special prosecutors or something similar, the he should be impeached. Holder is the most corrupt AG ever if he refuses to prosecute such blatant criminal behavior.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Kromagv0 on Friday August 01 2014, @12:59PM

      by Kromagv0 (1825) on Friday August 01 2014, @12:59PM (#76353) Homepage

      Actually what the senate should do is go and send the Senate Sergeant at Arms [senate.gov] to go arrest high ranking CIA officials involved. From my reading of the powers granted to the Sergeant at Arms this seems like it would be legal, but that would require that the Senate have a pair.

      --
      T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
      • (Score: 2) by ragequit on Friday August 01 2014, @07:17PM

        by ragequit (44) on Friday August 01 2014, @07:17PM (#76487) Journal

        A pair of of Sergeants at arms?

        --
        The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @08:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @08:59PM (#76536)

    Oh yeah baby!

  • (Score: 1) by pgc on Friday August 01 2014, @10:02PM

    by pgc (1600) on Friday August 01 2014, @10:02PM (#76552)

    So, the CIA found out the CIA penetrated a network build by the CIA?

    Well, good thing they solved that mystery.

    (Apparently: using this many caps is like yelling...)