The stark admission by the CIA’s inspector general that
the agency had broken into a classified computer network used by its overseers
at the Senate Intelligence Committee violates the core principle of separation
of powers of governmental branches enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Along
with the CIA’s illegal rendition, detention, and torture of suspected
terrorists and the NSA’s secret monitoring of Americans’ phone traffic, it
shows that U.S. spy agencies are in danger of going rogue and need to be severely
disciplined. Such intelligence organizations are supposed to defend the
republic and not undermine it.
The situation could not be better summed up than by
Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), a member of Senate Intelligence Committee and
proponent of stronger congressional oversight of the intelligence agencies,
when he called for CIA Director John Brennan’s resignation over the matter:
“The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into the Senate
Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal but
it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers.” The
checks and balances system of the U.S. Constitution, uniquely American and one
of the main breaks against government run amok, is severely undermined when
congressional oversight of the executive branch is impeded, as it was in this
case……To Read More…..
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