So the "I was only following orders" defense now officially confers immunity on CIA

So the "I was only following orders" defense now officially confers immunity on CIA

by digby

Unbelievable. Here's another one:

A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency’s search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.’s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials.

The panel will make that recommendation after the five C.I.A. officials who were singled out by the agency’s inspector general this year for improperly ordering and carrying out the computer searches staunchly defended their actions, saying that they were lawful and in some cases done at the behest of John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director.

While effectively rejecting the most significant conclusions of the inspector general’s report, the panel, appointed by Mr. Brennan and composed of three C.I.A. officers and two members from outside the agency, is still expected to criticize agency missteps that contributed to the fight with Congress.

But its decision not to recommend anyone for disciplinary action is likely to anger members of the Intelligence Committee, who have accused the C.I.A. of trampling on the independence of Congress and interfering with its investigation of agency wrongdoing. The computer searches occurred late last year while the committee was finishing an excoriating report on the agency’s detention and interrogation program.

This episode seems to made the Senate more angry than anything else in this entire episode. (Authoritarian behavior is always worse when it happens to you...) One wonders if they'll find the fortitude to address this with some legislation or if they will just let it pass and in the process give up the last shred of institutional integrity.

If the CIA can get away with spying on members of the US Senate for this, what makes anyone believe they won't spy on other politicians for other reasons? Why shouldn't they? They can just say it was legal and that someone told them to do it and it's no harm no foul.

It sure makes it easy to see why the political class is so blindly supportive of the intelligence community isn't it?



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