Obama knew CIA secretly monitored intelligence committee, Sen. Udall claims

[Octafish]

51. CIA spied on US Senate oversight committee

By Patrick Martin
WSWS.org (World Socialist Web Site), 7 March 2014

EXCERPT...

The press reports suggest three levels of criminality on the part of the CIA: the torture program itself, whose authors include President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other top officials of the Bush administration; the suppression of the Panetta report, a cover-up carried out under Brennan and the Obama administration; and the illegal spying on Senate staffers, also carried out under Brennan and Obama.

The response of the corporate-controlled American media has been, for the most part, to ignore the affair and obscure its significance. This is not because, as the New York Times coverage suggests, the details are complicated and the issues murky. On the contrary, while the maneuvers of the CIA in this matter are complex, the illegal and unconstitutional character of the agency’s actions is evident and obvious.

Senate Democrats have done their best to muddy the waters as well. This applies both to the open and unabashed defenders of every crime by the intelligence apparatus, like Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the “critics” on the panel, like Udall and Wyden.

Udall sent a cryptic letter to President Obama Tuesday, which made only the vaguest reference to the illegal spying. He wrote, “As you are aware, the C.I.A. has recently taken unprecedented action against the committee in relation to the internal C.I.A. review, and I find these actions to be incredibly troubling for the committee’s oversight responsibilities and for our democracy.”
Given that this was the first official communication from Congress to the White House on the CIA spying on the Senate, Udall’s “as you are aware” suggests knowledge that Obama was previously informed about the surveillance by the CIA itself. This would make the White House directly complicit in the constitutional violation.

SNIP...

These revelations pose the question: If this is what the CIA does to its congressional watchdogs (in reality lapdogs), what is it doing to those it actually targets as enemies, both abroad and especially at home? That is a question that only can be answered through independent political action by the working class, and all those genuinely concerned with the defense of democratic rights.

SOURCE: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/07/spyi-m07.html