Have *you* actually read Sen. Feinstein's complaint?

[JDPriestly]

127. If Obama supports declassification and release of the committee report,

but the CIA is requestin that the committee be investigated or prosecuted in conjunction with the committee's accessing certain documents in preparing that report, then the CIA is acting independently and not as a department under the control of the executive, of Obama.

That would suggest that the CIA is a rogue agency that considers itself to be independent of, if not superior to, the President.

That is what is wrong with this situation.

The various intelligence agencies appear to be acting outside our constitutional form of government. That is a serious crisis if true. And it does appear to be true. The CIA and NSA should act only within the narrow confines of the authority they are granted by Congress and by the President. If there is a conflict between what Congress and the CIA believe is right, and if the CIA is acting properly within the command of the White House, then we have a constitutional crisis. We have to ask who is in charge.

Here are the relevant portions of the Constitution that should be considered, I think in answering that question with regard to the treatment of prisoners captured in war or overseas:

Article I, section 8:

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei

And remembering that Congress is authorized to "make rules concerning captures on land and water" and to "define and punish . . . offenses against the law of nations," the president's responsibility is:

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii

Neither the President nor Congress has total power over matters of foreign policy, war and the treatment of prisoners of war. They are supposed to work together. Congress is fulfilling its oversight duties when reviewing the actions of the executive branch with regard to the treatment of prisoners. No CIA documents should be so secret that the members of Congress charged with overseeing the activities of the CIA may not have them. That degree of secrecy would make it impossible for Congress to exercise the authority that the Constitution grants it.

President Obama needs to get better control over the CIA and require the CIA to cooperate with Congress.