The issue at hand is essentially the CIA covertly monitoring the Senate Intelligence Committee as the Senate investigated the CIA.     The problem stems from an obvious oversight issue where the CIA takes illegal action to monitor the Senate as they investigate.
However, there’s something more within the behavior of the people involved.  Dianne Feinstein is clearly outlining the CIA is violating the law.   As a consequence the CIA claim to be following instructions from the Obama administration and the White House.  That alone represents a big issue – However, the way CIA Director John Brennan is responding to the charges against his office are, well, somewhat troubling.

Brennan is acting, and speaking, as if he is untouchable.  It’s almost like he has a card up his sleeve; an unspoken leverage.    And when you think about how Brennan got to his CIA post, and his relationship with President Obama, alarm bells begin to ring.
Please forgive me for connecting the dots but I’m not going in this rabbit hole alone 😉
Remember, it was Brennan’s security firm who broke into the State Department passport files of Candidate Obama in 2008.   Watching him now respond to Feinstein one would take away he indeed holds a lever that allows him to feel “untouchable“.

WASHINGTON DC – The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: “I am not taking it lightly.”
She confirmed that an internal agency investigation of the action has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. And she said that the CIA appears to have violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance. (more…)

 WASHINGTON DC – A leading US senator has said that President Obama knew of an “unprecedented action” taken by the CIA against the Senate intelligence committee, which has apparently prompted an inspector general’s inquiry at Langley.

The subtle reference in a Tuesday letter from Senator Mark Udall to Obama, seeking to enlist the president’s help in declassifying a 6,300-page inquiry by the committee into torture carried out by CIA interrogators after 9/11, threatens to plunge the White House into a battle between the agency and its Senate overseers. (more…)

As first reported by the Army Times, a US Army Pfc (Private, First Class) posted an Instagram “selfie” (“sheffeynation”) of herself hiding in her car during the sounding of “Retreat” to avoid standing at attention, saluting and rendering honors to the American flag as the colors are lowered for the day.

To quote Ms. Tariqka Sheffey:

“This is me laying back in my car hiding so I don’t have to salute the 1700 flag, KEEP ALL YOUR ‘THATS SO DISRESPECTFUL/HOWRUDE/ETC.’ COMMENTS TO YOURSELF cuz, right now, IDGAFFFF.”

(more…)

Given what Senator Clinton formerly said about General “Betrayus”, and given the backstory of former CIA Analytical Director Mike Morell’s admitted manipulation of talking points and stand-in status for Petraeus; and given the fact that Petraeus gave testimony to congress that he didn’t know who changed the Benghazi talking points but claimed it was not the CIA; and given the fact Eric Holder was investigating Petraeus over the affair with Paula Broadwell at the time of Benghazi, well, something is three dimensional Machiavellian about this latest water-carrying. 

(Via MediaIte)  In the new book HRC, by The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Bloomberg’s Jonathan Allen, General David Petraeus praised Hillary Clinton as a potential president, specifically citing what many consider her biggest obstacle as a candidate: her role as Secretary of State overseeing the American compound in Benghazi when it was attacked in 2012.

“She’d make a tremendous president,” Petraeus said. “Like a lot of great leaders, her most impressive qualities were most visible during tough times. In the wake of the Benghazi attacks, for example, she was extraordinarily resolute, determined, and controlled.”

On This Week With George Stephanopoulos, Jon Karl brought this up to Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) and asked if it “took the wind out of the sails” of Benghazi as an anti-Hillary talking point.  (read more with video)

Coincidentally, John Brennan was CIA station chief in Pakistan (along with Zbigniew Brzezinski – pictured below)  while we were supporting the Mujahedeen against the Russian communists.  At the same time (summer 1981) college student Barack Obama and his pals, Mohammed Hasan Chandio, Wahid Hamid and Vinai Thummalapally travelled there.

The 1981 trip to Pakistan was unexpectedly noted in an April 2008 fundraiser .  We wrote about it HERE.

Just two weeks before this speech and surprise announcement of his 1981 visit to Pakistan, employees of John Brennan  (who would become Obama’s terror chief) were caught tampering with Obama’s passport files.

Coincidentally, it should be noted  that “Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March 2008 (just before this April fundraiser) for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released July 2009. 

Coincidentally, On April 19th, 2009 the key figure Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found slumped dead inside a car.

Coincidentally, the “mystery Columbia Obama thesis”, was about, wait for it,…..  ”an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States“.   Oh boy, who would have been around to write such a specific thesis paper for cover?   It certainly is in the proverbial sweet spot for Brzezinski, no?

So today – CIA director John Brennan told a congressional hearing Tuesday (TODAY – 2014) that security operators involved in Benghazi rescue efforts were required to re-sign non-disclosure agreements because the documents were being updated.

Brennan was pressed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R.-Calif., of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about the 2012 Benghazi attack and why the security operators who were involved in rescue efforts that night were asked to re-sign their non-disclosure agreements. (more…)

If you were Obama’s “fixer”, Denis McDonough on September 12 2012, the first steps to constructing a firewall around the oval office for Sept 11th (Benghazi) would first be to place friendly constructionists into key narrative controlling positions.

As you read this presentation from The Washington Free Beacon – think about the timeline for CIA Director Mike Morell against the backdrop of his ‘then boss’ General David Petraeus; then think about Eric Holder having the FBI file on Petraeus’s affair on his desk.

Then think back to McDonough’s job…..  what would Denis need to do?

The YouTube ID of 7iLV_WZ6MRs?feature=player_embedded is invalid.

Former CIA Director Mike Morell may have altered the Benghazi talking points to benefit the Obama administration during the 2012 election, Catherine Herridge of Fox News reports.

On September 15 one day before Susan Rice made her infamous appearances on various Sunday shows, according to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report Morell received an email from the CIA station chief in Libya indicating the Benghazi attacks were “not/not an escalation of protests.” The report does not indicate when Morell read the email, but that same day Morell cut the word “Islamic” from the talking points and left the word “demonstration.” (more…)

When Clinton, Rice and Power launched operation R2P in Benghazi Libya they specifically helped the Libyan “Rebels” to overthrown Kaddaffi.   This gave the al-Qaeda operatives, who made up the majority coalition of the “rebels”, immediate access to weapons warehouses and massive stockpiles of ManPads (Man Portable Air Defense Systems), otherwise known as surface to air missiles – the missiles were a specific manufacture coming originally from Russia.   20,000 such missiles immediately went missing.

This past weekend one of those missiles was used.

All five soldiers in the helicopter were killed, security officials said.

“This is what everyone has long assumed could happen, and it is a confirmation of those fears — that substantial and advanced weaponry came into the country in the aftermath of the Libyan war,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, an Egypt scholar at the Century Foundation in New York.

New York Times – Islamist militants shot down an Egyptian military helicopter in the Sinai Peninsula with a surface-to-air missile over the weekend, raising new alarms about the terrorist insurgency that developed there in response to the military takeover last summer.

(more…)

BigfurHat@iOTW Notes the “creepy factor” of the NSA for Kids website.  https://www.nsa.gov/kids/

In my humble opinion, it’s not really all that creepy.

Central U.S. Government agencies have been doing this for years under a few semi-secretive programs that measure IQ, aptitude and propensity for problem solving. In the modern era it’s appropriately called DAAD’s.

What’s new is the platform, the internet.   In the “olden days” it was puzzle books and subscriptions.   Or, sometimes trade craft engagement could come from word of mouth (old school word for networking) inside various educational platforms such as “Spelling Bees”, “Debate Teams” or the various state “science fairs”, the latter still being predominantly utilized today. (more…)

I have not had the opportunity to review the entire report – this article below is from the Washington Post.  All Senate Committees are chaired by Democrats.

WASHINGTON DC – A long-delayed Senate Intelligence Committee report released Wednesday faulted both the State Department and the intelligence community for not preventing attacks on two outposts in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, about 16 months ago.

The bipartisan report laid out more than a dozen findings regarding the assaults on a diplomatic compound and a CIA annex in the city. It said the State Department failed to increase security at its mission despite warnings, and blamed intelligence agencies for not sharing information about the existence of the CIA outpost with the U.S. military.

The committee determined that the U.S. military command in Africa didn’t know about the CIA annex and that the Pentagon didn’t have the resources in place to defend the State Department compound in an emergency.

“The attacks were preventable, based on extensive intelligence reporting on the terrorist activity in Libya — to include prior threats and attacks against Western targets — and given the known security shortfalls at the U.S. Mission,” the panel said in a statement. (more…)

Jacob Appelbaum is a US citizen and core member of TOR project (funded originally to provide internet communication security).  He writes open source software, is an independent security software developer, activist hacker and passionate resister to tyranny.
He has stated in past interviews that he believes “personal privacy and institutional transparency are complementary ideas that help to create a free and open society …..Tor is part of an ecosystem of software that helps people regain and reclaim their autonomy. It helps to enable people to have agency of all kinds; it helps others to help each other and it helps you to help yourself. It runs, it is open and it is supported by a large community spread across all walks of life.”
Appelbaum eloquently discusses warrantless or “open writ” dragnet surveillance as “turnkey tyranny” and posits that the black budget agencies that engage in such surveillance are violating the 3rd Amendment Rights of US Citizens, likening the actions of the NSA to de facto “digital soldiers” being quartered in our homes without our knowledge or permission. (more…)