An internal CIA investigation confirmed charges that the agency wrongfully hacked into a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee, it was reported Thursday.
Findings of the investigation by the CIA Inspector General’s Office “include a judgment that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) and the CIA in 2009,” CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement.
The statement represented an admission to charges by the panel’s chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that the CIA intruded into the computers her staff used to compile the soon-to-be released report on the agency’s use of harsh interrogation methods on suspected terrorists in secret overseas prisons during the Bush administration.
Those charges, which Feinstein made in March, were devastating.
“… I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution, including the speech and debate clause. It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function,” Feinstein said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“Besides the constitutional implications, the CIA search may also have violated the Fourth Amendment, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as Executive Order 12333, which prohibits the CIA from conducting domestic searches or surveillance.”
At the time, Brennan denied the accusations in the strongest of terms.
“As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Brennan said soon after her remarks. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean that’s, that’s, that’s — just beyond the scope of reason.”
Several months later, Brennan has now apologized to both Feinstein and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, according to reports.
