WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA’s insistence that it did not spy on its Senate overseers collapsed Thursday with the release of a stark report by the agency’s internal watchdog documenting improper computer surveillance and obstructionist behavior by CIA officers.
Five agency employees — two lawyers and three computer specialists— improperly accessed Senate intelligence committee computers earlier this year in a dispute over interrogation documents, according to a summary of a CIA inspector general report describing the results of an internal investigation. Then, despite CIA Director John Brennan ordering a halt to that operation, the CIA’s office of security began an unauthorized investigation that led it to review the emails of Senate staffers and search them for key words.
