CIA admits hacking Senate computers

An internal report by the Central Intelligence Agency admits that some within the agency illegally accessed the computers of Senate members and employees to track their investigation into allegations of torture by the agency after 9/11.

McClatchy DC first reported the news of the internal evaluation. That internal assessment by the CIA Inspector General's office confirms allegations made by the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

In March, Feinstein accused the CIA of violating the law and separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution by hacking into the computers of her staff as they prepared a 6,300-page report into the agency's interrogation practices after 9/11. 

CIA Director John Brennan traveled to the Senate to discuss the report with Feinstein and Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, the vice-chairperson of the Intelligence Committee. McClatchy DC says that Brennan also apologized.

Among the report's findings, which will be released soon, is that the agency engaged in torture that did not produce actionable intelligence that would have saved lives.

The CIA report also raises uncomfortable questions for the Justice Department. This is because in early July, the Justice Department said that they could not find sufficient evidence to investigate the charge that Feinstein had made against the CIA.

How the Justice Department came to this conclusion, while the CIA itself has admitted that it did indeed improperly access Senate computers, is a wide open question whose answers may haunt the Justice Department for some time.

The allegations that the CIA had illegally accessed Senate computers arose from the fact that in January, Brennan confronted Feinstein over a request for highly classified material to which he believed the Senate already had access.

Brennan claimed that the Senate accessed that information illegally, while Feinstein said it was already a part of the 6 million pages of documents the agency had given to the Senate to carry out its investigation. Feinsten then alleged that the only way the CIA would have known if the Senate had accessed that material is if they were illegally monitoring Senate staff computers.