Nancy Pelosi Admits That Congress Is Scared Of The CIA

[unhappycamper]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140317/07441526589/nancy-pelosi-admits-that-congress-is-scared-cia.shtml

Nancy Pelosi Admits That Congress Is Scared Of The CIA
from the well-that's-revealing dept
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Mar 17th 2014 9:50am

Over the past few months, one thing we keep hearing over and over again from defenders of the intelligence community is that everything is under control and "legal" because Congress has powerful oversight. We've shown, repeatedly, how that's something of a joke. The intelligence community has lied repeatedly, has withheld documents and is generally nonresponsive to oversight attempts by Congress. And, with the reports that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, we also find out that for all the bluster and talk of oversight, folks in Congress are actually scared by the intelligence community.

In response to Senator Dianne Feinstein's speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:

~snip~

A few months back, the ACLU had posted something questioning whether or not the intelligence community might be blackmailing Congress. And, quite frequently when we write about the intelligence community, we see suggestions in the comments that certain politicians probably cover for the NSA and CIA because they know what those agencies "have on them." I've always dismissed those kinds of claims as being a bit far-fetched, even if they have plenty of historical precedent. So far, there's certainly been no direct evidence of that happening.

And yet... Pelosi's comments certainly seem to hint at even more nefarious activity by the intelligence community against politicians who dare to actually do the job of oversight. The point of that ACLU post linked above is that, even if it's not happening, the fact that we can't definitively rule it out is a serious problem for democracy. And just the fact that some of the most powerful members of Congress, who are theoretically in charge of oversight, are now publicly admitting that they're scared of how the CIA fights back when they take them on, suggests that the intelligence community really is rotten to the core. And Congressional oversight, as it stands today, is clearly not able to deal with the issue by itself.

[newfie11]

1. So who the hell is running this country?

The CIA?
So much for electing a president and congress.
Has the MIC taken over ( behind the curtain)?
Ike's warning coming true?

[DeSwiss]

6. As DeepThroat said: ''Always follow the money.''

- What we're discussing here are the (mis)deeds of their agents and employees.



''All tyranny needs to gain a foothold, is for people of good conscience to remain silent.''

~Thomas Jefferson

[newfie11]

7. Your right

It is of course all about money and power to control it by those that have.

[lark]

47. Totally agree with both of you.

Who's in charge - the 1% and their paid lackies like CIA, NSA, politicians, etc. I never thought politicians weren't doing their jobs due to fear, but due to the profit motive. Still think that's primary, but now considering fear as another reason why some are so timid.

[Titonwan]

10. In a word-

Yes. I'm thinkin' 1963.

[jwirr]

59. Of course. Any of us who were present back then knew what a threat the CIA was but we got out of

Vietnam, got some rights for minorities and promptly forgot the real danger. The CIA has been setting the course of history from the early 50s on. When things did not go their way they used the overthrow of whatever government got in their way. They also used assassination and in 1963 GWHB was in control of the CIA. When he ran for president he told us that he was going to create a new world order. What the hell did we think he was talking about - love and kindness? IMO the CIA has taken the head of the American Empire and is no better than any other world tyrant that has ever existed with the exception of their role model Adolph Hitler.

All our leaders should be afraid of the CIA. Their only allegiance is to the corporations.

[HooptieWagon]

63. George HW Bush in charge of the CIA in 1963?

Did John McCone know about that? And GHWB must have been quite busy... running the CIA and the Zapata Corp at the same time must have been exhausting.

[jwirr]

64. So when was he head of the CIA? And are you saying he had no control over it's future actions?

[HooptieWagon]

85. jan76-jan77.

There is every reason to believe GHW Bush was a source of intelligence to the CIA... he was CEO of an oil company that did business around the world, thus in his contacts with foreign business and political leaders he was quite likely to obtain the very kind of information the CIA likes to know. There is no evidence he was an employee or involved in CIA operations, until becoming Director.

[LuvNewcastle]

12. That is exactly what I'd like to know.

Who is this person (people). What are their names? They are pulling the strings from above while Congress and the President dance for us on the stage. The people we elected aren't running things, which of course means we do not have a democracy anymore. Let's do away with the bullshit and get some answers.

[blm]

38. Well, what was Prescott Bush's intentions back in WW2 and post war?

.

[bvar22]

60. For those asking "Who",

Prescott Bush is a great place to start looking.

[Enthusiast]

19. The radical right wing shadow government.

The election process is just part of an elaborate facade.

[rhett o rick]

62. The Carlyle Group. I thought everyone knew. nm

[billhicks76]

76. Russ Tice!!!!! NSA whistleblower @ blackmail

Every person here NEEDS to read what Russ Tice said about his years with NSA. He said he wiretapped Obama in 2005 and NSA gathers dirt through wiretaps on journalists, federal judges and intelligence committee members. It's all about blackmail. We have no functioning democracy because votes and verdicts are bought through blackmail. Do all these mysterious flip flops by Obama make sense now?

[dotymed]

2. Sybill Edmunds

blew the whistle repeatedly on the blackmailing of (especially) some of our most progressive congress people.
Remember? She was a translator for the FBI on their wiretapping of congress....err...terrorists... All in the name of NATIONAL SECURITY.
Talk about being marginalized..
It is a wonder that she hasn't been suicided yet.

[mopinko]

23. you know, there is a charter school here

funded by some turkish dude who is either a terrorist or a freedom fighter, or the calif in exile or something.

i always wish i could ask sybil about this.

[Scuba]

3. Pelosi's comments ...

“I salute Sen. Feinstein,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I’ll tell you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth.”

Pelosi added that she has always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: “You don’t fight it without a price because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth.

[grasswire]

4. wow, there it is

Courageous statement, Mrs. Pelosi. Solidarity. Solidarity. The people can conquer anything, in solidarity.

[grasswire]

48. kick

big kick

[DeSwiss]

5. And one shoe dropped.

- Did you feel that?

K&R

In the Bill of Rights of the United States, there is an attempt to secure certain freedoms and protections by way of mere text on paper. Now while I understand the value of this document and the temporal brilliance of it in the context of the period of its creation, that does not excuse the fact that it is a product of social inefficiency and nothing more. In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design.

There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendment is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.

We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost.

All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order. In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance.

~Peter Joseph

[erronis]

70. Interesting excerpt - where can I find the source?

This speaks to much of how I feel this country (and others) is run.

[DeSwiss]

71. Here ya go.

Last edited Tue Mar 18, 2014, 09:41 PM - Edit history (1)

http://thevenusproject.com/

http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/

[erronis]

82. Thanks - so much to absorb!

[siligut]

8. Covert power is scary and the CIA uses that to their advantage

I laugh in a very disgusted and wistful way when people complain that Obama hasn't 'fixed all this secret stuff'.

[A Simple Game]

21. Are you still laughing when people say that President Obama

seems to be embracing all this secret stuff?

I'm not.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. He is perhaps "embraced" by the secret stuff.

If you take my meaning.

[A Simple Game]

31. That also may be why he has the job he has and not because of the job he has. n/t

[siligut]

34. The secrets are on a need to know basis

The CIA is a closed system, unless you are a part of it, you are a possible threat. Obama was not a part of that system and he still isn't, but he has without a doubt experienced what Pelosi is speaking of.

[blm]

39. No, we're still laughing that some people actually believe that a president has complete control

over it all when he takes office. That hasn't happened in decades.

I highly doubt that Obama has even been in DC long enough to even KNOW how deep it goes at the CIA, NSA and FBI.

[A Simple Game]

42. So you don't think President Obama has embraced all of the, often unnecessary, secrecy? n/t

[blm]

52. LOL - I think he had no clue how deep it went when he entered office, and is still being kept

from the extent of it. That is the true purpose in GOP keeping his presidency in a weakened state - so he has never had a chance to accrue the power in DC that would be needed to confront the BFEE.

What BFEE wants hidden will STAY hidden.

[A Simple Game]

56. As you don't think the smartest President in history has a clue and that

the GOP are manipulating him I would be happy to help him out. The next time you talk to him, tell him to give me a call, I along with many here on DU can tell him the secrecy and intrusion has gone too far.

[blm]

61. That's not what I said, is it? Build your strawmen for those willing to play

that game.

[A Simple Game]

66. Did you forget what you posted in #52?

I think he had no clue how deep it went when he entered office, and is still being kept from the extent of it. That is the true purpose in GOP keeping his presidency in a weakened state - so he has never had a chance to accrue the power in DC that would be needed to confront the BFEE.

What BFEE wants hidden will STAY hidden.

Bold is mine. Looks like you built the straw men I'm using.

[blm]

67. What part of 'is still being kept from the extent of it' did you fail to comprehend?

Instead, you chose to insist again that he has the control.

Those of us who paid attention the last 4 - 5 decades recognize the absurdity of your claim.

Read this thread - I suppose it's mass paranoia to you because in YOUR world, Obama is the one conducting the entire orchestra.

[A Simple Game]

69. Ok, you're right, I just don't understand. I do know that because I'm a liberal

it's my fault Democrats aren't elected and supposedly because of me the world will fall apart if Republicans win. Now after I do help get Democrats elected I'm told it doesn't matter because they are powerless no matter how long they are in office and I am foolish to even think they may have one iota of control.

And darn it, I thought I was paying attention since the late '60s. That's why I haven't voted for Republicans in thirty years and rarely vote for Democrats in the last twenty years. Oh by the way, I'm a rare liberal, I vote every year, don't think I've missed one since '72.

I have read the thread, even the big words, and yes in my world President Obama is the one defending the NSA and the CIA and drone strikes and taking credit for killing Osama, etc., etc., and from all evidence it appears to be true. Yes I really think he knows what is going on for the most part and is fine with it. I don't like what's going on, I even think much of it is illegal, and wish President Obama would try to stop some of it. If as you seem to know he has no control over any of it, let me know who does and I will be happy to contact them and let them know my feelings. Are the CIA and NSA under the Legislative or Judicial branch of the government, you know me, I just can't remember.

I also think some on DU have their heads in the sand, but that is just my opinion. Proposing that President Obama is ignorant of the facts, not allowed any control is a new defense for failed policy as far I know, can we expect more in the future? Seems to be a poorly thought out defense that shines a poor light on the President. Not sure it would pass muster in the BOG, but what do I know.

[Titonwan]

9. Mebbe an 'Operation Valkyrie' is in order

Have Chuck Hagel storm the offices of all heads of intelligence and arrest them for inquiry/trial. There doesn't appear to be any other option, at this point.

[BlueJac]

11. So our democracy is over?

and has been over for years. Nice.

[pocoloco]

29. Since 1963!

Pretty hard not to notice!

[SHRED]

13. Assuming the NSA and CIA work on behalf of corporate interests

How is this not fascism?

[Enthusiast]

20. It is the very definition of Fascism.

And that would explain a lot.

[lark]

49. Prescott Bush supported fascism and was branded a traitor.

His son and grandson supported fascism and America looks the other way because the media also supported fascism so distorts the facts to help the rich, screw the workers.

[Enthusiast]

78. The media always paints the Bush clan as harmless and benevolent.

I say harmful and malevolent.

[lark]

81. Totally agree with both of you.

They are a cancer on the political body of America, trying to destroy us from within.

[KurtNYC]

14. This may explain why Clinton bombed Iraq during the impeachment proceedings

They pressure Clinton to do what they want, he hedges, they launch a sex scandal, it goes all the way to impeachment and they tell Clinton in effect 'you either bomb Iraq now or we are replacing you with someone who will.' Clinton bombs and stays.

[blm]

15. For 4 decades now the most powerful part of CIA,NSA, FBI are those units loyal ONLY to BushInc.

No president changes that.

[Titonwan]

17. A good argument could made that you are

correct, sir.

[90-percent]

25. Correct

The CIA is festering with appointees of Dick Cheney. I would not doubt he is pulling some DEEP STATE stunts to this very day when his planted CIA moles carry out his instructions.

-90% Jimmy

[blm]

36. Cheney is a cog, a big one, but still a cog in BFEE.

.

[siligut]

44. He was there to 'help' W with the deciding. nt

[lark]

51. See, Obama should have known this and fired them all.

That he let them all stay, especially at Justice, CIA and Homeland Security speaks volumes. Whether it's saying he approves of these folks, so let them stay, or whether he was mandated to let them stay and acquiesced under pressure, we'll probably never know.

[vlakitti]

58. As the quote reads:

"...the intelligence community really is rotten to the core."

I think it's a criminal organization at this point.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. You are hopelessly paranoid.

Unfortunately, we hopeless paranoids are the only ones with any grasp on reality at all.

[blm]

35. ; ) And 95% of the time history has a way of proving us to be right.

Doesn't it?

[WillyT]

16. HUGE K & R !!!

;donkey:

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. Its worse than she has admitted

wouldn't want to scare you too much.

But at least she spoke about it.

It MEANS THERE IS A REAL CONSPIRACY OF THE DEEP STATE.

[snagglepuss]

30. .

[fbc]

22. Most of the anti-Snowden, Greenwald accounts here are CIA/NSA plants

So be careful how you reply to them. You don't want to make anyone too angry.

[MADem]

40. What a spurious and completely unsubstantiated load of horseshit--and welcome to DU, comrade....

Do you like that kind of accusation leveled at you? If not, you shouldn't toss shit-bombs at your fellow DUers and think you won't be called for your rude conduct.

How would you like it if someone, talking about YOU, said

Most of the low post count pro-Snowden, Greenwald accounts here are Vladimir Putin's KSB plants.
So be careful how you reply to them. You don't want to make anyone too angry.

You shouldn't run around making blatantly unsubstantiated accusations and calling DUers you don't even know--and how could you, you've only been here for a couple of months--names just because you don't agree with their perspective. That's disruptive, rude and hurtful, and could be interpreted as trollish. You certainly don't want to give off that impression, I'm sure.

Have you read the TOS? You might want to give it a gander. Your post is extremely disagreeable, and you can disagree without being THAT, you know.

[JoeyT]

41. Many of those accounts have been here for ages.

Which means the CIA/NSA would have had to have the foresight to have people join a tiny (back then) message board on the internet to complain about how awful Bush, the CIA, and the NSA were for damn near a decade, just so they could defend the NSA now.

I find that highly unlikely.

I think they're wrong, but I don't think they're plants.

[mopinko]

24. i will never forget a conversation with a congressional staffer

back in '05 or so-
asking
m why the congressman did not stand up.
h they are afraid, he said. they are all afraid.
m of what?
h um, um, um of the media. they are scared of those liars in the media. yeah. the media.

i knew it was not rupert murdoch we were talking about.

[toby jo]

26. Like experience here

This goes back to Operation Paperclip, when we brought over Nazi intel.

In the 80s I began researching psychotronic weaponry and its effects on human thought, etc. Eventually, Kucinich had a bill out against it, and also how it affects the human mind. Talking 'Harrp' stuff here. The part about affecting the mind was taken out of the bill.

Before that, Kennedy was going to have hearings, they were 'put off'.

Dole's office gave me a snotty, 'We're not going to deal with that issue right now.'

The press, ' We can't go public with that.'

Before that, Amnesty International allowed that it was happening, that people were "being targeted for torture to drive them crazy and elicit enforced confessions". They won't go pubic. We keep trying.

Before that, Walter Bowart wrote a great book called 'Operation Mind Control', where he talked extensively about all of this, and said, in essence that the country had been taken over by the military, that congress was worthless.

To me it all goes back to the day I spoke with a doctor in Kent, Ohio, who told me (this is pretty incredible), that there were several systems out there, the 't-bar' and 'wind jam' being two of them, that Amnesty International knew about it (they verified to me that they did), and that nobody would talk about it. We are living in 1984, he said, but nobody knows it.' So, I chuckled at the drama, and went on about getting it outted. You see what's been happening.

I've always wondered why congress doesn't do exactly what the poster above suggested, get the heads of Intel under their thumbs with subpoenas and hearings. There's definitely been a power shift.

[eggplant]

46. Um.... ok......

[Blue Owl]

32. Warning sign: The People are fearing the government

Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

[Baitball Blogger]

33. I'm not surprised that Congress is afraid of the information the CIA can produce on them.

Can you imagine how their constituents would feel once they realize how much behind the scenes bipartisan conversations take place?

What worries me is that the CIA won't use that information to our betterment. It will use that information to advance their own agenda.

[octoberlib]

37. Here's an interesting article by Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years

specializing in national security.


Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude. [2]


Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it is not the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes. One is Wall Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember their own best interests. The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity. On March 6, 2013, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.” This, from the chief law enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically abolished the constitutional right to trial for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice — certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee. [3]

Petraeus and most of the avatars of the Deep State — the White House advisers who urged Obama not to impose compensation limits on Wall Street CEOs, the contractor-connected think tank experts who besought us to “stay the course” in Iraq, the economic gurus who perpetually demonstrate that globalization and deregulation are a blessing that makes us all better off in the long run — are careful to pretend that they have no ideology. Their preferred pose is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering well considered advice based on profound expertise. That is nonsense. They are deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class, an ideology that is neither specifically Democrat nor Republican. Domestically, whatever they might privately believe about essentially diversionary social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, they almost invariably believe in the “Washington Consensus”: financialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labor. Internationally, they espouse 21st-century “American Exceptionalism”: the right and duty of the United States to meddle in every region of the world with coercive diplomacy and boots on the ground and to ignore painfully won international norms of civilized behavior. To paraphrase what Sir John Harrington said more than 400 years ago about treason, now that the ideology of the Deep State has prospered, none dare call it ideology. [5] That is why describing torture with the word “torture” on broadcast television is treated less as political heresy than as an inexcusable lapse of Washington etiquette: Like smoking a cigarette on camera, these days it is simply “not done.”

7] Obama’s abrupt about-face suggests he may have been skeptical of military intervention in Syria all along, but only dropped that policy once Congress and Putin gave him the running room to do so. In 2009, he went ahead with the Afghanistan “surge” partly because General Petraeus’ public relations campaign and back-channel lobbying on the Hill for implementation of his pet military strategy pre-empted other options. These incidents raise the disturbing question of how much the democratically elected president — or any president — sets the policy of the national security state and how much the policy is set for him by the professional operatives of that state who engineer faits accomplis that force his hand.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/22075-anatomy-of-the-deep-state

[Octafish]

50. Also an outstanding article!

Thank you, octoberlib!

[grasswire]

55. bookmark to read that article later nt

[woo me with science]

83. Thank you for posting this.

[Mnemosyne]

43. K&R! nt

[Octafish]

45. How can that be?

Sweethearts, they are.



Apart from a bad apple or two.

[daleanime]

53. K&R....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

54. Should be the other way around. The CIA should fear Congress.

[Dawson Leery]

57. There is a reason that JFK and Frank Church wanted to take

apart that criminal organization.

[valerief]

65. Duh, they don't want to be Kennedyed or Wellstoned. nt

[WinkyDink]

68. 11/22/63. Call me crazy!

[nadinbrzezinski]

72. Did that come from the water is wet department?

[alp227]

73. what business does pelosi have calling congress scared. SHE put impeaching Bush off the table.

so history goes down with the Gingrich Gang making a sideshow of Bill Clinton's sexual picadilloes while Bush Crime Family, Inc. gets not even a hearing in Congress.

[blm]

80. Too late. Last chance to expose BFEE was release of BCCI Report. We needed another candidate

to win the Dem primary in 1992. Jackson Stephens and Poppy Bush had their boy in place who would protect them after the release of the BCCI Report.

[blkmusclmachine]

74. Shadow Government. The White House is little more than a false prop to give the Citizenry the IDEA

that a functioning democracy still exists in this Country.

[newfie11]

79. Sadly +1. Nt

[NealK]

75. K&R

All this is very disturbing.

[Democracyinkind]

77. The real prize in this nation is the national security apparatus.

The corporatists, right wingers and fascists in this country have long ago learned that lesson. Congress, the President, even the judiciary to a certain point are but powerless figure-heads when one small interest group has a hold on the national security apparatus. The people who realized this first are the people that have been running this country for a long time now.

I do not see how anyone can deny this with a straigh face.