Yes, The CIA Spied On Congress

Anyone want to make bets over whether anyone will ever be legally punished over this?

Oh man, I hate this as much as the next person, but I think the best thing we can say right now is that there is nowhere near enough (public) evidence that this is a believable allegation. What we have is an article from McClatchy whose title ends in a question mark (“Probe: Did the CIA spy on the U.S. Senate?”), which to me is the red flag of red flags that they have no level of certainty whatsoever. Then the article seems to draw dubious lines between this allegation and some questions in hearings. Other articles building on it imply additional tenuous connections between all this stuff and a letter Mark Udall wrote that may be referencing this vaguely, maybe.

It's a problem that all of this stuff has to remain vague. It gets in the way of our reaching conclusions. But assuming the lack of information is information in and of itself is problematic for me in this case. I think it's fair to wait and see what the justice department's investigation, if any, reveals. If there's no investigation, then we have to make do with the information we have.

The fact that the CIA has been shown to be doing all sorts of terrible stuff doesn't mean that our obligation to be skeptical about allegations in general needs to be suspended. To me, it's likely that this is true, but I won't tout it as fact until something clearer than the current foggy tangle of vague statements emerges.

As a side note, I think the greater question to arise from this is the fact that during a Congressional investigation, it was through agreement that the CIA wasn't supposed to be monitoring Congressional investigators. Why is that sort of thing not clearly ensconced in law?

congress will want blood, sadly not for spying on the american people but for spying on them.