Feinstein v. the CIA: A Moment of Truth

[Commentary] It was a truly historic moment when Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) took to the Senate floor to warn that the CIA's continuing cover-up of its torture program is threatening our Constitutional division of power. As Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Judiciary Committee that will be investigating Feinstein's charges noted, "in 40 years here, it was one of the best speeches I'd ever heard and one of the most important."

That was particularly so, given that Feinstein's searing indictment of the CIA's decade-long subversion of congressional oversight of its torture program comes from a senator who previously has worked overtime to justify the subversion of democratic governance by the CIA and other spy agencies. But clearly the lady has by now had enough, given the CIA's recent hacking of her Senate committee's computers in an effort to suppress a key piece of evidence supporting the veracity of the committee's completed but still not released 6,300- page study that the CIA is bent on suppressing.

[Scheer is Editor, Truthdig.com]