Oh, now they’ve done it.
They picked on the wrong people this time.
The C.I.A. has apparently been spying on Congress.
I know. Who would have seen that coming?
Spies spying on people? That’s like lawyers legislating or something.
Oh wait….
So, Congress is really, really mad at the C.I.A. now.
According to a story by the New York Times, the C.I.A. snooped on Senate staffers in order to find out how the Senate got internal C.I.A. documents, some of which were critical of “agency’s detention and interrogation program. Parts of the C.I.A. report cast a particularly harsh light on the program, the same program the agency was in the midst of defending in a prolonged dispute with the [Senate] intelligence committee.”
Yes, the Senate found nothing to be riled up about when Fast and Furious happened; nothing in the IRS targeting scandal; nothing about the botched handling of the Boston Bombing suspects; nothing in the NSA spying scandal; nothing to see in the White House targeting of journalists.
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But now they are finally getting dose of what the rest of us are living with every day as we log on to the Internet or make a phone calls.
Hmmm, I wonder who’s listening to me…now? Or right now? Or now?
“On the Senate floor Tuesday,” reports the San Jose Mercury News, “Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the C.I.A. searched computers used by Senate staff to investigate the C.I.A., confirming a story reported by the New York Times last week.”
And she followed up: "I have grave concerns that the C.I.A.'s search may well have violated the separation-of-powers principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution," as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Anytime a Democrat cites separation of powers AND the Constitution in the same sentence, you know we are Through the Looking Glass.
I thought "separation of powers" and the "Constitution' were only used by liberals as punchlines at sophisticated cocktail parties where government employees eat brie and arugula while arranging federal "green loans" for their bankrupt buddies.
Getting past my relief that someone is finally looking at what the Senate is doing, I’m wondering where Feinstein has been all this time.
Because I know where she was a few months ago, besides that sophisticated cocktail party.
Let’s check in with our crack investigator, Google Chrome, who will bring us up to date:
“I think a lot of the privacy people perhaps don’t understand that we still occupy the role of the Great Satan,” Feinsten told NBCNews. She was responding to Obama unveiling new “privacy” laws-- billed as oversight and reform-- but which could expand the use of domestic monitoring in the name of making the “homeland” free, if not a little less brave.
“New bombs are being devised, new terrorists are emerging, new groups — uh, actually, a new level of viciousness, and I think we need to be prepared. I think we need to do it in a way that respects people’s privacy rights.”
Sure, just like the C.I.A. respected your privacy rights, right Mrs. Feinstein?
Or Obamacare respects the privacy rights of my family and me.
Or Common Core respects the privacy rights of students and teachers.
Or the IRS respects the privacy of that non-profit down the street.
Or Dodd-Frank respects the privacy of banking customers.
Or anyone, from any political party, respects the rights of border agents not to get shot with guns peddled by the federal government.
When Democrats stop writing legislation that contains "data collection," personal and identifiable, as one of its prime components, maybe the rest of us will start to have more respect for the privacy of the Senate.
Us "privacy people," we know who represents the Great Satan here at home, Mrs. Feinstein.
The question is: Do you?
And the answer is: Yeah, probably.