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