Amash to Feinstein on Fourth Amendment Pity Party: ‘Hypocrites Like You Are Why the Public Doesn’t Trust Congress’

We’ve entered Mel Brooks level government comedy. Can someone play a sad song on the world’s smallest violin for this woman?

In the ultimate dictionary definition act of hypocrisy, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is complaining that the CIA violated her committee’s Fourth Amendment rights when she claims the agency removed several key documents from committee computers.

She actually found it within herself to be surprised and outraged that this could happen…to her. Accusing the CIA of breaking federal laws and “undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight” Feinstein said, “I am not taking it lightly.” The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating the matter.

Feinstein, if you recall, has been a huge proponent of the NSA’s overreach and basically every government big brother spy program you can imagine in recent years…when it’s aimed at the American people, of course. Here’s just one example from not even a month ago in the LA Times:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) offered a full-throated defense of the government’s collection of data on billions of American phone calls, saying Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s practices have safeguarded the nation without trampling on civil liberties.

“What keeps me up at night, candidly, is another attack against the United States. And I see enough of the threat stream to know that is possible,” Feinstein said at a Pacific Council on International Policy dinner in Century City.

Apparently that same heartfelt “full-throated defense” of government spying overreach ‘safeguarding the nation’ does not apply to herself and her committee, however.

In response to Feinstein’s hypocritical outrage at being targeted by the intelligence community, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) sent this message out on his official Facebook page:

(Post by Justin Amash.)

“She has had no problem with U.S. intelligence agencies, like the ‪#‎NSA‬, violating the Constitution by spying on hundreds of millions of Americans without probable cause. This kind of hypocrisy is one of the biggest reasons the public can’t stand Congress.”

Exactly.

It’s one of a plethora of reasons, but still. At least someone up on that hill gets it…

Former NSA Contractor Edward Snowden also came out a few hours ago to say that Feinstein is a total hypocrite.

The only person that does not seem to realize it by now is, sadly, Sen. Feinstein.

[H/T FreedomOutpost: Melissa Melton]

Feinstein Unaware of CIA Annex Before Attack on U.S. Compound In Benghazi

(Breitbart) — Senator Dianne Feinstein (D – CA), Chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, told Breitbart News on Monday she did not know a CIA annex existed in Benghazi, Libya before the deadly September 2012 attack, which took the lives of four Americans, on the U.S. compound happened. Feinstein could also not confirm if other members of Congress knew about the CIA annex prior the attack.

Like Feinstein, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D – CA) is also a member of Congress’s Super 8, a group of top House and Senate leaders from both parties as well as intel committee chairmen and ranking members. Pelosi would not confirm nor deny to Breitbart News in September if she was briefed about the CIA annex before the attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi.

As reported previously by Breitbart News, section 503’s Presidential Approval and Reporting of Covert Actions in the 1947 National Security Act, mandates the President of the United States to inform Congress (in this case, Congress’s “Super 8“) of any covert CIA actions before authorizing the spy agency of any operations.

According to the recent Senate Select Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi, General Carter Ham, head of AFRICOM at the time of the attack, did not even know about the CIA annex in Benghazi when the deadly assault occurred.

Page 12 of the 85 page report reads:

We are puzzled as to how the military leadership expected to effectively respond and rescue Americans in the event of an emergency when it did not even know of the existence of one of the U.S. facilities.

Between pages 27 and 28:

With respect to the role of DoD and AFRICOM in emergency evacuations and rescue operations in Benghazi, the Committee received conflicting information on the extent of the awareness within DoD of the Benghazi Annex. According to U.S. AFRICOM, neither the command nor its Commander were aware of an annex in Benghazi, Libya.

However, it is the Committee’s understanding that other  DoD personnel were aware ofthe Benghazi Annex.

The Senate Select Intelligence Committee made no mention as to why the CIA annex was in Benghazi and Rep. Frank Wolf (R – VA), who is leading the call for a Select Committee to investigate the terror attack in Libya, asked why the report failed to address the matter.

[H/T Breitbart]

Americans Indifferent About Destruction of Fourth Amendment

Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend NSA surveillance is not going anywhere despite Obama’s less than lukewarm assurance last week there will be reforms.

“The president has very clearly said that he wants to keep the capability” to surveil Americans without court-issued warrants, Feinstein said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “So I think we would agree with him. I know a dominant majority of the — everybody, virtually, except two or three, on the Senate Intelligence Committee would agree with that.”

“A lot of the privacy people, perhaps, don’t understand that we still occupy the role of the Great Satan,” she continued. “New bombs are being devised. New terrorists are emerging, new groups, actually, a new level of viciousness. We need to be prepared. I think we need to do it in a way that respects people’s privacy rights.”

Feinstein, Rep. Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, and others in Congress continue to spread the debunked claim that giving the NSA a blank check has stopped terrorist attacks. ABC News, CNN and the New York Times have repeated the falsehood.

If we can believe corporate polls, the American people have tuned out the debate over the destruction of the Fourth Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

“The latest evidence comes from a new Pew Research Center poll showing that half the public said they had heard nothing at all about President Obama’s speech Friday outlining new restrictions on the National Security Agency. Only 8% of those surveyed said they had ‘heard a lot’ about Obama’s plans,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

Polls also indicate a majority of Americans believe the whistleblower Edward Snowden is a criminal who should be prosecuted.

“Overall, the public is divided about whether Edward Snowden’s leak of classified information, which brought the program to light, has served or harmed the public interest: 45% say it has served the public interest while 43% say it harmed it,” Pew Research reported on Monday. “Nonetheless, a 56% majority wants to see the government pursue a criminal case against Snowden, while 32% oppose this.”

Defenders of the Fourth Amendment place hope in a positive ruling by the Supreme Court. Following rulings by lower courts, however, this appears unlikely.

Last month, U.S. district Judge William Pauley of New York ruled in response to an ACLU lawsuit that the NSA surveillance is reasonable, a “vital tool” in the battle against terrorism and less intrusive than the data people “voluntarily surrender” to “trans-national corporations.”

“Given the Justices’ preference for percolation in the lower courts,” writes Orin Kerr, a prominent Fourth Amendment scholar at George Washington University, “they may want to wait until the lower courts work through them.”

“I think a lot of commentators overestimate the chances that the Supreme Court would step in,” he added. “It’s certainly possible, but it’s not at all a sure thing.”

[H/T Info Wars]

One Small Step for the DHS, One Giant Step for the New World Order: Department of Homeland Security, United States… and Canada and Mexico?

While defending the NSA’s massive spying programs during a Wednesday briefing, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) held up an NSA chart identifying the “Homeland” as the United States…Canada and Mexico.

The Atlantic Wire, the first publication to notice the map’s discrepancy, reports:

You may also be surprised to learn that our homeland now includes both Mexico and Canada, two areas that we understood to be autonomous nations that are not part of the United States. Normally, this would be written off as a design goof, as one of the NSA’s (newly adept) graphics guys using a little more light blue than he ought.

This being the NSA, we’re not inclined to offer that benefit of the doubt. Is this a way of blending in Canadian and Mexican terror activity disruptions (which, we’ll remind you, is different from actual plots interrupted) to give a larger sense of the NSA’s success at halting terrorism within our borders?

We don’t and can’t know, of course, since the information about almost all of these 54 events is classified. Just know that the homeland is safe — be it Tampa, Toronto, or Tijuana — and that it’s all thanks to the NSA.

Watch the video proof below: