Today Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro, commonly known as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) warriors, upped the ante in their fight for more transparency from the CIA relating to its Bush-era torture and rendition program. Leopold, a freelance investigative journalist, and Shapiro, a researcher at MIT, have filed a lawsuit against the CIA compelling the agency to release documents about their spying on Senate lawmakers who were tasked with investigating CIA torture.
It was revealed in March that the CIA were spying on the computers of congressional staff working on an extensive report looking into the torture program. The allegations sparked outrage, even from the spy agency's stalwart defenders, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said such surveillance "may have undermined the constitutional framework” of congressional oversight.
This has become a case of secrecy shrouding furtiveness shrouding secrecy: A classified report compiled by the Senate Intelligence Committee that was investigating a highly covert CIA program of torture, which was secretly spied upon by agents, who are now refusing to be transparent about this surveillance. Following the CIA's refusal to respond to an original FOIA request, Leopold and Shapiro are taking their attempt to undo this tight knot of government secrecy to court. Continue>>>
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