You know things have gone a little too far when Dianne Feinstein goes after the CIA. In case you missed it amidst all the disappearing plane speculation, there is a major CIA vs. Congress story going on right now.
It seems that Dianne Feinstein finally thinks domestic surveillance has gone too far once it's targeted her Senate Intelligence Committee staffers. To be fair, this isn't just another NSA surveillance program that finally raised the senator's hackles. The story goes way back to the Bush torture days. Remember the torture tapes that were destroyed? Well, that triggered investigations that have been grinding along until the spat between the Senate and the CIA blew up.
The CIA, being the CIA, decided the best way to handle the problem was to search (snoop) the Senate Intelligence Committee computers. The story has more twists and turns that I touch on in the cartoon, but in a nutshell: the CIA has been spying on the Senate. Or, to put it another way, an intelligence agency has been spying on the branch of government that is supposed to be overseeing it. Not good.
I guess the silver lining in something so bad for Democracy is that I had an excuse to bring Knuckles and Snuggly the Security Bear together in the same cartoon. It was only a matter of time . . .
[Knuckles]
Me Knuckles, me not gone yet. Huhuhuh!
Me now have job in Washington, DC, closer to my bosses!
Me even get to work with friends who do neat spying things! Huhuhuh!
It all started with my torture-er--interrogations--er--tickle-fuzzy-hugs, back when George Bush was president!
We make torture videos, which my CIA friends burn so our secrets, stay secret!
Then Barack Obama president, but me still around!
Nosy Senators want to know how I do the neat things I do.
My bosses not want to tell them.
So they bury them in millions of pages of reading and hide other papers from them.
But then . . . nosy Senate people find CIA report my bosses want to keep secret, bosses get mad, so they spy on Senate, make report disappear with computer magic!
But they get caught.
So Senate lady who likes spying on other people, very, very mad when she gets spied on herself.
Other friends mad too, now spying is "Nixon," constitution crisis and stuff. (Me confused.)
But Barack Obama wants to help, make everything open and see-through.
Except for 9000 document things he won't turn over to nosy Senate people.
My bosses and spying friends take care of me, and now I understand.
Spying and torture go hand-in-hand . . . secrets good for both of us! Huhuhhuh!