On July 31, the Central Intelligence Agency apologized to the Senate Intelligence Committee for spying on their computers. cia Inspector General David Buckley found five cia employees, two lawyers and three IT specialists guilty of accessing computers being used to prepare a report on the cia’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

The cia claimed it hacked the computers to retrieve the file it believed had been accessed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The file was said to contain an internal cia review of the spy agency’s detention program that was never intended to be seen by Congress.

On March 11, Sen. Dianne Feinstein had accused the cia of spying on members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and hacking their computers. The cia then blatantly lied about it: Its director said the cia had “tried to work as collaboratively as possible with the committee on its report, and we will continue to do so.”

“We are not in any way trying to thwart the [Senate Intelligence Committee] report’s progress [or] release,” cia Director John Brennan said. “As far as the allegations of the cia hacking into computers, nothing could be further from the truth.”

But after the scathing speech from Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the Senate, the cia Inspector General conducted an internal review. The review concluded that the cia had indeed unconstitutionally hacked the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers.

This unlawful hacking violates the Constitution’s separation of powers requirement. Under America’s constitution, the Senate is supposed to have power over the cia. But when the cia hacked the Senate’s computers, it overstepped its constitutional rights and impeded those of the Senate.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m worried,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told students at the University of California–Berkeley on March 19. “If the cia is spying on Congress, who exactly can or will stop them?”

Christopher Anders, the senior legislative counsel in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office, said, “It is hard to imagine a greater threat to the Constitution’s system of checks and balances than having the cia spy on the computers used by the very Senate staff carrying out the Senate’s constitutional duty of oversight over the executive branch. It was made worse by cia Director John Brennan’s misleading the American people in denying any wrongdoing.” Anders continued, “These latest developments are only the most recent manifestations of a cia that seems to believe that it is above and beyond the law. An uncontrolled—and seemingly uncontrollable—cia threatens the very foundations of our Constitution.”

This attitude of lawlessness is becoming extremely prevalent in our society. To understand why, please read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s e-book Lawless: Why America Is Losing Its Rule of Law.