[higherpurpose]

How come nobody in the media is calling this treason? We're talking about a government agency hacking and spying on the US Senate. This is like a Will Smith movie plot about the government "bad guys".

"Improper access"? Are you kidding me? I guess Manning was a fool for not "apologizing" for his "improper access". That would've definitely saved him.

What's worse is that even after Feinstein accused them of hacking and spying, they still did it afterwards [1]. And if they get away with it now, they will most definitely continue to do it.

[1] - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140731/18065928080/cia-s...

[dmix]

Well, technically it wasn't hacking or unauthorized computer access since the CIA originally set up the secure network:

http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/no-cia-didnt-spy-on-other-...

Nonetheless this is a complete moral failure and power-abuse that is equally worthy of punishment. They were monitoring use of the network, then attempting to classify new information as it was being analyzed.

[ceejayoz]

Uh, it's still unauthorized even if they set it up. The DBA at a bank might have full access to the database, but if he uses it to siphon off Social Security numbers it'd be unauthorized access. Same thing here - they explicitly weren't supposed or authorized to access the network.

[krapp]

It's not the media's purpose to declare something treason - doing so would make them look like partisan hacks.

[scott_karana]

How is this an issue of partisanship?

This is the CIA hacking the Senate. It's not GOP vs Democrat or even Executive vs Judiciary vs Legislative.

Besides, I think it can be entirely fair for newspapers to pose the question of "Is this tantamount to treason?", and let people decide for themselves.

[krapp]

The issue itself may not be partisan, but it will still be interpreted that way. The media has been a political strawman for both parties for a long time. Each accuses the other of essentially controlling it to further their agenda. Once accusations of 'treason' are made from a media source, then inevitably at least half of the country will dismiss it as propaganda.

If a media outlet did, I think they would probably have to do so carefully.

[scott_karana]

Ah, fair enough. I see your point. Thanks! :-)

[knodi123]

It's the CIA looking at activity logs on CIA servers, to monitor what Senate users were doing, so they could interfere with the things the Senate found.

It's shady, and likely illegal, but it's not quite hacking, and it's definitely not hacking the senate.

[scott_karana]

Well, yes. It was an imprecise paraphrase because it wasn't the relevant point I was making:

"How is this issue partisan?"

[sroerick]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=snowden+treason

[krapp]

If you're trying to prove the media doesn't get accused of partisanship with that, it's not a strong case. There were arguments on this very site that the media outlets which weren't reporting aggressively enough on the Snowden events were suppressing information on behalf of the intelligence services, and the ones which were, were either attempting to lambast him on behalf of of the same, or were manufacturing the whole thing as a smokescreen to hide the government's true crimes. Only the Guardian itself ever seemed to get by without some accusation of pandering or being a shill for some dark agenda.

I'm not suggesting it isn't a legitimate argument to have but... especially given the political climate post-Snowden, I wouldn't expect discourse wherever the 't' work is invoked to be particularly helpful.