CIA Admits to Spying on US Senate

The CIA admitted on Thursday that it has spied on the US Senate Intelligence Committee, while the committee was probing the agency over allegations of torture.

Computers of the Senate Committee were monitored in a manner ''inconsistent" with an ''understanding'' between the agency and the Senate, said CIA spokesperson Dean Boyd.

According to an unclassified summary of the Inspector General's report on the affair, obtained by Reuters, the CIA "improperly accessed" a data network the Senate committee was using in its investigations of CIA interrogation practices and secret prisons for terrorism suspects.

CIA interrogation methods have repeatedly been denounced as amounting to ''torture'' under international law.

CIA chief John Brennan issued an apology on Thursday for his agency's conduct. In March however he said ''Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate''. His claim came after Senator Dianne Feinstein's accused the agency on the Senate floor of hacking the computers of the Intelligence Committee’s personnel.

The White House is expected to deliver a declassified summary of the committee's report, and the CIA and Republican responses, to Congress by the end of this week.