Tagged: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

The FBI review of sensitive email messages between former CIA Director David Petraeus and his biographer-mistress Paula Broadwell has been raising big questions about Big Brother.

One of them: When can federal law enforcement review a person's private communications?

To Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, the real scandal over the Petraeus affair is not the extramarital sex, but the invasion of privacy.

Update at 11:30 a.m. ET: The Associated Press just moved a "bulletin" saying that according to a "senior defense official" the emails between Gen. John Allen and Jill Kelley were "flirtatious."

Update at 4:33 p.m. ET: NPR's Tom Bowman reports that U.S. officials tell him Paula Broadwell sent Gen. Allen messages warning him about Kelley. Allen, in turn, warned Kelley about those messages.

Our original post:

Feb. 19, 2013: See our note below about Gen. John Allen.

In Washington scandals, the question is usually what the White House knew.

But in the case of former CIA Director David Petraeus, lawmakers are asking why President Obama did not know about a federal investigation that had found evidence Petraeus was having an affair.