Senators: CIA has secret program that collects American data
By: Nomaan Merchant (AP NEWS)
When Democrats begin complaining about the Deep State then things are very bad indeed. And the Federal intelligence community seeking information about people in the United States isn't a secret. No doubt Sens. Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich voted for authorizations to allow domestic intelligence gathering.
In country that has turned personal information into a tradeable commodity that drives the economy then these whiny Deep States concerns are really rather feckless. Where were these Democrats during the Obama administration?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said. While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, the senators alleged the CIA had long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress.
Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for more details about the program to be declassified. Large parts of the letter, which was sent in April 2021 and declassified Thursday, and documents released by the CIA were blacked out. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated "outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection."
There have long been concerns about what information the intelligence community collects domestically, driven in part by previous violations of Americans' civil liberties. The CIA and National Security Agency have a foreign mission and are generally barred from investigating Americans or U.S. businesses. But the spy agencies' sprawling collection of foreign communications often snares Americans' messages and data incidentally.
Intelligence agencies are required to take steps to protect U.S. information, including redacting the names of any Americans from reports unless they are deemed relevant to an investigation. The process of removing redactions is known as "unmasking."
The CIA on Friday said the program highlighted by the senators and another disclosed this week are "repositories of information about the activities of foreign governments and foreign nationals." In a statement, the agency said the programs were classified to stop adversaries from compromising them.
The agency also said it kept members of congressional oversight committees "fully and currently informed of its classified activities related to these two programs."
"In the course of any lawful collection, CIA may incidentally acquire information about Americans who are in contact with foreign nationals," the agency statement said. "When the CIA acquires information about Americans, it safeguards that information in accordance with procedures approved by the Attorney General, which restrict the CIA's ability to collect, retain, use, and disseminate the information."
The CIA released a series of redacted recommendations about the program issued by an oversight panel known as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. According to the document, a pop-up box warns CIA analysts using the program that seeking any information about U.S. citizens or others covered by privacy laws requires a foreign intelligence purpose.
"However, analysts are not required to memorialize the justification for their queries," the board said.
Additional documents released Thursday also revealed limited details about a program to collect financial data against the Islamic State. That program also has incidentally snared some records held by Americans.
Both Wyden and Heinrich have long pushed for more transparency from the intelligence agencies. Nearly a decade ago, a question Wyden posed to the nation's spy chief presaged critical revelations about the NSA's mass-surveillance programs.
In 2013, Wyden asked then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if the NSA collected "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." Clapper initially responded, "No." He later said, "Not wittingly."
Former systems administrator Edward Snowden later that year revealed the NSA's access to bulk data through U.S. internet companies and hundreds of millions of call records from telecommunications providers. Those revelations sparked worldwide controversy and new legislation in Congress.
Clapper would later apologize in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling his response to Wyden "clearly erroneous."
According to Wyden and Heinrich's letter, the CIA's bulk collection program operates outside of laws passed and reformed by Congress, but under the authority of Executive Order 12333, the document that broadly governs intelligence community activity and was first signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
"It is critical that Congress not legislate without awareness of a ... CIA program, and that the American public not be misled into believe that the reforms in any reauthorization legislation fully cover the IC's collection of their records," the senators wrote in their letter. There was a redaction in the letter before "CIA program."
Intelligence agencies are subject to guidelines on the handling and destruction of Americans' data. Those guidelines and laws governing intelligence activity have evolved over time in response to previous revelations about domestic spying.
The FBI spied on the U.S. civil rights movement and secretly recorded the conversations of Dr. Martin Luther King. The CIA, in what was called Operation Chaos, investigated whether the movement opposing the Vietnam War had links to foreign countries.
"These reports raise serious questions about the kinds of information the CIA is vacuuming up in bulk and how the agency exploits that information to spy on Americans," Patrick Toomey, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. "The CIA conducts these sweeping surveillance activities without any court approval, and with few, if any, safeguards imposed by Congress."
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Maybe these Democrats were for it before they were against it? Biden's unpopularity is causing nervous the rats to jump ship in hopes of saving their incumbency.
Before long, Democrats are going to try rewriting history again. Democrats are the MAGA party, don't ya' know?
I didn't check, but did either vote to renew the "Homeland Security Act?"
Who needs stinkin' facts when Danon Deep State conspiracies capture headlines? Just because Congress made it legal is a fact too far.
If you'd bothered to read your own article you'd realize that this was first authorized by Ronald Reagan.
Yep, Ronnie Raygun was a transformative President. Of course, Joe Biden could fix it. But he won't. It's part of the Obama legacy, too.
To the melody of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"....It's beginning to look a lot like China....LOL
Rising fascism can cause that in a democracy.
I must laugh at this......article. We have cameras on the light poles and everywhere else. We have Homeland Security and it's offspring, The Patriot Act and ICE. If the right wing believes themselves to be targets of this, why don't they ask themselves; why?
Then again, with Nazis openly running around and the other ilk of right-wing Putin puppets on the TV, internet and radio maybe US surveillance of anti-democracy factions should be ramped up. You know, "Nip it in the bud," as Barney Fife would say.
It started in earnest about 20 years ago... the NSA built two facilities to scan all incoming and outgoing data... Basically by routing the Internet backbones thru their facilities, there are two of them, one handles all east bound traffic and one handles westbound... This was admitted to and all over the news decades ago...
Yes the first authorization to gather data on our enemies was ordered by Ronald Reagan way back in '84... But it really didn't come into prominence until the WTC was destroyed and with the passage of the "Patriot" act the facilities were approved and funded for construction... Initially it was just to collect information on our enemies, but it is so easy to collect data on anyone they wish and it has been admitted that they do collect some...
I don't own a cell phone, that's not being technologically backwards, although some here will say that... It's not wanting to be tracked... Every cell is GPS enabled, and is able to turn itself on and record remotely both sound and video... Why in gods green earth would I give the government the ability to track wherever I go, whatever I do, whatever I say?
Is that freedom?
Whining and crying about it now? at this late date? Sheer idiocy....