U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for new transparency about bulk surveillance conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency, following the release of documents that revealed a secret bulk collection program and problems with how the agency searches and handles Americans’ information.
Wyden and Heinrich requested the declassification of a report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on a CIA bulk collection program, in a letter sent April 13, 2021. The letter, which was declassified and made public today reveals that “the CIA has secretly conducted its own bulk program,” authorized under Executive Order 12333, rather than the laws passed by Congress.
The letter notes that the program was “entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight that comes from [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] collection.”
“FISA gets all the attention because of the periodic congressional reauthorizations and the release of DOJ, ODNI and FISA Court documents,” said Senators Wyden and Heinrich in response to the newly declassified documents. “But what these documents demonstrate is that many of the same concerns that Americans have about their privacy and civil liberties also apply to how the CIA collects and handles information under executive order and outside the FISA law. In particular, these documents reveal serious problems associated with warrantless backdoor searches of Americans, the same issue that has generated bipartisan concern in the FISA context.”
Wyden and Heinrich called for more transparency from the CIA, including what kind of records were collected and the legal framework for the collection. The PCLOB report noted problems with CIA’s handling and searching of Americans’ information under the program.
“While we appreciate the release of the ‘Recommendations from PCLOB Staff’ which highlights problems associated with the handling of Americans’ information, our letter also stressed that the public deserves to know more about the collection of this information. The DNI and the CIA Director have started this process. We intend to continue to urge them to achieve the transparency the American people deserve.”
The Wyden-Heinrich letter is here.
A portion of PCLOB’s report on the program was made public here.
Replies
A Government "Of, By and For the People" ceases to be a Government as prescribed in Our Constitution. It is the Duty of the Sovereign American Citizens to Vote in New Servants and monitor them as Staff in Their Home Lest They Steal, and Plunder.
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
The entire bureaucracy of the federal government needs to be gutted, and restaffed with patriotic citizens. The employees in the current federal bureaucracy are virtually entirely liberals, and are too comfortable in cushy, high paid, over-benefitted positions.
I agree. Tear down and rebuild on a good foundation of We the Sovereign People; who do not need oversight, permission, statutes, codes, applications by, to, or from "regulatory agencies" ----unless constitutionally those agencies can be defended and justified by a moral and educated people who are not only honestly elected to office, but who are also determined to reign in this green-eyed monster govco and keep it that way---choked by the noose of the power of We the People. One way or the other.
We don't need TRANSPARENCY... we need lawful conduct by the CIA and our government agents... knowing they are breaking the law, thru transparency and disclosure, doesn't fix the problem. In Fact, it encourages even more lawlessness.
It is time to JAIL some senior members of the government for violations of the law... setting the example for further prosecutions if the lawlessness continues.
Did fraudbama order Brennan to spy on citizens?? OF COURSE he did.
It took a while, but 1984 has arrived.
In the bottom of the hole in the Outhouse, it is impossible to separate what came from who and when, but we all know it stinks!
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
Whenever Federal, State and Administrative Legislative Acts are brought forth to the Various State and Federal Supreme Courts and found to be enacted within the "Boundaries Set Forth In Our Constitution" they become Actual Laws. They have withstood the "Test."
Lynn Bryant DeSpain
What people who support the de"mock"rats are supposed to do, and what they actually do are definitely 2 different things. The CIA (and several other departments) need to be completely taken down rebuilt with honest people who care about the US and our Constitution in charge.
What is impacting and causing all the harm & suffering in the US are not laws, but Executive Orders. There needs to be a law to take away the power of the president to issue executive order. I haven't researched it, but I'd be willing to bet executive orders to the extent that are being used by every president in our time, didn't exist when our company was founded. More federal govt growing too big & out of control. A COS could end their control, if we could just get it passed. The power needs to be at the state level, not the federal govt, like our founders intended.
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