Declassified documents reveal CIA has been sweeping up information on Americans
"Civil liberties watchdogs condemn agency’s collection of domestic data without congressional or court approval or oversight
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been secretly collecting Americans’ private information in bulk, according to newly declassified documents that prompted condemnation from civil liberties watchdogs.
The surveillance program was exposed on Thursday by two Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico alleged that the CIA has long concealed it from the public and Congress.
The pair sent a letter to top intelligence officials arguing that the program operates “outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection”.
Wyden and Heinrich added: “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 two senators, frequent critics of the CIA, said they are not allowed to reveal specifics about what type of data has been subject to bulk collection and called for more details about the program to be declassified.
Large parts of the letter, which was sent in April 2021 and declassified on Thursday, and documents released by the CIA were blacked out. . .
. [...] Intelligence agencies are required to take steps to protect US 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 senators’ disclosure triggered fresh concerns about privacy protections. Patrick Toomey, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “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. . .
> Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, wrote on Twitter: “You are about to witness an enormous political debate in which the spy agencies and their apologists on TV tell you this is normal and OK and the CIA doesn’t know how many Americans are in the database or even how they got there anyway. But it is not ok.”
In 2013 Wyden asked then-national intelligence director 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.”
Later that year Snowden revealed the NSA’s access to bulk data through US internet companies and hundreds of millions of call records from telecommunications providers. Reports in the Guardian and Washington Post generated worldwide controversy and new legislation in Congress.
Clapper would later apologise in a letter to the Senate intelligence committee, admitting that his response to Wyden was “clearly erroneous”.
READ MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/us
New docs reveal CIA's 'illegal' mass-surveillance of Americans (Full show)
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