Two people are on a mission to discover why the CIA has a top-secret program that watches and collects data on Americans.
Democratic Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico wrote a letter last April demanding that the CIA declassify documents in the program to provide transparency about why Americans are being tracked without their knowledge.
“It is critical that Congress not legislate without awareness of a … CIA program,” Wyden and Heinrich stated in the letter.
The CIA shared a redacted version of a document issued by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The letter reminded CIA analysts working on the program that collecting confidential information on Americans must be done for a “foreign intelligence purpose.”
American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Patrick Toomey, slammed the CIA for conducting “sweeping surveillance activities” without court approval and safety measures imposed by Congress.
Kristi Scott, the CIA’s privacy and civil liberties officer, responded to Wyden and Heinrich’s letter, explaining that the agency respects the privacy of U.S. citizens and says they are “committed” to transparency. However, it’s unknown when the initiative began or to what extent it’s still functioning.
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