Senators Wyden and Heinrich: declassified documents show a CIA bulk surveillance program collecting Americans' data without judicial or congressional oversight

The lawmakers called for the immediate declassification of details about the surveillance program and what data was collected Source: U.S. Senator Ron Wyden … .

Wall Street Journal 2022-02-11 Dustin Volz

Context & Ripple Effects

Wyden’s call fits a longer record of pressing intelligence agencies on surveillance authorities, including warnings about proposed FBI access to email records and a later disclosure that the FBI used Section 215 for website-visitor logs. The CIA documents add a distinct allegation of bulk collection without clear judicial or congressional oversight.

The related coverage also records the NSA’s purchase of commercial logs of Americans’ domestic internet activity, showing why the senators’ demand for details matters beyond a single collection authority: the oversight question extends to how agencies obtain data.

First-order effects

The CIA faces immediate pressure from Wyden and Heinrich to disclose what data the program collected and how the program operated.
Congress gains a concrete basis to scrutinize the CIA program’s asserted lack of judicial and congressional oversight rather than debating surveillance powers only in the abstract.

Second-order effects

FBI and NSA collection practices involving email, website, and commercially sourced activity logs will face sharper comparison with the CIA program as lawmakers assess whether oversight gaps recur across agencies.
Data brokers become more politically exposed where their records can provide intelligence agencies access to Americans’ activity without warrants, as described in the NSA disclosure.

Third-order effects

If disclosures continue to reveal collection pathways outside conventional warrant processes, surveillance reform will increasingly center on oversight of data acquisition methods—not only on statutory authorities.
The recurring role of Wyden across CIA, FBI, and NSA disclosures points toward intelligence oversight becoming more agency-spanning, with transparency demands focused on the data itself and its provenance.

The trend: U.S. surveillance oversight is shifting toward scrutiny of the many routes agencies use to obtain Americans’ data, including bulk programs and commercial sources.

Discussion

@aclu @aclu on x
BREAKING: Newly declassified documents reveal that the CIA has been secretly conducting massive surveillance programs that capture Americans' private information.
@evacide Eva on x
The first person to roll their eyes and tell me how everyone already knows the CIA is spying on all Americans all the time is welcome to choke on a printed out copy of the “...and yet you participate in society” meme which I will shove down their throat. https://twitter.com/...
@snowden Edward Snowden on x
Huge: CIA mass ("bulk") surveillance has been carried out “entirely outside the statutory framework, and without any judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight. The nature and full extent was withheld even from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.” https:/…
@ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald on x
This is why one of the most important and overlooked stories of the last decade is how these agencies have implanted a huge number of their top operatives on the payrolls and inside the newsrooms of America's largest media corporations. Every NBC or CNN panel has at least one: ht…
@ordinarygamers @ordinarygamers on x
Can't wait till they tell me Santa isn't real either. This is incredibly shocking and I could never have imagined the CIA could do something so awful and overreaching :O https://twitter.com/...
@jameeljaffer @jameeljaffer on x
Apparently there is a pop-up-window exception to the Fourth Amendment now https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@athertonkd Kelsey D. Atherton on x
you ever think about how CIA was caught spying on the Senate's investigation of CIA torture & then the CIA's Inspector General was told by Deputy NatSec Advisor Avril Haines not to discipline the personnel who did it, & then the Senate confirmed Haines to be Biden's DNI https://t…
@aclu @aclu on x
This surveillance is done without any court approval, and with few, if any, safeguards imposed by Congress to protect our civil liberties. https://www.wyden.senate.gov/ ...
@eff @eff on x
The CIA's surveillance implicates the same fundamental constitutional rights as the NSA's mass surveillance programs, and we join Sens. Wyden and Heinrich in calling on the CIA to release more details about the program. https://www.wyden.senate.gov/ ...
@snowden Edward Snowden on x
This is the systematic construction of a surveillance state that will dominate the rest of our lives. People brushing this off with “duh” or “I'm not surprised” should take this seriously: elections are months away. Vote out any politician who defends this in the slightest way. h…
@normative Julian Sanchez on x
The Wyden/Heinrich letter says the bulk collection by CIA involves information the general public would be prone to believe was governed by legislative reforms to FISA. Presumably that means USA FREEDOM, which was a response to NSA's bulk telephony metadata collection.
@kenvogel Kenneth P. Vogel on x
The @CIA has for years been collecting in bulk, without a warrant, some kind of data that can affect Americans' privacy, according to a letter by @RonWyden & @MartinHeinrich. But the CIA kept censored the nature of the data when it declassified the letter https://www.nytimes.com/…
@josh_emerson Josh Russell on x
can't be any worse than what we give facebook and google for free https://twitter.com/...
@justinamash Justin Amash on x
Rogue agencies like the NSA, FBI, and CIA are a more serious threat to liberty in America than the enemies they claim to protect us from. https://twitter.com/...
@possumkratom69 @possumkratom69 on x
completely unsurprising but what is surprising is that they willingly disclosed this to the public. we have known for a long time that the FBI and the NSA have massive domestic+ international law enforcement operations. https://twitter.com/...
@normative Julian Sanchez on x
I wrote a little about the ECPA loophole waaaaaay back in 2013. https://www.justsecurity.org/ ...
@joshsternberg Josh Sternberg on x
@drewharwell CIA does homeland stuff now? Guess they need to update their website. https://twitter.com/...
@tomfitton Tom Fitton on x
Deep State Update: https://twitter.com/...
@charlie_savage Charlie Savage on x
The letter from Wyden and Heinrich did not say what kind of bulk records the CIA is collecting, because the agency deems that classified. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@repthomasmassie Thomas Massie on x
Congress's oversight over programs such as these is virtually nonexistent, yet Congress votes to fund them. How is that possible you ask? Negligence. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@snowden Edward Snowden on x
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. https://www.washingtonpos…
@normative Julian Sanchez on x
So, this is all maddeningly vague, but a couple of observations based on the very limited information available.... https://www.wyden.senate.gov/ ...
@willricci Will Ricciardella on x
Now do the crackdown on speech they don't like https://twitter.com/...
@marmel Steve Marmel on x
Did they buy Facebook or vice versa? https://twitter.com/...
@iraqveteran8888 @iraqveteran8888 on x
Is it really so impossible to believe? Look at how the ATF has been weaponizing their rouge “policies” against gun owners that don't have to pass Constitutional muster much less go through the legislative process to become real law. It's an “express lane” to infringement. https:/…
@howelloneill Patrick Howell O'Neill on x
“The CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@sirajahashmi Siraj Hashmi on x
damn, it's always the ones you least expect https://twitter.com/...
@lizmair Liz Mair on x
Worth noting this news is coming exactly as a bunch of people in Congress are making a push for “anti-Big Tech legislation” that would seriously incentivize if not outright force an end end-to-end encryption, and raises major 4th amendment issues. https://www.wyden.senate.gov/ ..…
@snowden Edward Snowden on x
The CIA is not your friend. The CIA is not a friend of the United States. The CIA is a friend of power, and power alone. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@aaschapiro Avi Asher-Schapiro on x
So, CIA is basically saying “trust us—this is legal, but we aren't going to tell you what we're doing.” And two privacy hawk US Senators are saying, “If CIA were made to reveal what they're doing...we'd all agree, it's not kosher.” Who you gonna believe? https://www.nytimes.com/.…
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
The redactions kind of make this whole report something else. PRIVACY & CIVIL LIBERTIES OVERSIGHT BOARD REPORT ON CIA FINANCIAL DATA ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF ISIL- RELATED COUNTERTERORRISM EFFORTS https://twitter.com/...
@chrisgeidner Chris Geidner on x
This story is based on an April 2021 letter from Sens. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.) that was “partially declassified and disclosed Thursday,” per WSJ. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@ggreenwald Glenn Greenwald on x
The CIA is a criminal organization. Their interference in US politics is particularly pernicious. Maybe news outlets should stop hiring all of the people who run this agency to help “analyze” and report the news? Maybe journalists should be skeptical of their planted stories? htt…
@alexgibneyfilm Alex Gibney on x
CIA"...officials are not required to record what the purpose was." There's an epitaph for an agency. https://twitter.com/...
@alexrblackwell @alexrblackwell on x
“It was also not clear whether another U.S. intelligence agency was performing the actual surveillance that supported the functioning of the CIA program, which isn't unusual.” https://www.wsj.com/...
@rnaudbertrand Arnaud Bertrand on x
Every decade the U.S. uncovers egregious and totally illegal practices by the CIA. Yet every decade they're surprised bad stuff keeps happening. Despite commonly held beliefs, it's not because an info is out that things magically improve. https://twitter.com/...
@kenvogel Kenneth P. Vogel on x
Alternate headline: CIA Still CIA'ing https://twitter.com/...
@loweringthebar @loweringthebar on x
I'm starting to think respect for the rule of law on the part of the US government may have diminished somewhat over time https://twitter.com/...
@lwdoyleusa @lwdoyleusa on x
Begs the question: Just how deep AND dark is The Deep State? https://twitter.com/...
@cernovich @cernovich on x
CNN won't cover this. It would implicate their top anchors. https://twitter.com/...
@normative Julian Sanchez on x
As long as the new custodian of the data is not a service provider to the public, they're not covered by ECPA rules governing disclosure directly from providers to the government.
@emmajonyc Emma-Jo Morris on x
There was a man named @Snowden who tried to warn us this was going on but he was called a “traitor” and had to flee his country. https://twitter.com/...

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