CIA Secretly Operated ‘Bulk’ Data Collection Program on American Citizense – Opinion

In news that isn’t news to those in the know, a newly-declassified letter from two Democrat senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed that the CIA maintains a hitherto undisclosed repository of data on American citizens. The Washington Post reported:

Sens. Senators. Many parts of this letter were declassified by Thursday. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated “outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.”

Nothing is new in the belief that the CIA held data it did not consider to be its exclusive collection of information on foreign countries for American security interests, both at home and abroad. While the greatest amount of attention in this area has been paid to the NSA due in no small part to Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations, as the Post article details, ofttimes information on American citizens becomes part of the data mining, but:

All intelligence agencies have to ensure that U.S. information is protected. This includes removing American names from reports, unless the name of an individual is relevant to an investigation. The process of removing redactions is known as “unmasking.”

In the letter, Wyden and Heinrich reiterate Congress’s intent to limit/prohibit “the warrantless collection of Americans’ records, as well as the public’s intense interest in and support for these legislative efforts.” Knowing that, the CIA “secretly conducted its own bulk program [redacted]” and “has done so entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection” and without oversight.

Wyden, Heinrich and others are calling for transparency and declassification.

Kristi Scott (CIA Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer) said this in a statement.

“CIA recognizes and takes very seriously our obligation to respect the privacy and civil liberties of U.S. persons in the conduct of our vital national security mission. CIA is committed to transparency consistent with our obligation to protect intelligence sources and methods.”

The above sidenote is based on family history. My father, who was a veteran of the military as well as a civilian career in intelligence agency work, would sometimes share bits and pieces about their operations with me. One fact he stressed to me is that while on the surface different agencies, such as the CIA and NSA, play up their differences much like the Army and Navy, where it counts the two are very much one in sharing data – though according to insiders and reports from our own Jennifer Van Laar some of that has changed over the years. He said agencies are much more skilled at their jobs than what the general public perceives.

Senators Wyden and Heinrich may well be sincere in their desire for more transparency, but if they have a clue they are also more than willing to play the public outrage game as a diversion from the CIA and NSA’s actual data accumulation (i.e., there’s a reason this report ran in the Washington Post). It isn’t Alex Jones propaganda, it’s the Cold War.