Security News > 2022 > February > CIA illegally harvested US citizens' data, senators assert

Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, of Oregon and New Mexico respectively, on Thursday announced that in April 2021 they sent a co-signed letter [PDF] to director of national intelligence Avril Haines and CIA director William Burns, seeking expedited declassification of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board's review of two CIA counterterrorism programs - named "Deep Dive I" and "Deep Dive II". The Deep Dives were made possible by Executive Order 12333 - a Reagan-era order that allows widespread data collection, and data-sharing with the CIA, in the name of national security.

The senators wanted a review of the documents' status because they felt the CIA had conducted a bulk information collection effort that harvested data on US citizens - probably illegally.

A set of recommendations from PCLOB to the CIA notes that when officers see data describing a US citizen, they're presented with a pop-up reminding them that they are bound not to look at it unless it can be justified on grounds it represents foreign intelligence.

The document notes that CIA staff don't have to record their justification for accessing such data.

The senators suggest that the CIA's failure to justify officers' access to data describing USPs in every instance is serious - in part because the Agency's data collection practices attract little scrutiny given there is no oversight mechanism for use of EO12333.

Civil liberties campaigners are not happy with the CIA. These reports raise serious questions about what information of ours the CIA is vacuuming up in bulk and how the agency exploits that information to spy on Americans.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/02/11/cia_illegal_us_citizen_data/