The CIA has a secret repository of information collected about Americans as part of the agency’s foreign surveillance programs, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee alleged on Thursday. The lawmakers said the agency hid from Congress and the public what amounts to “warrantless backdoor searches of Americans.”
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) wrote to CIA Director Bill Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in April 2021, calling for details about the program to be declassified. The CIA, they claimed, has “secretly conducted its own bulk program … entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.” The program does operate under the authority of Executive Order 12333, which has governed intelligence community activity since 1981, the senators said.
