Senators: CIA Surveillance Program Involved Citizens’ Data

In a recently declassified letter to Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines dated April 13, 2021, two U.S. senators urged transparency around alleged “bulk surveillance” conducted by the CIA. The lawmakers responded to now-declassified documents compiled by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, highlighting “problems with how the agency searches and handles Americans’ information.” In their letter to U.S. intelligence leaders, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested the declassification of a related report from PCLOB on what they called a “bulk collection program.” PCLOB is an independent executive branch agency established in 2004 to advise the president and other high-ranking officials on privacy and civil liberties concerns in the U.S.