A secret CIA surveillance program that has no congressional approval has collected personal information on Americans for years, senators said late Thursday night. Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico have written to top intelligence officials urging them to declassify more information about the program and to take immediate action. Furthermore, the CIA has released parts of the still-classified programs ‘Deep Dive I and Deep Dive II’, which are believed to contain massive data repositories. Sen. Intelligence Committee members sent the letter on April 13, 2021, but it was not declassified until Thursday, and a part of it was blacked out. Wyden and Heinrich said the program operated ‘outside the legal framework that Congress and the public believe governs this collection.’ According to Wyden and Heinrich’s letter, the CIA’s bulk collection program does not operate under laws passed or reformed by Congress but rather under the authority of Executive Order 12333, the document that governs intelligence community activities and was first issued by Ronald Reagan in 1981. https://republicbrief.com/cia-has-a-secret-surveillance-program-thats-collecting-americans-personal-information-without-approval
