Newly declassified documents reveal previously secret CIA bulk collection

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-and-heinrich-newly-declassified-documents-reveal-previously-secret-cia-bulk-collection-problems-with-cia-handling-of-americans-information

by sneak • 4 years ago

547 174 4 years ago

wyden.senate.gov

jsrcout• 4 years ago

"No matter how cynical you get, you just can't keep up."

nescioquid• 4 years ago

Your quotation can't be extolled enough.

As a mere undergraduate in the early '90s, reading about Omnivore (and later Carnivore and later Total Information Awareness and its subsequent refinements) and the ineffectual vituperations against them, I thought that the retrenchment was only apparent, a moving back to take yet another run at the dream of omniscient preemption and thereby control.

Today, nothing dies. Everything simply becomes more subtle. There is no single head to urge into the guillotine. Is there a way out, or be there no exit?

What's left to do? Knock over one's king man on the board? How's that for cynicism?

edit: for the down-voting Panglosians: give me your reason rather than mouse-clicks.

CRConrad3• 4 years ago

Today, nothing dies.

Is this you summing up how your entire comment evokes a Charlie Stross novel?

2OEH8eoCRo03• 4 years ago

It's cool that things that make the government look bad are eventually legally declassified and discussed openly.

ALittleLight• 4 years ago

I'm sure glad that even though they've consistently done bad things in the past, they must've stopped now!

culi2• 4 years ago

This is one of the simplest and hardest to disagree with comments I've ever come across

sneak4• 4 years ago

It's troubling that those that would openly break the law face no consequences, I guess having a place that doesn't equally apply the justice system to everyone be visible about it is better than being invisible about it.

They're supposed to enforce the laws equally against everyone, though, so the fact that certain powerful organizations in government are exempt and open about it is a little bit more terrifying than if they were exempt but quiet about it.

It's a bit of a flex.

There's literally a part of the US government that can torture people, get caught, get investigated by US Congress, hack into official congressional computers to delete evidence, get caught doing that, and then... face no consequences whatsoever.

If that isn't the most powerful organization in the world, I sincerely don't know who else might qualify for that title.

sudosysgen2• 4 years ago

It's very simple to disagree. The CIA just goes out and burns classified documents it's not okay with being eventually declassified, for example https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/29/us/cia-destroyed-files-on...

drekk• 4 years ago

It would be better to have a system of checks and balances instead of the government sweeping stuff under the rug for a decade or so to "let things simmer"

staticassertion• 4 years ago

Yes, that would be better. But it is also nice that, despite not having that, we do have a system where we can see what was done.

Obviously it's tricky. By delaying things people can mentally bias towards "that was then". It wasn't that long ago that the US government was kidnapping and forcibly drugging US citizens, but "that was then".

But it's also really important that at some point that information does make it out.

sixothree• 4 years ago

Yeah. It's great they were able to run rampant with no repercussions for years. And now we get to see real accountability. /s

ethbr04• 4 years ago

eventually legally declassified and discussed openly

That's the idea, and by and large the system functions as intended. Critically, it's a "must take increasingly burdensome measures to maintain classification" configuration. So default / inaction is declassification.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_th...

er4hn• 4 years ago

Except for nuclear secrets ;) Interesting caveat

KennyBlanken2• 4 years ago

As intended by the people in power? By the time this stuff comes out, everyone involved is retired or dead or past statute of limitations.

This program operated under an executive order forty years ago, before many HNers were born, likely. The guy who signed that order died many years ago. How is this coming to light now serving any public good? Guarantee the Patriot Act, for example, does not get repealed.

We also have no idea what hasn't been released, so it's impossible to say things are 'working', by design or otherwise.

coliveira• 4 years ago

The "funny" thing is how nobody goes to jail for breaking the law.

Arubis• 4 years ago

Tangentially, that’d be a cool model for copyright.

wolverine876• 4 years ago

> eventually legally declassified and discussed openly
That's the idea, and by and large the system functions as intended.

What makes you say it largely functions as intended? It sometimes functions, but that is different. Also, we don't know what we're missing.

thatguy0900• 4 years ago

If the intention is for nothing to be done. Noone is punished and it's so late the public can't be bothered to care anymore.

soraminazuki• 4 years ago

It took multiple whistleblowing attempts in the span of over a decade to get it widely accepted that the government is conducting illegal mass surveillance on an internet scale. That for sure keeps people from having faith in the current classification system, and for good reasons.

faeyanpiraat• 4 years ago

“Once an MDR request has been submitted to an agency for the review of a particular document, the agency must respond either with an approval, a denial, or the inability to confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of the requested document.”

So you not only need to know the existence of some secret document you are interested in (how could you?), they basically have the option to simply deny it’s existence?

Is it really how it supposed to work?

barbacoa2• 4 years ago

From a government standpoint it's better to control the release of this kind of information rather than a Snowden type disclosure. Reminds me of how the Obama administration CIA disclosed they had secret assassination kill-lists which included American citizens. This was done through a Friday release of a NYT page 6 article that casually mentioned this in a single sentence buried in text.

IAmGraydon• 4 years ago

It wasn’t NYT and it wasn’t a single sentence. It was a 3 part series by the Washington Post.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

...under a different government.

I would rank that coolness as way cooler than Kazakhstan but equally as cool as the Brazilian dictatorship? Still haven't got a chance to check out the CIA torture footage, but seeing as one of the people who ordered the torture and authorized the destruction of the tapes was put in charge and just left office a year ago, it turns out that discussion doesn't mean much.

edit: I guess it teaches us that we shouldn't expect more consideration from the current regime than the past one, seeing as they've not only gone entirely unpunished, but were rewarded. If we had never heard about the transgressions of the past, we wouldn't be fooled into expecting better out of the current crop.

edit: Am I the only one who read Brasil: Nunca Maís? Did the Church Committee change anything? It's actually reprehensible that we can talk about this stuff openly while parading the people who did it as experts on what we should do next.

edit:

"The CIA inspector general’s office has said it “mistakenly” destroyed its only copy of a comprehensive Senate torture report, despite lawyers for the Justice Department assuring a federal judge that copies of the documents were being preserved."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-mistak...

ren_engineer• 4 years ago

and nobody goes to jail, except for people like Assange who expose it. This is more of a power flex than any sort of consequences for their illegal activity

FpUser• 4 years ago

It'll become cool when the perpetrators get punished. Otherwise it is like robber admitting robbery and then walking away from it in the open laughing all the way to the bank. And doing it again and again.

dundarious• 4 years ago

Knowing what the CIA has done in the last 60 years, it’s hard to credit a system of government that thinks partial declassification every 40 years or so counts as supervision or any kind of meaningful corrective.

Letters like this don’t signify anything cool unless they lead to meaningful action, and they usually do not. I wouldn’t be so quick to congratulate the system for such things. This is like having a fancy PnL dashboard that’s updated too late and nobody with power looks at it anyway.

chrissnell• 4 years ago

Thank a whistleblower. They're the only check we have against these types of infringements on our liberties.

jasonfarnon• 4 years ago

How do you know what really makes the govt look bad eventually gets declassified?

aksss3• 4 years ago

Still waiting on Kennedy assassination and 9/11 details to be declassified.

nobody99992• 4 years ago

Here you go. And you're welcome! :)

https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-repo...

https://9-11commission.gov/report/

kingkawn• 4 years ago

The best of both worlds; we have a police state that only after the fact accepts accountability and never in a way that disrupts whatever it is presently doing, and yet we still can condemn the other police states by pointing to this same process.

0xdeadb00f• 4 years ago

Only the things they allow us to see are declassified. I'm sure there are thousands, millions, of documents that will never ever see the light of day.

raxxorrax• 4 years ago

Does it matter if there are no legal consequences? That is even worse in my opinion. And it doesn't make government look bad if people just find it "cool".

danielyaa5• 4 years ago

If you're interested in learning more about how it works and the debate going on about classified information, checkout the new stuffyoushouldknow podcast episode about it https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...

1970-01-01• 4 years ago

Democracy Dies in Darkness is a great slogan. The USA is not immune to a shadow government, but is resistant thanks to documents like these.

sudosysgen2• 4 years ago

No, only some of those. The CIA is well known for having burned/destroyed documents so they couldn't be declassified, so no one will ever tell.

sneak4• 4 years ago

Note for the record that this outcome/letter/press release is because they spied on Americans (which they are ostensibly not supposed to do).

Now imagine how unrestrained they are when spying on the other 96% of the human population that resides on this planet, and that anything that Google, Apple (iCloud, iMessage), Facebook (WhatsApp, Instagram, including DMs), or Microsoft knows about you, they can know about you.

The CIA is truly out of control.

mrtksn• 4 years ago

Wouldn’t be that the %96 should be doing their counter intelligence? I don’t see how CIA has an obligation over non-US citizens.

I tend to believe that EU’s privacy stance is primarily to do that. They are trying to forge a framework where free market can operate but keep the Europeans data in EU, under the EU jurisdiction.

Europe and US are allies but they are also competitors. It’s not wise to let foreign entities run you communications.

When the US fir the first time encountered that with TikTok, the first instinct was to ban it, I.e. the China way.

I like the EU way better.

zarzavat• 4 years ago

If you spy on allies without apology you may find out later that they don’t consider you to be an ally any more. That is a recipe for isolation.

mrandish• 4 years ago

Not just CIA, the overall surveillance state from national to state agencies to local law enforcement is so pervasive, all-encompassing and hidden (or under-reported), it's pretty terrifying. And that's just the technically "legal" stuff without all the rampant abuses of using private sub-contractors, other government's agencies (Five Eyes), gag orders, etc to get around "inconvenient" limitations.

nyolfen• 4 years ago

i'm going to be real with you, almost nobody on earth cares about their government spying on foreign nationals. if the CIA has any popular legitimacy it is because they spy on foreign nationals.

matheusmoreira3• 4 years ago

Yeah. These people violate the rights of their own people and the principles their own goddamn country was founded upon. There's really no limit to what they'd do to a foreigner.

aeturnum2• 4 years ago

This reminds me that, despite the prissy and offended denouncements from the Air Force and DOD (War Department?), the only fiction in Dr. Strangelove is the characters. All of the systems depicted were built.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-i...

pasabagi• 4 years ago

It was worse than that: in Doctor Strangelove, General Buck Turgidson was at least waiting for Truman's say-so before doing anything irrevocable. In real life, there's this anecdote about Curtis Lemay:

SAC had reconnaissance aircraft flying secret missions over the Soviet Union twenty-four hours a day. “If I see that the Russians are amassing their planes for an attack, I’m going to knock the shit out of them before they take off the ground.” Sprague was shocked. “But General,” he countered, “that’s not national policy.” Sprague remembered LeMay responding, “I don’t care. It’s my policy. That’s what I’m going to do.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-an...

aeturnum2• 4 years ago

It's funny because the open source arms control community (like Martin Pfeiffer[1]) works really hard to inform people of how few safeguards our nuclear policy has. But even those anemic safeguards (the idea that only the president can arbitrarily launch nukes) have frequently been illusory!

I genuinely think we way-under-rate how closely we escaped nuclear annihilation in the last 100 years.

[1] https://twitter.com/NuclearAnthro

etaioinshrdlu• 4 years ago

What is the data in question? I don't see it mentioned in the article.

roywiggins4• 4 years ago

This is the report I think (it's pretty heavily redacted):

https://www.cia.gov/static/63f697addbbd30a4d64432ff28bbc6d6/...

The program is apparently bulk collection of financial data.

owlninja• 4 years ago

Thanks...I am still a bit confused and thought the post URL would lead me to something more informative judging by the reactions here.

tootahe45• 4 years ago

Now if we could pay someone to read it and tell us what data was collected.

mike_d• 4 years ago

"These activities may include open-source research (e.g., an Internet search) or inquiries to other U.S. government agencies or foreign entities."

vsareto• 4 years ago

They describe it as structured and unstructured data, with the latter examples being "emails, spreadsheets, word processing files, or other electronic documents"

The former is likely database files, JSON, XML, etc. and anything that has a "common format", but I don't think specifics are given.

twayt• 4 years ago

I can’t interpret posts like this to understand whether I should care or not.

This kind of headline could mean anything from something benign to something which seriously threatens privacy.

Anyone who actually knows about this, what’s the TLDR?

roywiggins4• 4 years ago

I think this is the report that was declassified. It's pretty heavily redacted (and long). It's talking about a program collecting bulk financial records, targeting ISIS.

https://www.cia.gov/static/63f697addbbd30a4d64432ff28bbc6d6/...

fsociety999• 4 years ago

This executive order was signed in 1981… Shows how afraid people are to mess with the CIA. They shouldn’t even be allowed to operate in the United States let alone collect information on American citizens.

One thing I’ve always wondered is why Snowden exposed the NSA mass surveillance, but didn’t say a word about the CIA despite having worked for both agencies. It is, of course, possible he didn’t know about the CIA collecting data, but I find that pretty hard to believe.

mtgx• 4 years ago

He was an NSA contractor, not a CIA one.

dboreham• 4 years ago

According to Wikipedia Snowden was a CIA employee between 2006 and 2009.

noarchy• 4 years ago

Well he is speaking about it now:

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1491961623132651521

at-fates-hands• 4 years ago

Serious question:

We know Snowden took a LOT of documents related to spying on US citizens. I only remember seeing a few things that were released publicly. Is there still a lot more stuff he's going to release, or has released, just without much fanfare?

I'm genuinely curious because I remember people on both sides really freaked out about what he was going to release and I just haven't seen the supposed troves of information he was going to release.

Is it mainly just because its irrelevant so many years on now?

digisign• 4 years ago

The journalists vetted and decided what to publish. Not all of it was released. Some was probably released and ignored for one reason or another.

disk0• 4 years ago

Is there still a lot more stuff he's going to release, or has released, just without much fanfare?

According to the The Snowden Archive[0] about 400 documents were published through publications out of a total 50,000 documents Snowden collected. As for the rest—First Look Media (parent company of The Intercept) shut down access to its archive, as well as the team set up to handle them, in 2019:

"First Look CEO Michael Bloom said that as other major news outlets had “ceased reporting on it years ago,” The Intercept had decided to “focus on other editorial priorities” after expending five years combing through the archive.[1]"

Very cool! Poitras and Greenwald apparently retain full copies, as well as the outlets that received them in the first place I'd assume.

As a last note I'll leave a medium post by Barrett Brown[2], an excellent reporter whose series of columns in the Intercept received the National Magazine Award—incidentally he burned it on a livestream in protest against First Look Media's decision to shut down their Snowden archive (got to see it live, the YouTube video is private now though unfortunately)

[0] https://www.cjfe.org/snowden

[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-intercept-shuts-down-acces...

[2] https://barrettbrown.medium.com/why-the-intercept-really-clo...

Vecr• 4 years ago

The data is compartmentalized, he probably did not have an easy way to exfiltrate it. He had a good portion of NSA data available without too much suspicion, due to his position. Most CIA or NSA employees did not ever get that much access. There's probably a motivation factor as well.

tootie• 4 years ago

It's unclear after reading this stuff if the program is still active or if this exposure is something historical

autoexec• 4 years ago

Shows how afraid people are to mess with the CIA. They shouldn’t even be allowed to operate in the United States let alone collect information on American citizens.

I think it's incredible that politicians haven't cracked down on three letter agencies ages ago. The threat to themselves seems like it should have been obvious. As long as they're sucking up data on US citizens (including presidents and congressmen) it would make it very very easy for those with that data to control anyone. When the NSA can lie to congress and face no consequences is it because the government if fine with that or because they are too afraid to do anything? It makes the highest offices of our government seem very weak and vulnerable. If they're terrified to do anything about them, what possible chance could the rest of us have?

virissimo• 4 years ago

Perhaps politicians don't crack down on three letter agencies because when they try, their careers are ruined by those same three letter agencies. Here's an example: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/48603/did-the-c.... See this for a previous HN discussion of the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25397168#25409105.

mistermann• 4 years ago

Now that Epstein's out of the picture something will change, if new blood ever gets into politics.

heavyset_go2• 4 years ago

It's because politicians have mutually beneficial relationships with three letter agencies.

c0nducktr2• 4 years ago

I think it's incredible that politicians haven't cracked down on three letter agencies ages ago.

Well, they'll kill you.

That's a good reason to not go after them if you have a nice job as a politician.

paganel2• 4 years ago

I think it's incredible that politicians haven't cracked down on three letter agencies ages ago.

It only goes to show that the "Deep State" is real. But, of course, because it came from the "wrong guys" the idea got ridiculed to the Moon and back, all while the people writing about it had colleagues or close family working for said "Deep State" institutions.

Gollapalli• 4 years ago

It was supposed to be illegal for the CIA to operate within the US.

c0nducktr2• 4 years ago

Seems as simple as the CIA murders people, while the NSA just collects intelligence, right?

heavyset_go2• 4 years ago

From what I understand, Snowden had access to a whole trove of NSA data that he chose to leak. He might not have had similar access to CIA documents.

whitepaint• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1492091045873553411

olliej3• 4 years ago

But any back doors required by the EARN IT Act totally won’t be abused

ctoth• 4 years ago

Saw the title, thought "This is probably Wyden," clicked the link... Yup. Say what you will about the guy he's remarkably consistent on this sort of thing. I think that's admirable.

yucky2• 4 years ago

Yeah him and Rand Paul who disagree on almost everything else, tend to be the most consistent Senators on issues like this.

hn_throwaway_992• 4 years ago

Note that since it wasn't immediately apparent to me what or when the data was collected, this is about bulk collection of financial data in order to combat ISIL. Given the timeline of the report, https://www.cia.gov/static/63f697addbbd30a4d64432ff28bbc6d6/..., it makes it sound like they looked into activities in the 2014 timeframe.

olliej3• 4 years ago

It doesn't matter what information they were looking for:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[2]"

simondotau• 4 years ago

Yeah but they had secret courts issuing secret warrants. Or something. So they’re fine.

MrYellowP• 4 years ago

You make it sound like they're not doing this all the time, every day, anyway.

some_random• 4 years ago

Perhaps if that's the case the ACLU (or you) should provide some evidence of that instead of dressing up the most mundane incidental collection I've heard in my life.

bradknowles• 4 years ago

IMO, it’s not the CIA you need to worry about here.

You should be worrying about the NSA.

rendall2• 4 years ago

Note that since it wasn't immediately apparent to me what or when the data was collected, this is about bulk collection of financial data in order to combat ISIL.

The second statement does not logically follow from the first.

And. That link. Not clicking.

boomboomsubban• 4 years ago

The second statement does not logically follow from the first.

Yes it does, "it was not immediately apparent, so I did some research and it was x. Now you don't need to do the research."

And the CIA is mandated to produce such reports, while they could add malware it'd likely be more of a liability than a benefit.

imwillofficial2• 4 years ago

I mean, we all kind of saw this one coming.

imwillofficial2• 4 years ago

I found the three people surprised by this news.

kingcharles• 4 years ago

Washington Post article:

https://archive.md/qcJcf

fallingfrog• 4 years ago

It doesn't matter how the public votes or what people think- they're going to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and because it's all secret, there will never be any accountability for it. Vote all you want, the CIA is impervious to democracy.

lbriner• 4 years ago

The elephant in the room is the ability for the President to issue executive orders that can more often than not impinge on liberties that should be protected by the Constitution.

The CIA will always want more power, that is the nature of the secret services but if the people are bothered, why isn't there more talk of curtailing what the President is allowed to do unilaterally?

ajsnigrutin• 4 years ago

If eg. a CEO of a company signs something illegal, and in turn the company does something illegal, the CEO is criminally on the line.

If the president signs something illegal (unconstitutional in this case), why does nothing happen?

harry8• 4 years ago

Because they /all/ do it. Every single president. To prosecute looks political but more importantly if the current president prosecutes, they'll be the defendant next time the other side is in and they'll be guilty as sin.

Why do they all do it? Might be a better question to ponder.

asimpletune• 4 years ago

My guess would because the president is also technically the chief law enforcement officer? Not saying I like it, but that’s how it is I think.

Impeachment is what exists to hold presidents accountable, and then voting is what holds the senate accountable, when they choose not to hold the president accountable.

I think the president can be prosecuted for criminal offenses though when they’re out of office, since what I said above would no longer apply.

roenxi• 4 years ago

To gain the presidency it is all-but-mandatory to have the enthusiastic backing of a big chunk of voters and the tacit or explicit approval of around half of them. Combine mass popular support with executive power and there isn't a lot practically that can be done.

Furthermore it appears that most of the US politicians have some sort of borderline-corrupt activity going on if not being actively involved in something illegal (Epstein springs to mind, various scandals that turn up around presidential elections). People in glass houses are cautious in their stone throwing.

And a final and decisive stroke - there is plausible uncertainty about whether the action is illegal. These are people who write the law, they are not expected to be stay-inside-the-legal-lines types because they all have different opinions on where the lines should be and are usually in the process of drawing them. They appoint the people who determine what the words mean and that leads to occasional creative reinterpretations. There isn't time to prosecute over every detail that someone objects to given the range of objections there are.

retrac• 4 years ago

Legal and criminal responsibility for actions while governing leads to a situation commonly seen in a number of republics, most prominently ancient Rome, which the creators of the American constitution desperately wanted to avoid. While in office, you're safe to some degree with the powers of the office. Once out of office, you're an immediate legal target and all the lawsuits get filed. Solution? Don't leave office. Avoiding that is the basic logic behind immunity in political office; stable transfer of power breaks down when you know your successor is going to imprison you.

CWuestefeld2• 4 years ago

What is "unconstitutional"? It's what the Supreme Court says it is.

The Court has had the opportunity on multiple occasions to rule that this domestic spying is unconstitutional, and has declined to do so. Ergo, for all practical matters, it's legal.

lkxijlewlf• 4 years ago

Because it sets a bad precedent. The former used his presidency to push as many buttons as he could to see just what the extent of the President's powers are. Sure there are some legal rumblings now, but I'd wager he will never see a prison. Ever.

headhuntermdk• 4 years ago

Because the AG works for the president and can be fired for any reason

alistairSH2• 4 years ago

why isn't there more talk of curtailing what the President is allowed to do unilaterally?

This is why impeachment exists. We impeached the last idiot-in-chief twice. Unfortunately, we get the Congress we deserve (ie, if we elect authoritarian-minded lackwits, we shouldn't be surprised when they refuse to convict).

stronglikedan• 4 years ago

More like impeachment*, since it was a sad sham both times.

cplusplusfellow• 4 years ago

And we shouldn’t be surprised when they politically witch hunt and otherwise get nothing accomplished.

CWuestefeld2• 4 years ago

No, this is not why impeachment exists. A president is impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors". If the Prez is acting legally, I can't see how he could be impeached for it.

Rather, this is what voting is for.

krapp• 4 years ago

why isn't there more talk of curtailing what the President is allowed to do unilaterally?

Executive orders don't give Presidents unilateral power. They are subject to judicial review and cannot legally violate the Constitution, or exceed Presidential authority as defined in Article 2 of the Constitution, unless specific authority is granted by Congress. Also Congress can overturn a legislative order, either through legislation or simply denying funding. Although, when the legislative and judicial branches don't really want to stand up to the President for whatever reason, that's a moot point.

Also, there is always plenty of talk - from the party not currently in control of the White House. Executive orders are always tyranny when the other side writes them, and a necessary bulwark against tyranny when your side writes them.

smaryjerry2• 4 years ago

The problem is that judicial review takes time and only important cases get heard. For example Biden quite literally said that he issued a executive order extending the moratorium on evictions knowing that the courts would over turn it, but he said at least it would buy more time for people so he would do it anyways. Knowingly doing something that will get overturned still isn’t enough to impeach someone is very odd. If we look at the count of executive orders issued by each president, the current president has issued more in 1 year than the last 6 presidents issued in their entire 4 year terms. The problem is having the Supreme Court review those would take a review of a new order every single week of the year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federa...

aa-jv• 4 years ago

why isn't there more talk of curtailing what the President is allowed to do unilaterally?

Because the Presidents job is to distract from - and take the heat for - the crimes of the nation.

The nation has crimes it is keeping secret. These are national secrets, the revealing of which would harm the security of the nation.

Whether you think these national secrets being revealed would be a catastrophe, or indeed a badly needed justice for the inhumanities being committed in your name - it is the Presidents job to make sure the nation stays safe during the discussion.

Which is why CIA powers are not discussed until the weight of public opinion itself, threatens the 'security' of the secret-keepers/nation.

WillPostForFood• 4 years ago

Read the EO, it isn't secret, and doesn't seem to directly impinge on liberties, it is just the vague charter of what various agencies should be doing. I don't see any problem with the intent.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execu...

The problem is when you have a bureaucracy directed to "go collect intelligence" there is going to be a large grey area where there needs to be oversight, and there will always be people in a large org that need to be reigned in.

Anyway, the EO isn't the problem, it is the more boring challenge of oversight and managing large orgs.

Cosmin_C• 4 years ago

When I access the post it sends me to the following page

--- Sorry, a potential security risk was detected in your submitted request. The Webmaster has been alerted.

Reference ID: *.****.*****.****

You can proceed to www.senate.gov.

If this problem persists, please contact the Office of the Secretary Webmaster at webmaster@sec.senate.gov. ---

All right, keep your secrets.

elliotpage• 4 years ago

I like how this is framed as "previously secret" when it has been glaringly obvious for years.

Newly declassified documents reveal previously secret CIA bulk collection

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