Big Brother: US senators denounce secret CIA program for population control.

Sputnik - The CIA has a secret, undisclosed repository of data that includes information collected on American citizens, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

Lawmakers allege that the CIA is hiding many details about the program from the public and the U.S. Congress, writes The Washington Post.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to senior intelligence officials requesting more details regarding the scope of the data surveillance system.

The two senators, frequent critics of the CIA, said they cannot reveal details about what type of data was the subject of mass collection, and asked for support to have the program declassified.

The letter was sent in April 2021, but only declassified this Thursday (10). Wyden and Heinrich said the program operates "outside the structure that Congress and the public believe governs this institution [CIA]".

 There have long been concerns about what information the intelligence community collects internally, fueled by a history of violations of Americans' civil liberties.

The CIA said on Friday (11) that the program highlighted by the senators (and another one released this week) are "repositories of information about the activities of foreign governments and foreign citizens".

In a statement, the agency said the programs were classified to prevent adversaries from compromising them.

"In the course of any lawful collection, the CIA may accidentally acquire information about Americans who are in contact with foreigners," the agency statement said.

Former systems administrator Edward Snowden commented on the episode on his social media.

You are about to witness a huge political debate in which the spy agencies and their apologists on TV tell you that this is normal and OK, and the CIA doesn't know how many Americans are in the database, or even how they got there. But this is not okay.

International espionage

Both Wyden and Heinrich are well-known figures in the fight for greater transparency from intelligence agencies in the US.

Nearly a decade ago, Wyden asked then-Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper if the NSA collected "any kind of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." Clapper initially replied, "No."

Edward Snowden later that year revealed the National Security Agency's (NSA) access to massive amounts of data through US internet companies, as well as hundreds of millions of call records from telecommunications providers.

These revelations sparked worldwide controversy. Data collected by Snowden showed that millions of emails and phone calls from Brazilians and foreigners were monitored.

The data also indicates that the Brazilian embassy in Washington and the representation at the UN in New York were monitored.

Other Latin American countries as well, such as Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador. In Europe, Germany, Italy, and France had their presidents and foreign ministers spied on.