Senator, who has repeatedly warned against secret US government surveillance, sounds new alarm over ‘CIA activities’

A top Democratic lawmaker familiar with some of the U.S. government’s most secret operations said he has “deep concerns” about some of the CIA’s activities.

the A two-line letter written By Senator Ron Wyden, the longest-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not disclose the nature of the CIA’s activities or the Senator’s specific concerns. But the letter follows a pattern in recent years in which Wyden has publicly alluded to wrongdoing or illegality within the federal government, something sometimes referred to as the “Wyden siren call.”

In a statement (Heb Dustin Volz of the Wall Street JournalThe CIA said it was “ironic but unsurprising that Senator Wyden is unhappy,” calling it a “badge of honor.”

When reached by TechCrunch, a Wyden team spokesperson was unable to comment, as the matter was confidential.

Wyden, charged with overseeing the intelligence community, is one of the few lawmakers allowed to read top-secret information about ongoing government surveillance, including cyber and other intelligence operations. But because the programs are top secret, Wyden is prohibited from sharing details of what he knows with anyone else, including most other lawmakers, except for a handful of Senate staffers with security clearance.

As such, Wyden, a well-known privacy hawk, has become one of the few key members of Congress whose rare but frank words on intelligence matters are closely monitored and monitored by civil liberties groups.

Over the past few years, Wyden has subtly sounded the alarm on several occasions that he has interpreted a secret rule or intelligence gathering method as illegal or unconstitutional.

In 2011, Wyden said the US government was Relying on a secret interpretation Of the Patriot Act, which he said — without revealing the nature of his concerns — created “a gap between what the public believes the law says and what the U.S. government secretly believes the law says.”

Two years later, Edward Snowden, then a contractor for the National Security Agency open The NSA was relying on its secret interpretation of the Patriot Act to force US phone companies, including Verizon, to hand over the call records of hundreds of millions of Americans on an ongoing basis.

Since then, Wyden has sounded the alarm about how the US government is handling it Collects the contents of people’s communications; It was revealed that the Justice Department prevented Apple and Google from disclosing to federal authorities that it was a secret Request the contents of their clients’ notifications; He said that Unclassified report The report, which CISA refused to publish, contains “shocking details” about the national security threats facing American phone companies.

As he pointed out Techdirt Mike MasnickWe may not yet know why Wyden blew the whistle on CIA activities, but every time Wyden sounded the alarm, he was also vindicated.