The New York Times reports:

The Central Intelligence Agency has for years been collecting in bulk, without a warrant, some kind of data that can affect Americans’ privacy, according to a newly declassified letter by two senators.

The C.I.A. kept censored the nature of the data when it declassified the letter. At the same time, it declared that a report about the same topic, which had prompted the letter, must remain fully classified, except for some heavily redacted recommendations.

That report, called “Deep Dive II,” was part of a set of studies by a watchdog board scrutinizing intelligence community operations under Executive Order 12333, rules for intelligence activities that Congress has left unregulated by statute. The watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and its staff members have access to classified information.

In March 2021, the Senate Intelligence Committee received a copy of the report. In a letter the next month, two Democrats on the panel, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, urged Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, and William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, to declassify the activity and any internal rules about querying the data for information about Americans. [Continue reading…]