CIA Caught Spying on Whistleblower Communications with Congress

After 4 years of secrecy, two Congressional Notifications about "compromise[s] to whistleblower confidentiality" have finally been declassified. They show how the Obama-era CIA spied on and collected congressional communications about pending and developing whistleblowing cases.

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The data interception by the CIA occurred under Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. On July 25, 2014, Clapper sent a letter to assure Saenators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that "enhanced monitoring of Intelligence Community workers was designed to find leakers and insider threats, and was not intended to thwart lawful whistleblowing". These new monitoring measures from the Obama administration would not tip-off spy agency leaders, said the spy agency leader who also cc'd another leader, then-CIA Director John Brennan.

"In the event a protected disclosure from a whistleblower somehow comes to the attention of personnel responsible for monitoring user activity, there is no intention for such disclosure to be reported to agency leadership under an insider threat program."

The CIA was monitoring government officials and picked up some sensitive emails between Congress and potential intelligence agency employees who were blowing the whistle on wrongdoings within the community. The pledge of innocent monitoring from Brennan above was a lie which took a new administration to blow the lid off of.

Just four months before Clapper's letter, there is at least one whistleblowing disclosure that was intercepted by the CIA as it was legally submitted to go to Congress through the Intelligence Community’s official whistleblowing office. This intercept was, contrary to what Clapper claimed, briefed to the CIA leadership.

A memo written to four key members of Congress (Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia); and Representatives Michael Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland)) by then-Inspector General Charles McCullough, dated March 28, 2014, spoke of concerns "about the potential compromise to whistleblower confidentiality and the consequent 'chilling effect' that the present [counterintelligence] monitoring system might have on Intelligence Community whistleblowing."

"On 19 March 2014, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) security notified me that they had conducted an inquiry prompted by routine counterintelligence (CI) monitoring of Government computer systems."

"As a result of this inquiry, CIA CI personnel obtained emails between our Executive Director of Whistleblowing & Source Protection and Congressional staff. Most of these emails concerned pending and developing whistleblower complaints. CIA security compiled a report that includes excerpts of these whistleblower-related communications, and this report was eventually shared with CIA management."

This included "the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who then "briefed the CIA Deputy Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director". How's that for not tipping-off spy leaders about whistleblowers in the intelligence community?

"I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring."

These disclosures from 2014 were kept under wraps, secreted away, and finally releases this past Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). It took him 4 years to get them declassified, but was stone-walled by "bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper". Grassley said:

"The fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff’s emails about intelligence community whistleblowers raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly. I have been asking the same question for years: what sources or methods would be jeopardized by the declassification of these notifications? After four and a half years of bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Directors Brennan and Clapper, we finally have the answer: none. The CIA has a vitally important function, especially when it comes to their critical counterintelligence work, but nothing—nothing—should inhibit or interfere with Congress’ constitutional job and protecting whistleblowers."

"Since the inception of this country, blowing the whistle has played an integral role in maintaining good government. It would be unacceptable and unpatriotic to overlook any action that could dissuade responsible citizens from disclosing waste, fraud and abuse in our government."

It wasn't until a new Intelligence Community Inspector General was appointed, Michael Atkinson, that Grassley was finally able to declassify the documents. And this isn't the first time Clapper was caught lying about the spying going on in America In 2013 he testified to Congress denying the NSA was collecting data on Million of Americans. Then weeks later, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked the bombshell that blew the massive surveillance operation being carried out by the NSA.

Clapper and Brennan have said their activities of unmasking people within the U.S. intelligence community were legal. Obama officials requested more unmasking during the 2016 election cycle, but Clapper and Brennan claim they were not politically motivated, despite both having become vocally critical of President Trump.

This recent deception from Clapper is revealing about the spying going on. Whistleblower submissions are supposed to be protected, yet their communication were potentially being intercepted and unmasked by the agencies they were speaking against, and reported to CIA leadership. Who knows how many whistleblowers have been reproached or threatened by their superiors after their activities were disclosed. How many dark leaks have been tightened and prevented from coming to light since then?

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References:

• CIA secretly intercepted Congressional communications about whistleblowers
• Falsehood shames Clapper, Brennan and pledge to protect whistleblowers
• March 28, 2014 Congressional Notification
• March 31, 2014 Congressional Notification

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