No-one knows what U.S. Senator Ron Wyden is referring to in his short letter to CIA director John Ratcliffe, but all agree that it's scary.
"I write to alert you to a classified letter I sent you earlier today in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities," is the entirety of the letter, but for pleasantries. Wyden, representing Oregon in the U.S. Senate for three decades and a longtime D.C. insider, has solid form in revealing important problems without departing the proper channels, and this ominously vague missive has set alarm bells ringing.
Ron Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* Bad, writes Spencer Ackerman.
Interviewing Wyden is a maddening mixture of candor and obstinacy. He has a security clearance to lawfully access classified information. The reporter interviewing him does not. He wants to tell you what he found, but that would break the law and get him, at a minimum, thrown off the committee. You as the reporter are trying to absorb what little Wyden is telling you. You are primarily attentive to the vastness of what he leaves unsaid. You try to improvise clever ways to ask, and reask, questions that might clarify what he means, and/or yield leads for other ways to investigate it. Usually Wyden says he can't answer those, either.
The letter follows a Pattern That's Never Been Wrong, writes Mike Masnick.
Wyden has used this same approach to expose ICE illegally collecting millions of Americans' financial records through bulk administrative subpoenas—a program that was hastily shut down the moment Wyden's office started asking questions about it. He's caught the government gathering push notification data from Apple and Google while forbidding those companies from telling anyone about it. He's questioned domain seizures, the FBI's power to look at your browsing history without a warrant, and countless other government activities that were happening in secret.
The track record here is essentially perfect. When Wyden sends a cryptic letter or asks a pointed question suggesting something concerning is happening behind the classification curtain, something concerning is absolutely happening behind the classification curtain.
A good representation of the CIA's traditional reputation can be found in Oliver Stone's movie Nixon, where the conspiratorial mentality that made JFK such a fascinating movie curdled into parody (it was his Casino, if you see what I mean.) The viewer is treated to 1960s CIA Director Richard Helms revealing himself to the camera as a literal demon. The reality seems to be that the upper echelons of America's intelligence services are more dangerous (humans torturing humans) and less powerful (fired at whim by random MAGA courtiers.)
