U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is casting a welcome, and bright, light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s methods for secretly gathering information about, and from, Americans. Wyden and another senator, Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, commented last week about the recent declassification of a letter they wrote to CIA Director William Burns in April 2021.

The senators, both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted in the letter that the CIA has undertaken a “bulk surveillance” program authorized under an executive order signed in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan but outside oversight by Congress or the judicial branch. This program is also separate from the better-known FISA law — Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — which was passed by Congress and occasionally results in public releases of documents.

Wyden and Heinrich are calling on CIA to explain to the public the kinds of records it has collected under auspices of the executive order, and the legal justification for doing so.

Those are important questions, and Americans deserve to receive thorough answers.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor