According to a new report, the Department of Justice has a secret domestic surveillance program called the Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program.
This from headlines.americanlookout.com.
The program allowed officials to interview willing Americans without their lawyers present.
Politico reported:
Under the domestic-intelligence program, officials are allowed to seek interviews with just about anyone in the United States. That includes people held in immigrant detention centers, local jails, and federal prison. DHS’s intelligence professionals have to say they’re conducting intelligence interviews, and they have to tell the people they seek to interview that their participation is voluntary.
But the fact that they’re allowed to go directly to incarcerated people—circumventing their lawyers—raises important civil liberties concerns, according to legal experts.
…
That specific element of the program, which has been in place for years, was paused last year because of internal concerns. DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which runs the program, uses it to gather information about threats to the U.S., including transnational drug trafficking and organized crime. But the fact that this low-profile office is collecting intelligence by questioning people in the U.S. is virtually unknown.
The inner workings of the program—called the Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program—are described in the large tranche of internal documents POLITICO reviewed from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Those documents and additional interviews revealed widespread internal concerns about legally questionable tactics and political pressure. The documents also show that people working there fear punishment if they speak out about mismanagement and abuses.
One unnamed employee said the program runs like a corrupt government.
Breitbart reported:
According to the report, an unnamed employee in the trove of documents allegedly said that the Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program’s office “”is ‘shady’ and ‘runs like a corrupt government.'”
A second document reportedly showed employees also claimed the program raised so many red flags that they wanted the program to pay for legal liability insurance.
Carrie Bachner, a former DHS undersecretary for intelligence, told Politico:
[I]f the secret intelligence program exists to question Americans, it is immoral.
Bachner said:
I don’t know any counsel in their right mind that would sign off on that, and any member of Congress that would say, ‘That’s OK.’
If these people are out there interviewing folks that still have constitutional privileges, without their lawyer present, that’s immoral.
What do they do with that information they collect, and is it legal?
Bachner questioned:
Where do they store that information?
Final thought: So much to investigate and not enough Conservatives to do the work. Time too is finite. Will the GOP investigate this?
