Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was questioned on privacy rights.
If your Facebook profile is public, it’ll be an open invitation for the CIA.
The Central Intelligence Agency is obligated to follow up on information that’s on a public website, including on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s pick for the next CIA boss, said during his confirmation hearing Thursday.
“If someone is out there on their Facebook, talking about an attack or plotting an attack against America, I think you would find the director of the CIA grossly negligent if they didn’t pursue that information,” Pompeo said.
During the hearing, lawmakers hit the Republican congressman from Kansas on privacy issues. In 2015, Pompeo pushed to give mass surveillance tools back to the National Security Agency through the ” Liberty Through Strength Act II. ” The NSA’s mass data surveillance program had been defanged after whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s revelations.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was concerned with Pompeo’s drive to make mass surveillance more powerful through that bill, which went so far as to propose collecting financial and “lifestyle” information in a “comprehensive, searchable database. ” Wyden wanted to know what limits Pompeo’s rejected bill would have had.
