Wednesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” while discussing WikiLeaks releasing alleged CIA hacking documents, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said “maybe there should be more” oversight when it comes to the CIA snooping on Americans.
Partial transcript as follows:
TAPPER: There are Americans who saw the WikiLeaks dump, what they’re calling Vault 7, suggesting that CIA hackers are able to infiltrate phones, television, computers, turn their targets’ own electronics against them as surveillance tools. Are you concerned about the CIA having that power? Is there enough oversight to make sure that it’s not abused?
FEINSTEIN: Well, that oversight is one thing of that, and maybe there should be more. We do not do a lot of oversight in that direction. The other thing is, if the technology industry in a national security event, like a terrorist attack and the police have a device and the police ask for help in opening that device and the industry will not comply, then it leaves the government at a sufficient and major disadvantage. So, it seems to me that what we need to do is work out some form of accommodation. If you don’t want these massive leaks to occur, there has to be some way that if the government needs help and that help has to be qualified, related to a very serious crime and/or a national security incident that takes lives, then I think the company should help open the device.
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