Top Intel Dem Demands Information On DHS Surveillance Of Protesters – By Katie Bo Williams (Defense One) / July 22 2020
Heavy-handed tactics by the DHS in Portland, where protests have gripped the city for almost two months, have drawn intense scrutiny in Washington.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is demanding information about the Department of Homeland Security’s reported expansion of its own authorities to surveil protesters who threaten “monuments, memorials, and statues.”
The committee is not “aware that the Department has ever sought to use and so distort its existing authorities to protect such facilities and personnel as justification for directing its limited intelligence authorities to collect information on and to target persons exercising their legal rights and engaging in activity protected under the First Amendment,” Schiff wrote in a Wednesday letter to Acting Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Brian Murphy.
No Republican has signed onto the letter.
Continue to article: https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2020/07/top-intel-dem-demands-information-dhs-surveillance-protesters/167112/?oref=d-river
