Avril Haines Archives

Biden administration has to declassify COVID origin documents by Sunday

June 16, 2023
The Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines must declassify information relating to links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of COVID-19 by Sunday, June 18. The release is mandated by the COVID-19 Origins Act which Congress passed unanimously and President Biden signed into law in March.

The law requires the release of information regarding:
- Activities at the institute on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army.
- Coronavirus research or other related activities at the lab.
DNI Haines must also declassify information about individual researchers at the institute who got sick in the fall of 2019, including:
- Their name.
- Symptoms.
- Whether they were hospitalized.
- Whether they were involved in, or exposed to coronavirus research.
The law states the DNI must submit a declassified report to Congress which can only have redactions that protect intelligence-gathering sources and methods.

Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., who sponsored the bill, wrote a letter to President Biden reminding him of the deadline.

“The American people deserve to know how this pandemic began, and their democratically elected representatives have expressed their will unanimously,” the letter stated.

When President Biden signed the bill, he also said it was important to release as much information as possible to help prevent future pandemics.

“In implementing this legislation, my administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security,” the president said in a statement.

But Hawley and Braun took issue with the way President Biden described the redactions his administration would make.

“The act does not allow for redactions based on your administration’s view of ‘national security’ broadly defined, as you claimed in your signing statement. Rather, the act only provides for much narrower redactions to protect intelligence sources and methods,” the senators wrote.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has repeatedly said he believes the pandemic most likely began in a lab. This release will be the first time the American people can see some of the information the FBI used to draw that conclusion.
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Report finds US spy agencies are buying Americans’ personal data

June 13, 2023
A report, commissioned by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and released Friday, June 9, found U.S. spy agencies are buying an increasing amount of Americans’ personal data. The report came after Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., requested that the intelligence community detail and make public how it uses commercially available information (CAI).

CAI includes demographic information, address history, as well as information from smartphones and other devices, social media platforms and location trackers.

The report showed that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) appeared unaware of which federal intelligence agencies were buying Americans’ personal data. Sen. Wyden said this reflects the need for stronger oversight and transparency from within the executive branch.

“This review shows the government’s existing policies have failed to provide essential safeguards for Americans’ privacy, or oversight of how agencies buy and use personal data,” Wyden said in a statement. “The executive branch must exercise much stronger oversight of this practice, issue guidance to agencies about the legal status of commercial data, and provide transparency to the American people about how it interprets the law.”

The report found CAI has grown in such scale that it has begun to replicate the results of intrusive surveillance techniques once used on a more targeted and limited basis. This includes wiretaps, cyber espionage and physical surveillance.

“Today, in a way that far fewer Americans seem to understand, and even fewer of them can avoid, CAI includes information on nearly everyone that is of a type and level of sensitivity that historically could have been obtained, if at all, only through targeted (and predicated) collection, and that could be used to cause harm to an individual’s reputation, emotional well-being, or physical safety,” the report said. “The [intelligence community] therefore needs to develop more refined approaches to CAI.”

It’s not just U.S. spy agencies who have access to Americans’ personal data. Virtually anyone can buy it, and the marketplace is loosely regulated in a country without a comprehensive national privacy law.
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Here’s what the US government will declassify about COVID-19’s origins

March 21, 2023
President Biden signed the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 into law, which requires the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The bill was introduced by Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., and passed both the House and Senate unanimously.

The bill officially states the information should be released so the United States can identify COVID’s origins and stop a similar pandemic from occurring again. But lawmakers also want the American people to have answers.

“There’s increasing speculation, and indeed increasing numbers of statements from government officials saying that perhaps this virus originated in a Chinese lab, in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Sen. Hawley said. “Well I think it’s time that the American people got to decide for themselves, it’s time that they actually got to see the evidence that the United States government has collected on this issue.”

The bill requires the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify information related to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and COVID’s origins.

That includes:
- Activities at the institute on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army.
- Coronavirus research or other related activities at the lab.
The director must also declassify information about individual researchers at the institute who got sick in the fall of 2019, including:
- Their name.
- Symptoms.
- Whether they were hospitalized.
- Whether they were involved in, or exposed to coronavirus research.
The information must be released by the June 18 deadline. The director will submit a declassified report to Congress which can only have redactions that protect intelligence gathering sources and methods.
Biden officials ask Congress to renew spy program set to expire in 2023

March 1, 2023

The Biden administration has asked Congress to renew a surveillance law that is set to expire at the end of the year. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines wrote a letter to congressional leadership Tuesday in support of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The spy program, which started after 9/11 and was later brought to Americans’ attention in the Edward Snowden leaks, allows the government to collect without a warrant phone calls, text messages, emails, and other data that passes through the U.S. believed to belong to foreigners living abroad.

The National Security Agency gathers information straight from U.S. telecommunications firms and other companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple. A bipartisan group of lawmakers have raised concerns about the law’s impact on Americans privacy. Some members of Congress are calling for reforms and more transparency over the program.

“This sweeping surveillance program lacks basic protections for Americans’ constitutional rights,” Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said. “Although 702 was originally created as a foreign surveillance program, it sweeps up vast amounts of Americans’ private communications.”

The spy program has been used to protect the U.S. from a range of threats including other countries’ attempts at recruiting spies and countries trying to evade U.S. sanctions. It has also been successful at stopping cyber attacks and arms traffickers. Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen said the spy program allows the U.S. to gather important intelligence on countries like China.

“At this moment, when China is ramping up its aggressive efforts to spy on Americans, we should not, we must not blind ourselves to that threat by allowing this critical authority to expire,” Olsen said.

The law is set to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t act to renew it. The last time section 702 was renewed was in 2018.

Biden administration has to declassify COVID origin documents by Sunday

Report finds US spy agencies are buying Americans’ personal data

Here’s what the US government will declassify about COVID-19’s origins

Biden officials ask Congress to renew spy program set to expire in 2023

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