LETTER TO DIANNE FEINSTEIN FROM JOHN O. BRENNAN REGARDING 15 JANUARY 2014 MEETING

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06239521
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: September 12, 2023
• Document Release Date: July 31, 2023
• Case Number: F-2014-01062
• Publication Date: January 27, 2014

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ME DIRECTOR
CENTRAL INTELLIcENCE AGENCY.
WASHINGTON; D.C. 20505
27 January. 2014
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Madam Chairman:
I am in receipt of your 23. January 2014 letter regarding our
15 January 2014 meeting, I wholeheartedly agree that the, Executive
and Legislative branches must respect the Constitution's Separation
of powers and that the events that led up to our meeting go not
only to the heart of that respect, but also to the effectiveness
and integrity of the oversight process. As I have noted in the
past, I believe in and strongly support the necessity of effective
Congressional OVorSight, while also desiring to protect, the
Executive branch's legitimate. prerogatives. In order to give you a
sense of my perspective on these developments, I have outlined them
below and propose A possible path forward. In short, I: believe
your idea of some sort of independent review is worth exploring, as
it is my hope that we can find a way to address these events in a
mutually satisfactory way that respects the very separation Of
powers principles, we both seek. to uphold:
As I relayed to you and Vice Chairman Chambliss during our 15
January meeting, I recently received information suggesting that
sensitive CIA documents that were the subject of a pending request
from the Committee may have been improperly obtained and/Or
retained on the SSCI staff side of a CIA local area network, which
wss set up exclusively for the Committee's mu review end which
contains highly classified information. Consequently, I asked for
a meeting with you and the Vice Chairman as soon as possible to
share that information and to discuss the need for a review of the
system in order to assess What happened- As we know, both branches
have taken great care to establish an acdomModation regarding the
Committee's acdess to Executive branch Information on the RDI
program, and we need to ensure that what is shared is as agreed
between the branches. At the same time, and most importantly, if
the integrity of our network is flauted! We must address the
security problem immediately.'
1 To ensure we have a common understanding of the agreement governing the SSCI
staff's access to and use. of a portion of the relevant CIA facility's
network, I will transmit under separate classified cover a copy of the
agreed-upon Standard Operating Procedures, a copy of the materials lisecl in
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The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
During our 15 January meeting, I explained how it came to our
attention that these documents Were on the SSCI staff bide of the
network. As I indicated, recent statements made ,by Committee staff
suggested they had in their possession a document that you
requested in a 26 November 2013 letter. In your correspondence,
you asked for "several summary documents" from what you termed an
"internal review" of the CIA RDI program initiated by .Director
Panetta that purportedly came to conclusions similar to those
contained in the Committee's study on the RDI program. Senator
Udall, made a similar reference to, and a request for, these
materials during the open hearing on Caroline iciass's nomination to
be the CIA's General Counsel. Senator Udall repeated his request
for these documents in a 6 January 2014 letter that he wrote to the
President. In response, I explained to both you and Senator Udall
that these requests raised significant Executive branch
confidentiality interests and outlined the reasons Why we could not
turn over sensitive, deliberative, pre-decisional CIA material.
These documents were not created as part of the program that is the
subject of the Committee's oversight, but rather were written in
connection with the CIA's response to the oversight inquiry. They
include a banner making clear that they are privileged,
deliberative, pre-decisional CIA documents, to include attorney-
client and attorney work product. The Executive branch has long
had substantial separation of powers concerns about congressional
access to this kind of material.
CIA maintains a log of all materials provided to the Committee
through established protocols, and these documents do not appear in
that log, nor Were they found in an audit Of CIA's side Of the
system for all materials provided to SSCI through established
protocols. Because we were concerned that there may be 4 breach or
vulnerability in the system for housing highly classified
documents, CIA conducted a limited review to determine whether
these :files. were located on the SSCI side of the CIA network2 and
reviewed audit data to determine whether anyone had accessed the
files, which would have been unauthorized. The technical personnel
Conducting the audit review were asked to undertake it only if it
could be done without searching audit data relating to other files
on the SSCI side of CIA's network. That review by IT personnel
determined that the documents that you and Senator Udall were
the security briefing given tO all Committee staff granted access to the CIA
network, and other relevant documents.
2 The system is designed to preclude looking for file names across the entire
network, thus precluding a single "network wide" reView. Thus, absent
finding and exploiting a vulnerabiAjty, the cIA, personnel working on the RDI
review should not: be able to access any information 00 the SSCI Side, and the
SSCI staff working on the RDI review should not be able to access any
information on the CIA side of the network.
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The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
requesting appeared to already be on the SSCI staff side of CIA's
local area network and had been accessed by staff. Only completion
of the security review will answer- how SSCI btaff came into
possession of the documents After Sharing this information with
you and explaining that. I did not know how the materials would have
appeared on the SSCI staff side of the. network, T requested that
you return any copies of these highly sensitive CIA documents
located either in the committee reading room at the CIA facility or
in the Committee's own offices. You instructed your staff director
to collect and provide to you any copies of the documents. I
informed you that I had directed CIA staff to suspend any further
inquiry into this matter until I could, speak with you.
I stated that I had asked for the meeting because I wanted
Committee leadership tO .be fully aware of what. had been brought to
my attention before I directed the Appropriate. IT personnel to
begin a full computer security review. I informed you that the
staff who would cOnduct the security review would need to conduct
computer forensics on the CIA documents that appear to be on the
SSCI side of the system. I further informed you that the
individuals assigned to conduct this Security ,review would be
"walled off" from the cT4 personnel who have been involved in
reviewing the Committee's study on the RDI program in order to
protect the SSCI'S legitimate equities in its deliberative
materials and work product.
I made clear during our meeting that I wanted, to conduct this
security review with your consent and, furthermore, that T welcomed
the participation of the Committee's Security Director in this
effort, You informed me that you were not aware that the. Committee
staff already had access to the material8 you had requested in your
letter. Soon after our meeting, you requested by letter that I
suspend any investigation, or further access to the computers or
computer networks until you could consider the matter further. You
also pledged in your letter that SSCI Staff would not access those
computers or computer networks for this Same period, I reached you
by telephone the next day to: inform you that the CIA would
temporarily Suspend the security re-View in light of your request.
I trust that you continue to believe that. Committee staff should
not access any of the computers on CIA's local area network while
we work through this matter.
As I stated in our meeting, the existence of these sensitive
Executive branch documents on the SSCI side of the CIA facility
network--all of which were created outside the agreed time period
for document production--raises significant concerns about the
integrity of a highly classified CIA computer system and whether
the protocols developed between the SSCI and the CIA in relation to
CIA files are being followed. You indicate in your most recent
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The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
letter that these documents were provided to Committee staff at the
CIA-leased facility, but, as I noted above, we have no record of
having done so under the process by which we have regularly
provided documents.
As I noted at our meeting, this is a very serious matter, and
it is important that both the CIA and the Committee get to the
bottom of what happened. We should be able to do this in a way
that preserves our institutional equities.
I renew my invitation to have the Committee's security officer
fully participate with CIA security professionals in a security
review of the local area network dedicated to the RDI, study. Your
23 January letter indicates that an independent review Of these
events also may be appropriate. I would welcome an independent
review that explores CIA's actions and how these documents came to
reside on the Committee's side' of the CIA faCility network. If you
are amenable, I Will have my Acting General Counsel reach out to
the Committee's Majority and ,Minority Counsel to discuss options
for such an independent review.
However we proceed, the security review must be completed in a
timely manner. It is imperative to learn whether or not a breach
or vulnerability exists on this network and was exploited. I trust
that you share my concerns and that we can work together to carry
out a security review that answers these important questions while
respecting the important separation of powers concerns of both
branches.
Sincerely,
cc: Members, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Jim Clapper, Director of National
Intelligence
Ms. Kathryn Ruemmler, White House Counsel
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