The House Intelligence Committee has told Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf that it will open up an investigation into the Department’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis compiling reports on journalists and protesters in Portland, Oregon, the Washington Post reports.
Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Ca.) sent a letter to Wolf informing him of the inquiry. “The revelations require a full accounting and, if substantiated, must never be allowed to occur again,” Schiff wrote, referring to media reports that OI&A obtained private communications from protesters although department officials told Congressional committees they were not.
The former acting assistant secretary for OI&A, Brian Murphy, has been reassigned within the department, was reassigned after reports from media, including the Post, disclosed that DHS used methods and systems that had previously been reserved for terrorists, organized crime outfits and mass shooters to amass records against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.