Obama Declassifies New CIA Mass Surveillance Rules Day After Pardoning Chelsea Manning

A day after pardoning NSA whistleblower Chelsea Manning on Tuesday, the outgoing administration of President Barack Obama imposed new limits on the CIA's power to gather private information on U.S. citizens. The new rules, which were also declassified, were posted on the CIA website Wednesday. The amendment to the rules known as the Attorney General Guidelines (so called because they require sanction from the Department of Justice) are the first of their kind since the rules were first introduced in 1981 through an executive order, number 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan. Classified since then, Wednesday was also the first time the veil of secrecy was lifted from the entire 41 pages of the rules, which are now public. "We are updating for the 21st century a set of rules that were previously not significantly updated since 1982," Caroline D. Krass, the general counsel of the CIA, reportedly said during a press briefing at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.