Lawmakers allege 'secret' CIA spying on unwitting Americans

 Two US senators have raised concerns that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is again spying upon unwitting Americans.

The agency has "secretly" conducted warrantless surveillance through a newly disclosed programme, Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich alleged.

In a letter to intelligence officials, the two Democrats called for declassifying details of the programme.

Government data collection has been the subject of much controversy in the US.

Officially, the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) have a foreign surveillance mission and domestic spying is prohibited by the CIA's 1947 charter.

But in 2013, a programme of data collection using extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence was disclosed to the public by Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor-turned whistle-blower.

A Washington Post analysis of the Snowden leak found some 90% of those being monitored were ordinary Americans "caught in a net the National Security Agency had cast for somebody else".

Top officials had until then denied - and even lied under oath to Congress - that they were knowingly collecting such data.

The programme, known as Prism, was later ruled unlawful by a US court...MORE