The senator, who has repeatedly warned about the secret surveillance of the US government, sounds a new alarm on the ‘activities of the CIA’.

A senior Democratic lawmaker familiar with some of the US government’s covert activities has said he is “deeply concerned” about some of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The a two-line written letter By Sen. Ron Wyden, a longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has not disclosed the CIA’s activities or the senator’s other concerns. But the letter follows in recent years Wyden’s public exposure of wrongdoing or illegality in government, sometimes referred to as the “Wyden siren.”

In the sentence (through Wall Street Journal writer Dustin Volz), the CIA said it was “surprising but not surprising that Senator Wyden is unhappy,” calling it a “badge of honor.”

When reached by TechCrunch, a spokesperson for Wyden’s staff could not comment, as the story has been distributed.

With the task of overseeing the intelligence community, Wyden is one of the few lawmakers allowed to read the details of government surveillance, including cyber and other intelligence operations. But since the programs are top secret, Wyden is not allowed to share much of what he knows with anyone, including other lawmakers, except for a handful of Senate staffers who have security clearances.

Likewise, Wyden, a notoriously secretive person, has become one of the few members of Congress whose rare but silent voice on policy and analysis has been targeted by civil rights groups.

Over the past few years, Wyden has sounded the alarm several times when he characterized a secret decision or intelligence-gathering process as illegal or unconstitutional.

In 2011, Wyden said that the US government was relying on private translation of the Patriot Act, which he said — without revealing his concerns — created “a gap between what people think the law says and what the American government thinks behind the scenes.”

Two years later, former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be revealed that the National Security Agency is relying on a secretive interpretation of the Patriot Act to compel US phone companies, including Verizon, to turn over the call records of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Since then, Wyden has been warning about the direction of the US government collects the content of people’s messages; revealed that the Department of Justice had prevented Apple and Google from disclosing that government officials had done it undercover want content from their customers; and he said that unclassified report that CISA has refused to release contains “dangerous” information about national security threats facing the US telecommunications industry.

As mentioned Mike Masnick of TechdirtWe still don’t know why Wyden blew the whistle on the CIA’s actions, but every time Wyden has warned, he’s been vindicated.