Posted on 05/04/2017 4:07:21 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
During his final year in office, President Barack Obama's team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election.
In all, government officials conducted 30,355 searches in 2016 seeking information about Americans in NSA intercept metadata, which include telephone numbers and email addresses.
The government in 2016 also scoured the actual contents of NSA intercepted calls and emails for 5,288 Americans, an increase of 13 percent over the prior year and a massive spike from the 198 names searched in 2013.
About half the time, U.S. identities were unredacted in the original reports while the other half were unmasked after the fact by special request of Obama administration officials.
Among those whose names were unmasked in 2016 or early 2017 were campaign or transition associates of President Donald Trump as well as members of Congress and their staffers, according to sources with direct knowledge.
(Excerpt) Read more at circa.com ...
The media will ignore this and so will congress. We mustn’t attempt to disfigure the Obama presidency.
So what we are saying is that a new intel agency was created? The WHIA (White House Intelligence Agency)?
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The swamp just gets deeper and muddier.
The “intelligence community” has gone rabid and turned on its master.
Trolling for blackmail info?
btt
100% agree.
1. I’ll bet the number is much larger than reported. MUCH LARGER.
2. I would like to know how many of those searches were against political enemies rather than legitimate security concerns. How many were muslims? How many were conservative, normal Americans who were political threats to those in power?
3. As long as we’re naming names and “unmasking” people, let’s unmask the specific “Obama administration officials” who authorized all these unmasking of surveilled US citizens. (Side note: I’m betting they had very little interest in actual terrorists.)
He feathered his own nest, enriched his cronies, and moved federal monies offshore colluding w/ his appointees in various agencies.
No, the masters have turned on the American people. The Obama administration started this massive abuse of power in 2011, no doubt part of the run up to the 2012 election. It reminds me of the missing FBI files under Clinton. The current technology has given our political masters the tools to destroy their opponents.
The Intel Community is just following orders from its political masters, which is frightening in and of itself. The supposed safeguards have proven to be an illusion. Snowden spoke about “turnkey tyranny” in reference to the government’s ability to invade the privacy of its citizens. Who is going to watch the watchers?
To the lawyers out there, why could Obama continue after a Federal Judge rule this activity illegal yet Trump cannot implement his executive orders after a similar judge ruled against Trump? I am not a lawyer, why the double standard? Why could Obama disregard a Federal Judge but Trump cannot?
How do we find out if we are on the list?
There will be no one held accountable, if there is it will be some low level agent who voted for Trump, he will not be offered any deal to lower his 99year sentence. Case Closed!
They sh*t on the newspaper.
What is the point of all this since no one will be prosecuted??? It would only be a crime if a Republican President or anyone in his administration did this.
Sadly, over half the nation does not believe the facts you just posted.
The Intel community should have been leaking this stuff everywhere all over the Internet, to every member of Congress, to every major, minor blog and outlet as well as of course Wikileaks.
They have not been—and these are not people who scare easily.
The vast majority have been “turned” and are enjoying their power without accountability imho.
None of these alternatives are acceptable. And the FISA courts are a joke with approval over 99% of the time. And what about Congressional oversight, which just appears to be a rubber stamp. The only time they got exercised was when the found out Brennan was tapping the Senators phones and computers. Maybe, Congress is afraid to hold the IC accountable because of what personal information the IC has on them.
We are on the cusp of a police state and one that has the technological tools to be the most repressive ever witnessed. We are giving up our privacy and individual rights in the name of the security. It is a slow, insidious process that will be difficult to reverse. We are at the mercy of whoever is at the controls.
Later.
Nothing will be done about it.
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