Posted on 07/05/2021 8:46:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
The NSA denied ‘targeting’ Tucker Carlson, but did not deny reading his emails. The NSA also did not deny that it may have accessed his communications through ‘incidental collection.’
I laughed when Fox News host Tucker Carlson said a National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower told him that agency was monitoring his emails to leak them in an attempt to take his show off the air. From my 19 years as a CIA analyst and five years with House Intelligence Committee staff, I found this impossible to believe, for three reasons.
First, I believed NSA’s huge and lumbering bureaucracy would never agree to such a flagrant violation of the agency’s foreign intelligence charter to spy on a leading conservative American journalist. Even if most NSA officials and analysts dislike Carlson, I assumed they would view violating NSA rules and the law to monitor him as too risky, since a leak was certain given how extremely controversial such an action would be and the large number of NSA personnel who would know about it.
Second, the NSA spying on Carlson would have to be approved at the highest level of the Biden administration—probably by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. I believed Sullivan and other senior Biden officials were too risk-adverse to order NSA surveillance of Carlson. Third, I have little regard for high-profile NSA whistleblowers, too many of whom have been disgruntled former employees pursuing personal agendas.
I therefore dismissed Carlson’s claim that the NSA was reading his emails. Then I saw this extraordinary denial from the NSA:
Carlson rejected this explanation by calling it “an infuriating, dishonest formal statement.” He added, “Last night on this show, we made a very straightforward claim: NSA has read my private emails without my permission. Period,” Carlson stated. “That’s what we said. Tonight’s statement from the NSA does not deny that.”
In a tweet, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, a longtime critic of NSA, also sharply criticized NSA’s response, saying: “Don’t know whether NSA is *specifically* spying on Carlson, but this statement is worthless. 1st, it denies a compound allegation re ‘monitoring’ *and* taking show off air. 2nd, it says he’s not a ‘target,’ which is a term of art. Real danger is so-called ‘incidental collection.’”
Let’s be very clear about what the NSA said in its statement. It denied “targeting” Carlson, but did not deny reading his emails. The NSA also did not deny that it may have accessed Carlson’s communications through “incidental collection.”
These were huge omissions, since incidental collection is a well-known and controversial way the NSA collects vast amounts of Americans’ communications without warrants. This happens when an innocent American communicates with a legitimate NSA target, such as someone believed to be under the control of or to be collaborating with a hostile foreign power.
When this happens, the name of the innocent American is supposed to be “redacted” or masked. There are very strict rules on how incidentally collected communications of U.S citizens can be used.
Given the controversy that arose from Obama officials requesting the names of Trump campaign officials be “unmasked” in 2016, tougher rules were enacted to protect the identities of the communications of Americans that the NSA incidentally collected. In addition, in 2017 the NSA claims it ended its controversial “upstream collection” surveillance practice of collecting email traffic of American citizens merely because it contained an email address or phone number of a foreign target.
The NSA’s non-denial of Carlson’s allegations therefore raises some serious questions. Why did the NSA not flatly state it never accessed Carlson’s communications? Were Carlson’s communications “unmasked” at the request of White House officials?
Susan Rice admitted she unmasked Trump campaign aides during the Obama administration and now serves in the Biden White House. Has Rice resumed her previous efforts to weaponize NSA reporting against the political enemies of another Democratic president?
A more troubling question is whether this story, if true, indicates that NSA did not actually halt its “upstream collection” of emails, as it claimed in 2017.
So in response to the NSA statement, I admit that I may have been wrong and Carlson may be right. The NSA only denied Carlson was an intelligence target. It did not deny reading his emails or violating his privacy rights.
I was therefore pleased to learn that last Wednesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, asked House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-California, to probe the allegation that NSA is spying on Carlson and other reports that NSA is being politicized. In his statement, McCarthy said he has seen “disturbing trend . . . [f]or the past several months” at NSA.
Stories like this undermine Americans’ faith in their government and the integrity of our foreign intelligence agencies, which exist to defend our nation against hostile foreign powers. For the good of the country, NSA needs to issue a better explanation ASAP either denying that it read Carlson’s emails or provide an explanation for what actually happened.
Foreign agencies will spy on us and give the likes of the NSA the results.
They give them stuff on their citizens too if it’s needed to get around laws.
McCarthy is preparing a statement of unhappiness through his roommate Frank Lutz.
“I laughed when Fox News host Tucker Carlson said a National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower told him that agency was monitoring his emails to leak them...”
You laughed?
You’re a moron Fred.
And cartel drug lords just need to be honest about what they’re up to.
Kevin McCarthy is here to see you.
Kevin McCarthy?! Oh no!
Oh. Hi Kevin.
BIG BROTHER is watching you, and nobody cares...
It can’t happen here is happening here.
Welcome to our Orwellian nightmare.
FU Kevin McCarthy!
Didn’t Snowdon, the whole corrupt “Russia-gate,” and others show us that NSA collects EVERYTHING - then it becomes a question of who gets to access that database and for what purpose.
Under Obama, FBI “contractors” illegally use the database to spy on political opponents. We know it was used against Trump, but its likely it was done to many others too.
When Admiral Mike Rogers shut down these “702 queries” in 2016, that’s when the FBI went the route of using the fake dossier and entrapment of Page and Papadopoulous, to get fake FISA warrants to access the same information.
A Canadian citizen Ezra Levant of Rebel News was spied on by the US Navy through a contract with the University of Arkansas.
The nasty reporting that defense intelligence contractor made was obtained through FOIA requests.
The reporting gives US intelligence ally Canada the dirt they need to potentially shut Ezra Levant and Rebel News down.
Is James Bond spying on Tucker to give US authorities a dirty “Steele Dossier” to go after him?
>> e.g., an emergency
Well, that clears things up (e.g., sarcasm)
Has everybody forgotten except me???
Snowden revealed the NSA collects EVRYTHING!!!
We know from Edward Snowden they read EVERYBODY’S email.
All digital traffic is monitored through their firehose.
I don't write any email, so they don't read mine.
Sorry, but I could not resist.
Some Freepers call Snowden names and are still in denial...
Snowden spoke the truth—it is not his fault if some refuse to hear it.
But—smart folks assume there is no privacy—and act accordingly.
So the only actual problem here is the "story" and the explanation.
He sure is. BTW I watch I watch Tucker every night, Monday to Friday.
Fred Fleitz acts like he knows chit. He doesn’t know chit. He’s a Federalist blabmonger.
Tucker is a drama queen who sticks with a dying news outlet that loses credibility everyday. The only way for him to regain any respect as a journalist is to go full John Solomon. But he won’t because inside he’s still a child albeit a petulant one.
The NSA “records” EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING 24/7 and it’s perfectly legal because MACHINES are doing it. It’s only illegal when a HUMAN looks at what’s recorded WITHOUT A PROPER WARRANT.
Tucker is groveling for your attention.
To say, and anyone could say this and it would be true, that the MEAN, EVIL, CRIMINAL NSA is recording me is to say that the largest fraction of Earth’s atmosphere is inert. It’s factual but doesn’t mean chit except to take advantage of people who still cling to childish phobias of monsters in the attic.
Are there aholes illegally listening in via NSA? Yes.
Who are these aholes? They’re not NSA peeps.
Then who are they? They are political interests with ACCESS.
How do they get ACCESS? Ask John Effing Roberts.
That always sounds good but to what effect do smart people act? What you are in effect saying is smart folks just submit to socialism and their overlords because there is no way to be effective in any opposition without some form of communication.
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