SpyVeillance: Thread

[grarpamp]

> Tucker: NSA planned to leak my emails to media outlets

Now the NSA and its inbred OIG, both of which
report to Democrat bosses, is investigating itself
for what will likely yet again turn out to be yet
another Democrat scheme of Govt spy wrongdoing
to slander and shutdown the very popular
opposition voice in Carlson...


NSA's Inspector General Opens Probe Into Allegations Of Illegal Spying
On Tucker Carlson

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-nsas-inspector-general-opens
https://oig.nsa.gov/Portals/71/Reports/Announcements/NSAOIG_Review_Alleged_Targeting_Media.pdf

https://therecord.media/nsa-review-finds-that-tucker-carlsons-communications-were-not-targeted/
https://www.axios.com/tucker-carlson-putin-interview-surveillance-c9952d7c-33d7-45e9-be68-2ba4c3817f98.html

The independent watchdog agency which investigates potential
wrongdoing by the National Security Agency (NSA) announced on Tuesday
morning that it has opened an investigation into “recent allegations
that the NSA improperly targeted the communications of a member of the
U.S. news media.” Though the oversight unit, the NSA’s Office of the
Inspector General, did not specify the journalist in question, the
statement leaves no doubt that the investigation pertains to news
reports that the identity of Fox News host Tucker Carlson had been
improperly “unmasked” and illegally revealed within the intelligence
community.

The full statement from the Inspector General reads:

    SUBJECT: Review Related to Alleged NSA Targeting of a Member of
the U.S. Media

    The National Security Agency Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
announced that it is conducting a review related to recent allegations
that the NSA improperly targeted the communications of a member of the
U.S. news media. The OIG is examining NSA’s compliance with applicable
legal authorities and Agency policies and procedures regarding
collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination activities,
including unmasking procedures, and whether any such actions were
based upon improper considerations. If circumstances warrant, the OIG
will consider other issues that may arise during the review.

The NSA’s Inspector General, Robert P. Storch, is a long-time
Executive Branch functionary. He was first appointed to this position
by President Obama in 2016 but failed to receive Senate confirmation.
He was then re-appointed by President Trump in 2018 and the Senate
then confirmed him. A widely respected bureaucrat in Washington, he
also previously served as deputy Inspector General in Obama’s Justice
Department, and, prior to that, was a federal prosecutor. It is, to
put it mildly, difficult to imagine him opening an investigation into
frivolous allegations.

The scandal began when Carlson announced on his show in late June that
he had heard from a source inside the government that the NSA was in
possession of his communications, as proven by their knowledge of what
he was doing. The NSA then issued a meaningless non-denial denial,
insisting that the Fox host “has never been an intelligence target of
the Agency.” Even Fox’s critics acknowledge the irrelevance of that
claim: there are many ways for the NSA to spy on an American citizen
without having them be a formal “target” of the agency. In a follow-up
interview on Fox, Carlson said he was told by a second source that the
NSA had discovered his attempts to interview Russian President
Vladimir Putin and viewed leaking of that information as potentially
damaging to his reputation.

Corporate media outlets largely sided with the NSA, mocking Carlson
for being conspiratorial and even accusing him of fabricating a story.
One might think that journalists would have more interest in finding
out whether the NSA was abusing their powers to discredit a journalist
than cheering the security state for partisan reasons, but one would
be wrong. Disdain for Carlson’s claims were widespread in media
circles.

But Carlson’s concerns appeared to be at least partially corroborated
when Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported that “U.S. government officials
learned about Carlson's efforts to secure the Putin interview.” Though
Swan emphasized that none of this meant that the NSA was targeting
Carlson for surveillance or even that his communications had been
“incidentally” collected — meaning that the NSA read his emails or
heard his conversations because he was communicating with one of their
targets — their knowledge of Carlson’s activities raised the question
of whether Carlson’s identity had been “unmasked” by the agency. As
Swan wrote:

    In order to know that the texts and emails were Carlson's, a U.S.
government official would likely have to request his identity be
unmasked, something that's only permitted if the unmasking is
necessary to understand the intelligence.

When the NSA learns about the communications or activities of an
American citizen without having a warrant from the FISA court to spy
on that person, they are required by law to engage in “minimization”
efforts to protect the privacy of that citizen. In particular, when
preparing reports involving such spying, they are required to conceal
— to “mask” — the identity of the American about whom they learned
information, referring to them only by a generic title sufficient to
describe their work or status without revealing their specific
identity (e.g., “an American journalist” or “a business executive”).

But in late July, the story appeared to take a sinister turn when a
news outlet called The Record, run by a private security firm,
revealed that two separate NSA sources admitted that Carlson’s
identity had indeed been unmasked. Specifically, the site reported,
while these sources insisted that Carlson had never been targeted for
spying, and that his communications had not been incidentally
intercepted, the NSA “found that Carlson was mentioned in
communications between third parties and his name was subsequently
revealed through ‘unmasking,’ a process in which relevant government
officials can request the identities of American citizens in
intelligence reports to be divulged provided there is an official
reason.” The site did not specify which government officials requested
the unmasking or what justification they cited.

It is extremely difficult to imagine any legitimate reason the NSA or
any other intelligence agency would have for seeking to “unmask” the
identity of a journalist who was merely seeking to interview the
leader of a foreign country. There is, manifestly, nothing suspicious
or even uncommon about seeking such an interview; indeed, doing so is
fundamental to the work of any journalist.

That the NSA attempted to discover which journalist was talking to
Kremlin-linked sources in order to arrange this interview bolstered
Carlson’s original suspicion that the NSA was seeking to leak damaging
information about him. While it is true that interviewing foreign
leaders should be regarded as benign for any journalist, it is clearly
the case that in the political climate cultivated over the last five
years in the U.S. — especially for conservative public figures — any
communications with Russians or Kremlin-linked figures has been
treated as nefarious and evidence of likely wrongdoing.

It is this unmasking which is what appears to have prompted the IG’s
decision to investigate the NSA’s activities regarding Carlson.
Indeed, the IG’s statement explicitly describes the scope of the
investigation as “examining NSA’s compliance with applicable legal
authorities and Agency policies and procedures regarding collection,
analysis, reporting, and dissemination activities, including unmasking
procedures” (emphasis added).

The standards governing unmasking are somewhat vague: yet another
reason the NSA’s powers to spy domestically are so excessive. But some
legitimate reason must be supplied to negate the suspicion that the
agency knew it was likely Carlson seeking this interview and purposely
unmasked his identity with the intent to weaponize the intelligence
against him, knowing that any communications between a Fox News host
and Russians could and would be used by liberal politicians and their
media allies to imply a nefarious motive.




Tucker Carlson vs NSA...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or4n5j7HQEA  Tucker vs NSA
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6262817736001/  Tucker vs NSA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYkh05F4LAQ  Tucker vs NSA