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After Flynn unmaskings, U.S. intel won't answer whether agencies spy on Congress
justthenews.com ^ | 8/3/2020 | john Solomon

Posted on 08/04/2020 10:16:17 AM PDT by bitt

ODNI recently refused to answer if U.S. spy agencies monitor lawmakers, saying any admission could reveal methods.

The dramatic disclosure earlier this year that the Obama administration sought to unmask ex-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn's conversations intercepted overseas is reviving a long-unanswered question: Do U.S. spy agencies also monitor members of Congress?

That question has lingered at least since May 2017, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) demanded to know whether his conversations overseas while running for president in 2016 were umasked by the Obama administration.

Now, the question has been renewed by the Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability (PPSA), a non-profit where former House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) works as a senior adviser.

The group in February filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding that the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) release information related to whether U.S. intelligence has been surveilling past and current U.S. senators and House members.

Specifically, the group asked ODNI whether the spy agencies it supervises unmasked the identities of current and past lawmakers known to have been caught up in foreign surveillance, and whether the names of these members were searched through what is known as the "upstream" phone database. The request covered a bipartisan group of 48 current and former lawmakers and their potential surveillance from Jan. 1, 2008 to Jan. 15, 2020.

more...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: congress; flynn; flynnunmasking; johnsolomon; spying; surveillance; ukraine
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1 posted on 08/04/2020 10:16:17 AM PDT by bitt
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To: Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; 2ndDivisionVet; azishot; ...

p


2 posted on 08/04/2020 10:16:32 AM PDT by bitt (American Lives Matter)
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To: bitt

It all started with filegate...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_FBI_files_controversy


3 posted on 08/04/2020 10:18:26 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: bitt

Well duh. Of course they spy on Congress. 535 corrupt morons.


4 posted on 08/04/2020 10:19:42 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there..)
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To: cuban leaf

“Who hired Craig Livingstone?”


5 posted on 08/04/2020 10:20:06 AM PDT by Yo-Yo ( is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: bitt

It’s time for our ‘spy’ agencies to come clean...


6 posted on 08/04/2020 10:22:32 AM PDT by GOPJ (Leo Terrell - Michael Shellenberger - Stephen Hsu - Bari Weiss .- Bernell Trammell - John Kass)
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To: GOPJ
"It’s time for our ‘spy’ agencies to come clean..."

It's time for out "spy" agencies to be shut down and everyone and I mean every single person be sent on their merry way. And no we don't owe these clowns a retirement.

7 posted on 08/04/2020 10:24:37 AM PDT by precisionshootist (ui)
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To: bitt
The intelligence agencies should have monitored Feinstein with her Chinese spy “driver.” If not people need to get fired, but that is what in theory FISA and warrants issued by judges are suppose to be about.
8 posted on 08/04/2020 10:24:57 AM PDT by Robert357
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To: bitt

I’m of the belief that the only ones successful at getting information is Judicial Watch.


9 posted on 08/04/2020 10:27:42 AM PDT by hsmomx3
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To: bitt

He who unmasks last unmasks best.


10 posted on 08/04/2020 10:28:48 AM PDT by Steely Tom ([Seth Rich] == [the Democrats' John Dean])
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
Thanks bitt.

11 posted on 08/04/2020 10:31:32 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Robert357

This is what burns me up... we have spy agencies focusing on “right wing extremism” to the point they can’t find a Chinese spy in Feinstein’s office for 20 years.


12 posted on 08/04/2020 10:38:29 AM PDT by willyd (I for one welcome our NSA overlords)
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To: bitt
one of Jefferson’s indictments against the king that justified the declaration and subsequent colonial rebellion: . “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

Sounds a lot like an early American description of the mo

<><> IRS targeting inoocents (enraging legions of IRS haters)

LESSON OF THE DAY --- don't elect a kingpin of organized Chicago criminal politics to run the govt.
Eminent signs of a cunning con artist. A "cool, smooth talker" ran a monstrous govt we the people lived under---a police state capable of extraordinary crimes against its people:

<><> Obama drove up govt wiretaps rose 71% during one year of Obama's reign

<><> Obama used drones to shoot down Americans

<><> Obama's state dept's cover-up of sex scandals---obstructing justice---scrubbing investigations

<><> Obama's DOJ labeling journo Rosen a criminal; charging him, spying on his family--

<><> Obama monitored the Asso Press,

<><> Obama via Verizon spied on the USSC via their blackberries

<><> Obama spied on Congress via Verizon blackberries

13 posted on 08/04/2020 10:38:52 AM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: bitt
one of Jefferson’s indictments against the king that justified the declaration and subsequent colonial rebellion: . “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

Sounds a lot like an early American description of the mo

<><> IRS targeting inoocents (enraging legions of IRS haters)

LESSON OF THE DAY --- don't elect a kingpin of organized Chicago criminal politics to run the govt.
Eminent signs of a cunning con artist. A "cool, smooth talker" ran a monstrous govt we the people lived under---a police state capable of extraordinary crimes against its people:

<><> Obama drove up govt wiretaps rose 71% during one year of Obama's reign

<><> Obama used drones to shoot down Americans

<><> Obama's state dept's cover-up of sex scandals---obstructing justice---scrubbing investigations

<><> Obama's DOJ labeling journo Rosen a criminal; charging him, spying on his family--

<><> Obama monitored the Asso Press,

<><> Obama via Verizon spied on the USSC via their blackberries

<><> Obama spied on Congress via Verizon blackberries

14 posted on 08/04/2020 10:38:52 AM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: bitt

I can answer that. Of course they do. They spy on everyone everywhere.


15 posted on 08/04/2020 10:47:16 AM PDT by Gahanna Bob
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To: bitt
The agency summarily denied the FOIA with what is known as a "Glomar response," saying confirming or denying such surveillance "could reveal sources and methods information."

This response is completely unacceptable BS. Sources and methods? That's BS.

16 posted on 08/04/2020 10:49:37 AM PDT by bkopto
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To: bitt
"Sources and Methods" is no reason under ANY Executive Order concerning Security Classification to prohibit disclosure if the surveillance is unlawlul. In fact, the Executive Order 13526 (signed by Obama and still in effect) states as much:

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:

(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;

So, the ODNI must know there is lawful monitoring-- and that can be revealed in a SCIF under the provisions in the same order that allows for REVIEWS and CHALLENGES.

Fire the DNI and find someone that knows the CORRECT answer.

17 posted on 08/04/2020 11:00:25 AM PDT by Salvavida
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To: bitt

“ODNI recently refused to answer if U.S. spy agencies monitor lawmakers, saying any admission could reveal methods.”

Disgusting. No different than Stasi or NKVD spying against the government.
Congress can and should zero out their budget for running spy operations against the Legislature and any white House they disapprove of.

Our intelligence agencies are not trying to protect the nation, they are focused AGAINST anything to do with the Republic the founders gave us.


18 posted on 08/04/2020 11:04:31 AM PDT by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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To: bitt

translation: They’ve been spying on Congress for years, and we the citizens have absolutely no idea which of the laws we are living under are the result of blackmail by spooks.


19 posted on 08/04/2020 11:07:21 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer)
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To: Liz

The Bush era was no better. The uniparty in DC loves the intel community. After 9/11 they were unleashed against the American people, and we are not the targets. The dreaded white nationalists and TEA types are heavily targeted.
islamists are on their team, carefully watching to make sure nothing ever looks at them.


20 posted on 08/04/2020 11:08:45 AM PDT by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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