The NSA’s spying on Tucker Carlson is the tip of the iceberg

American Thinker ^ | 10 Jul, 2021 | Robert J. Hutchinson

[MtnClimber]

This email scandal reveals that the NSA is a threat to democracy itself.

Well, everyone could see it coming.

It turns out that the National Security Agency (NSA) didn’t just eavesdrop “incidentally” on the emails and text messages of Tucker Carlson, one of the few journalists in America willing to stand up to the Deep State.

Anyone with half a brain could see the lizard-like lawyering in the NSA’s “non-denial denial.” As Bill Clinton famously put it, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

“Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency,” the NSA statement read, dodging the question of whether it had obtained and read his emails and texts, “and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air.”

Again, from what we know of lying government lawyers, the tenses are crucial: the NSA never “had” any plans.

That says nothing about whether it now has such plans. “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

It appears that NSA officials did precisely what Carlson predicted: they leaked these private messages to compliant members of the controlled corporate media.

Appearing Wednesday on Fox’s "Mornings With Maria" Bartiromo, Carlson reported that he was informed by a journalist that he respects that the NSA had indeed leaked his private emails to journalists in an effort to get his show canceled. The friendly journalist confirmed for him what was in the emails.

We will know this for a fact in the next few days if the “hit piece” Carlson was told is in preparation appears – in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, or another media outlet directed by America’s out-of-control intelligence oligarchy.

[MtnClimber]

The MSM will probably drop the hit pieces on Tucker now that they are exposed. But, who else are they doing this to? Do they have reeducation lists yet?

[laconic]

When Trump or DeSantis replace the illegitimate current “government” in 2024, the first thing they should do is consolidate the intelligence agencies, fire 60 percent of their employees and ban them from domestic surveillance without obtaining a warrant from a federal Circuit Court, not FISA. This country is not East Germany, we don’t want or need any damned Stasi or Gestapo. This is a legacy of Dimwit Bush and the so-called Patriot Act. They should target their efforts on Afghanistan if there is any part of it that hasn’t fallen to the Taliban.

[exinnj]

Email scandal? They were able to conspire against the President of the US, Tucker Carlson is small potatoes for them…

[Alberta's Child]

I find this whole story confusing. After all we learned from Edward Snowden and all the things that were uncovered in 2017 with the FBI/CIA/NSA spying on the Trump team, it seems like Tucker Carlson would have to be as dumb as a bag of rocks if he DIDN’T know his electronic communications were subject to government surveillance.

[sauropod]

I don’t think so. I think they will go agead and publish the hit pieces. They are that stupid.

[VTenigma]

The NSA’s spying on Tucker Carlson is the tip of the iceberg

---

Ya think? Didn’t some guy 8 or 9 years ago unmask the whole process for us? I think his name was Snowden or something.

[Tupelo]

To quote a very corrupt career political hack, “Well Son of a Bitch”.
This latest revelation of what the Federals are really up kinda exonerates Edward Snowden, doncha think?

[SmokingJoe]

Email scandal? They were able to conspire against the President of the US, Tucker Carlson is small potatoes for them…

Yet Tucker Carlson has outwitted and bested them every step of the way, and he is still on TV, been given another show, and has the best ratings in cable.
Meanwhile, the NSA has sh*t all over its face.

[SmokingJoe]

I don't think so. I think they will go agead and publish the hit pieces.

Which will only go to increase Tucker Carlson's TV ratings. The NSA has already lost this battle. Tucker has out thought and outwitted them every step of the way.

[Bratch]

Andrew Weissmann Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

July 9, 2021 | Sundance | 24 Comments

There’s an interesting aspect to an Andrew Weissmann statement on MSNBC that almost everyone is missing.  Before watching the brief excerpt, let me put the comments into context.  Remember, the Intelligence Branch uses intelligence silos to protect themselves; however, the Intelligence Branch also violates those silos when ever they want.

First, Andrew Weissmann comes from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).  More specifically, in that division Andrew Weissmann was in charge of the section that used FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act), or FARA-951 as a weapon against their political enemies.

The only targets Weissmann ever selected for FARA investigations were political opposition. You might also remember it was Weissmann who led the Mueller team, and in that position Weissmann went after every target (Flynn, Rafiekian, Manafort, Papadopoulos, Phares, even Rudy Guiliani etc.) with accusations of FARA violations.

Second, the DOJ-NSD had no inspector general oversight.

During the Obama administration the DOJ-NSD exempted themselves from DOJ Inspector General review.  In 2015 the Office of the Inspect General (OIG) requested oversight and it was Deputy AG Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58-page legal explanation saying, essentially, ‘nope – not allowed.’ (PDF HERE) All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the NSD.

There is a very specific reason for this intentional avoidance of oversight as we found out through the Carter Page FISA warrant.  The DOJ-NSD is the weaponized mechanism against domestic political opposition inside the DOJ. 

[Sidebar: I would not be surprised to find out the DOJ-NSD operatives used their FARA authorities to control and threaten political opposition around Washington DC, using lobbying investigations as leverage/blackmail.]

As the current story is told a whistleblower in the intelligence community told Tucker Carlson his communication was intercepted by the NSA.  By the NSA originating standard, the same standard they claim to uphold publicly, the NSA has a foreign intelligence mission; and their data collection is supposed to be in a silo related to foreign intelligence gathering.  If an American is picked up ‘incidentally‘ by the NSA collection, that information is supposed to remain inside that silo.

However, as you watch this MSNBC segment, notice how casually Andrew Weissmann says that Tucker Carlson should have gone to the DOJ (Main Justice) with any concerns about his communication being intercepted by the NSA.  Listen carefully to how Weissmann frames what Carlson “should have done” (prompted):

Andrew Weissmann Says The Quiet Part Out Loud: DOJ would've had control over Carlson NSA intercept.

We have talked about this quite a bit and I’m sure you can see why this explanation from Weissmann is problematic, yet at the same time it highlights his reference point.

• Why would Tucker Carlson go to the DOJ?
• Why would the DOJ have access to an ‘incidental‘ NSA intercept of Tucker Carlson?
• The NSA has a foreign intelligence mission (silo), and the DOJ has a domestic federal law enforcement mission (silo).
• Why would Tucker Carlson go to the DOJ to inquire about an incidental intercept, and/or unmasking of that intercept, when the person who informed Carlson said nothing about the DOJ…. exposing only that the NSA had intercepted his electronic communication?
• Why would the DOJ have access to that NSA intercept?
• Where exactly is this bridge between the NSA intercepts and the DOJ review of these intercepts?
• Who operates the bridge between the NSA database and the DOJ?
• What legal authorities guide the DOJ having random access to the NSA database?…
• … and How exactly did the DOJ gain the legal authority that Andrew Weissmann is describing Carlson should inquire about?

In essence, what this segment reveals is Andrew Weissmann being so comfortable and casual with his reference point from time and experience inside the DOJ-NSD, that he doesn’t even realize what he is saying so matter-of-factly is something that is not supposed to take place.

The DOJ (or DOJ-NSD) is not supposed to have simple access to the NSA database without a reason for it.  Or without a contact from the NSA with a directive to review an intercept because it might involve unlawful activity.

The DOJ-NSD personnel are not supposed to be randomly data-mining the NSA database just to see if they can find some issue they would be under the authority to investigate.  Yet this frame of reference is exactly the casual nature of Weissmann’s diatribe.

If the NSA database is so easily searched by any domestic law enforcement agency, FBI or DOJ, then what exactly is the difference between the DOJ sucking up all the communication of Americans (brutally obvious 4th amendment violations) and the NSA capturing it?  Under the process Weissmann seems so casual about, the DOJ apparently has full unlimited access to everything the NSA captures.

This is not supposed to be happening.  However, that is also likely why the DOJ-NSD under President Obama refused to have any oversight.  That’s why I said Andrew Weissmann is saying the quiet part out loud.

Yes, I know there is ample evidence for this random domestic data-mining process I have just stated.  As we have seen from reports summarized by the FISA court, this random searching of the NSA database is apparently commonplace.

Just because we know the DOJ and FBI exploit an unlawful process for unfettered access to the electronic communication of every single American, doesn’t mean we should just sit back and accept it.

[SmokingJoe]

It's not so much that he found out they were spying on him. It's that he was actually able to obtain proof that they were spying on him, thanks to whistleblower from The NSA itself who contacted Tucker. And the NSA finds themselves highly embarrassed and unable to actually deny it.

[pepsionice]

It’s the NSA’s basic function. They turned around and printed a report that basically US-citizen-journalist contacted so-and-so in Russia. This got circulated around the White House staff, and they went to unmask the US-citizen-journalist. Same story as in 2015.

The question is...on Joe’s staff...who has the authority to unmask?

[SmokingJoe]

It's the NSA's basic function.

Nope

They turned around and printed a report that basically US-citizen-journalist contacted so-and-so in Russia.

Except this journalist, Tucker Carlson, has never done anything even close to that. The NSA itself admits that in their statement over this matter.

[MtnClimber]

It seems that they are running ops against citizens without any constitutional constraints being followed.

[metmom]

All of us and yes, no doubt the re-education camps are being prepped even now.

[pepsionice]

This was a no-name report that went out, and it was unmasked just like the Obama team did in 2016. The unmask request was approved within the White House, and after that...they (the WH) knew precisely who it was.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/07/tucker-carlson-claims-he-was-unmasked-by-nsa-for-seeking-putin-interview/

The approval authority for unmasking is what Carlson should dig at (probably a person who was Obama employee in 2016). That’s the person who should be dragged into a courtroom to explain their actions.

[SmokingJoe]

This was a no-name report that went out, and it was unmasked just like the Obama team did in 2016

Went out to where?
There was absolutely nothing in it to unmask. No “Russian collusion “, no colluding with hostile foreign powers, nothing. The NSA's purview is dealing with foreign threats to America and their contacts, agents here.
How do you unmask someone with no mask? Tucker Carlson has covered all this in detail in his program. The NSA has no ground to stand on.

[SmokingJoe]

The approval authority for unmasking is what Carlson should dig at (probably a person who was Obama employee in 2016). That's the person who should be dragged into a courtroom to explain their actions.

If you think this was done by some lone rogue White House staffer, I have an ice skiing slop in the Sahara Desert to sell ya.
Of course the entire operation was deliberately planned and carried out by the illegitimate Dementia Joe regime to try and take down their most effective opponents in the media. They belong in Guantanamo.

[Alberta's Child]

I don’t know what you mean by “accept it.” If you use a form of communication that is so easy to intercept, then your only options are to accept it or find another way to communicate.