Posted on 03/13/2017 2:36:47 PM PDT by Steelfish
White House Back-Pedals on Claim Obama Wiretapped Trump’s Phones Sean Spicer says president used word ‘wiretapped’ in quotes to mean surveillance. By Ted Mann March 13, 2017.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday back-pedaled on President Donald Trump’s claims that his phone line was ordered tapped by then-President Barack Obama, an allegation of illegality that Mr. Trump recently made on Twitter without providing any evidence. In an animated question-and-answer session with reporters during his regular briefing, Mr. Spicer suggested Mr. Trump had been speaking broadly when he posted
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I saw a story on FR last week that the wiretapping was confirmed. Can’t find it now, but was it just fake news?
That posting listed the accounts of the NY Times, WaPo, and Guardian. These outlets no longer use the term “wiretapping,” and instead call it “surveillance.”
The distinction is important.
The law allows surveillance by the NSA without a warrant to conduct surveillance of a hostile foreign power. If any one is caught talking to such a power including US citizens, like some Trump operatives (Paul Manafort, Roger Stone etc) their conversations get swept up in the process and as is the case if they were at Trump Tower communication are transmitted through the Tower server.
Also, NSA was conducting surveillance over Alpha Bank, this is Russia’s largest bank. Again, e-mail and conversations made to or from Alpha Bank get caught up as well.
In short, Trump misspoke unless he can provide proof of an application for a warrant to tap into his phone and that the FISA warrant was granted. The WH is not saying they have proof of any of this.
Because Obama was responsible for what she did in her official capacity, particularly in this case because the surveillance action had profound political ramifications.
jonrick46 wrote:
“Conversations can be monitored inside a room with a laser aimed at the window glass.
“
Which can be defeated by ‘jamming’; vibe the windows with random noise..
:D
If any Americans’ conversations get swept up, the conversations are supposed to be deleted.
Supposed to be...
Ever since Trump said this we’ve heard less and less about Russia from the corrupt media. That tells me what I need to know.
Just make sure you are not talking to a hostile foreign power or their agents or instrumentalities. The Chinese, Russians, and British all do it. UC citizens coming under surveillance for talking with Iran’s Defense Minister is fair game.
You nailed it! Maybe he was getting too close to the truth.
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