When it comes to committing a crime, the question boils down to citing the statute, and correlating the facts with the elements of the crime. The crime that precedes leaking (and this crime can be by a different person), one must conduct electronic surveillance. So, under your view, unmasking is engaging in electronic surveillance.
I sure hope you don't get the impression that I am defending political unmasking. It's banana republic level stuff. IF we had a decent society, Rice would be shunned out of it for political unmasking, and here pretextual justification would be rejected out of hand. But we don;t have a decent socitey. Half of it, and nearly all of the press, finds nothing untoward in politically-motivated unmasking, when it cuts in their favor.
I don’t think so. The statute says one commits a crime if one:
“discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by this chapter, chapter 119, 121, or 206 of title 18, or any express statutory authorization that is an additional exclusive means for conducting electronic surveillance under section 1812 of this title.”
She is saying she did not disclose it. But she did use it. And she may have disclosed it by unmasking. The question is whether the surveillance was authorized. I don’t think we know the answer to that.