Posted on 05/14/2020 10:36:50 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper said Thursday it is “routine” to “unmask” American citizens who have been caught up in surveillance of foreign individuals as Republicans spark an uproar over allegations that officials spied on former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“Over the six and a half almost seven years when I served as DNI I would say perhaps once or twice a week perhaps,” Clapper said on CNN when asked how frequently he would request an American’s identity to be revealed.
“It’s a routine thing. It’s appropriate and legitimate when you have a valid foreign intelligence target engaging with a U.S. person. Is it, for example, an insider, someone in the government engaging with a foreign adversary? So it’s important from the standpoint of potential jeopardy to national security that you understand what’s going on.”
Clapper was one of several Obama-era officials named on Wednesday by the Trump administration and Republican senators who they say asked for documents that led to Flynn being “unmasked” from intelligence reports between the 2016 election and President Trump’s inauguration.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
His mouth will be his undoing. We are just a couple of toe nails and fingers away from the truth.
hmmm....maybe Grinnell should publish ALL of his unmasking requests.
I’d say I am stunned but, more numb these days...
Ah... Mufti James bin Clapper, C_A Jihadist.
My question is why were so many unmasking Flynn.
What he or any of the others say now is irrelevant. What matters is the evidence sealed away awaiting trial
I wish holding government employees accountable “happened all the time”.
It’s routine, they now say, to spy on an incoming national security adviser during a “lame duck” administration. They are isolating the “unmasking” term and will ride that horse with their media co-conspirators.
sounds like we had a bunch of paranoics running things.. all working for the best interests of the chilrun’ of course.. and protecting their own cabal of malcontents.
Including Ambassadors
He would never lie to you.
As head of DNI, Flynn only needed it once in his whole career.
Shows the difference between a patriot and a criminal.
It is so “routine” that there are special procedures to follow when asking for an unmask.
What a dumb ass..
I would love to see Adm Mike Rogers question Clapper about his “routine” unmaskings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
(derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram) (1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations.
...The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971.[12] COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day and have been alleged to include discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.[13][14][15][16] The FBI’s stated motivation was “protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order”.[17]
...Illegal surveillance
The final report of the Church Committee concluded:
Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been illegally collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret and biased informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone “bugs”, surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous—and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations—have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity.
Groups and individuals have been assaulted, repressed, harassed and disrupted because of their political views, social beliefs and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory, harmful and vicious tactics have been employed—including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform.
Governmental officials—including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law—have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.
The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them.[92][93]
Yeah, sure.
39 times and the unmasked one just happens to be the next National Security Adviser for the opposition party.
Happens every day!
Dope. Keep peddling!
It’s like asking Hillary Clinton why she illegally had a dozen FBI files and she says, What? I have 900 files.
Just another day
It’s truly amazing how the crap of the crop wind up in government.
2 weeks before leaving office Sloe Pervy Joe needed to see.
WHY? What was he going to do with the intel?
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