WHO
AT NSA UNMASKED NAMES?
White House logs indicate Susan Rice (Obama’s National
Security Advisor) consumed unmasked intel on Trump associates. Rice accessed numerous intelligence reports
during Obama’s last 7 months in office….it began in July 2016 around time Trump
secured the GOP nomination. The
unmasking accelerated after Trump election in November 2016 launched a transition
that continued through January 2017.
These intelligence reports included some intercepts of
Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking
about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition. Most, if not all had nothing to do with
the Russian election interference scandal, the source said.
Among Obama team cleared to
request and consume unmasked NSA based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens
were: NSA Adviser, Susan Rice; CIA Director, John Brennan; and Attorney
General, Loretta Lynch.
Normally, such references to Americans would be
redacted or minimized by the NSA before being shared with outside intelligence
sources, but in these cases, names were unmasked at request of Rice. The exact national security justification for
Rice accessing reports isn’t clear and may require additional documentation
that House and Senate Intelligence Committees have requested from the NSA that
is America’s lead Agency in spying on foreign parties.
How this information was disseminated beyond Rice will
also be a potential focus of Congressional Oversight (House
Oversight Committee Chair, Jason Chaffetz is leaving Congress and Trey Gowdy
will take over as Chair. Republican,
Trey Gowdy is brutal in his interrogations…they are now the stuff of political
legend)….since lawmakers may want to know if it was briefed to Obama or
shared with members of Rice’s larger circle of advisors like Deputy Ben
Rhodes. (Ben
Rhodes’ brother is David Rhodes, CBS News President).
Do you remember in a previous interview on PBS, Susan
Rice said, “she had no idea what House Intelligence Committee Chair, Devin
Nunes, was talking about when he said Obama officials were monitoring Trump
associates after election”.
One intelligence professional with detailed knowledge
of how NSA and other intelligence agencies share information with the White
House during transitions told reporters, Sara Carter and John Solomon, that
U.S. intelligence reporting on foreign leaders’ perception of Trump spiked after
his unexpected election win in November 2016 creating a trove of information
that could be accessed by the outgoing White House. Those directly familiar with the process
acknowledged the breadth of access today could be abused for political
espionage or pure prurient interests instead of just compelling national
security interests.
A week before the end of Obama’s
administration, the intelligence sharing rules were relaxed and opened up to
more agencies. Just the NSA alone opened
up to 20 different officials inside the NSA.
The FBI also can unmask names to other intelligence professionals and
policy makers. No wonder the leaks have
proliferated!
Whether and how it was used by the Obama team will have
to be evaluated separate of the fact that the reporting this time around was
more robust because of the circumstances of the election. Both the Republican Chair and Democrat Vice
Chair of House Intelligence Committee have been shown the documents discovered
by the National Security Council over the last 10 days.
The media has given little attention to these
red flags being raised by Civil Liberties experts. The ACLU, an ally of Obama on many issues, is
alarmed at what’s happening and has issued a statement during Obama’s term,
warning the president’s loosened procedures governing who could request to see
unmasked American intercepts by NSA were “grossly inadequate” and lacked
“appropriate safeguards”.
NSA can legally intercept foreigners’ conversations
without court permission under Sect. 702 under Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, but it cannot target Americans’ conversations overseas. If an American is accidentally intercepted or
2 foreigners are caught talking about an American, that name is supposed to be
redacted in intelligence reports and replaced by a description like “U.S.
citizen 1”.
Obama opened the door for his political aides like Rice
to more easily gain access to unmasked Americans’ names in NSA intercepts
through a series of rule changes beginning in 2011.
