Spying?

[Doctor Phibes]

@jolly said in Spying?:

There are some things that are above politics.

Conservative journalists getting spied on, for example.

[Jolly]

@doctor-phibes said in Spying?:

@jolly said in Spying?:

There are some things that are above politics.

Conservative journalists getting spied on, for example.

Sod off.

Truly and sincerely. It's a serious issue, and it deserves serious consideration.

[Doctor Phibes]

@jolly said in Spying?:

@doctor-phibes said in Spying?:

@jolly said in Spying?:

There are some things that are above politics.

Conservative journalists getting spied on, for example.

Sod off.

Truly and sincerely. It's a serious issue, and it deserves serious consideration.

I completely agree. I thought it was a serious issue back when Snowden and that creepy Australian were the news story, too.

However, it's nothing new.

[Loki]

NSA denies it. Who has the next move?

[Jolly]

That's the non-denial George was referring to.

[Catseye3]

"Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of this agency."

I swear, sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

[Doctor Phibes]

[Loki]

@jolly said in Spying?:

That's the non-denial George was referring to.

Here is an equally good question, why has Fox News, his employer, NOT confirmed the allegation?

[George K]

[Loki]

@george-k said in Spying?:

@loki said in Spying?:

NSA denies it. Who has the next move?

They deny targeting him. Not that they have his emails.

Shouldn’t he get Fox onboard as a first step?

[George K]

@loki said in Spying?:

Shouldn’t he get Fox onboard as a first step?

No idea.

But the annotations on the so-called "denial" are pretty lawyerly, aren't they?

Again, the only thing they explicitly deny is him being an "intelligence target."

Hmmm....I wonder if NSA has other kinds of "targets?"

[Loki]

@george-k said in Spying?:

@loki said in Spying?:

Shouldn’t he get Fox onboard as a first step?

No idea.

But the annotations on the so-called "denial" are pretty lawyerly, aren't they?

Again, the only thing they explicitly deny is him being an "intelligence target."

Hmmm....I wonder if NSA has other kinds of "targets?"

My limited understanding is that anytime someone, say even an ambassador makes contact with a foreign entity of interest a masked entry occurs. Unmasking to the public is illegal. So the question if TuCa’s allegation is true is that the NSA intnentionally unmasked him..or someone with access leaked it. So maybe NSA has to find the leak or TuCa would know he was targeted by virtue of contacting Putin and is making shit up.

His employer should support him, why are they quiet??

[George K]

@loki said in Spying?:

Unmasking to the public is illegal.

Is unmasking to other members of the NSA illegal? I don't know.

However, it was revealed that various members of the incoming Trump administration were unmasked as well. How did that become public? Through a FOIA? Again, I don't know.

I can't speak to the reticence of Fox to involve themselves.

[Jolly]

I think Fox may be onboard, or they wouldn't have let him run with the story the way he has.

Just my opinion, but it seems pretty straightforward...TC tries to get an interview with Putin. NSA rightly takes a look at the email to verify nothing nefarious is happening.

TC is identified as Subject #1 or whatever terminology NSA uses to mask a citizen's identity. The emails probably get kicked to an analyst's desk and then to somebody in a supervisory role. If it's determined Subject #1 needs more intensive surveillance, the NSA can go to the FISA court and get permission to do so.

What has happened, is that TC's email did not rise to anywhere near FISA court level stuff, but somebody decided to unmask him and then leak the fact he was communicating with Putin, in order to try to cause negative consequences.

The somebody is really important to know.

[Jolly]

@george-k said in Spying?:

@loki said in Spying?:

Unmasking to the public is illegal.

Is unmasking to other members of the NSA illegal? I don't know.

However, it was revealed that various members of the incoming Trump administration were unmasked as well. How did that become public? Through a FOIA? Again, I don't know.

I can't speak to the reticence of Fox to involve themselves.

Wasn't that revealed through the Carter Page investigations by Mueller and Horowitz?

Regardless, Page's lawsuit against the FBI and Justice Department is still on-going, methinks.

[Loki]

All interesting convo but until Fox gets on board I can’t expect anyone else to get too excited.

[Copper]

@loki said in Spying?:

All interesting convo but until Fox gets on board

They gave him millions of dollars worth of air time to tell the story

I believe that is a lot like being on board

[Doctor Phibes]

@george-k said in Spying?:

@loki said in Spying?:

NSA denies it. Who has the next move?

They deny targeting him. Not that they have his emails.

It's just possible people are over-thinking this.

Those annotations look a little like Glenn Beck's infamous chalk-board.

[George K]

@doctor-phibes said in Spying?:

Those annotations look a little like Glenn Beck's infamous chalk-board.

Agreed.

Now, show me where they're wrong.

[xenon]

I think others have mentioned it here. But we care about privacy now? That ship sailed a long time ago.

I was surprised when the Patriot Act went through. I was surprised at the breadth of the surveillance machine that had been built based on it (as Aqua noted with the Snowden stuff).

This - if true - is small, small completely predictable potatoes, given what we already knew.

No one cares. The time to care was a long time ago.

So many of the post 9-11 government decisions have worked out so poorly for us.