{"id":27689,"date":"2017-04-06T05:45:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T09:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=27689"},"modified":"2017-04-06T09:24:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T13:24:29","slug":"the-trump-surveillance-and-unmasking-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/04\/the-trump-surveillance-and-unmasking-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump campaign surveillance and unmasking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Susan_Rice,_official_State_Dept_photo_portrait,_2009\"<\/a>It turns out the Trump campaign was\u00a0<\/em>under surveillance. \u00a0This was reportedly in connection with the surveillance of Russians that our intelligence agencies wanted to keep an eye on. \u00a0In the course of that operation, so it is said, various individuals connected to Donald Trump were also recorded. \u00a0The protocol, when that happens, is for the names of the individuals recorded but not under investigation to be blacked out from the intelligence reports, their names changed to \u201cPerson A,\u201d \u201cPerson B,\u201d etc.\u00a0If there is a need for the investigating authorities\u00a0to know who these people are, there is a process for \u201cunmasking\u201d them. \u00a0(Read what \u201cunmasking\u201d entails.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n

It turns out that the Obama administration initiated the unmasking of those names, then widely circulating those reports, thus implicating Trump staffers in a Russian connection that might have been innocent. \u00a0(This may explain how the information came out\u2013that is, was leaked\u2013about Michael Flynn\u2019s meeting with the Russian ambassador, something even Democrats routinely have done.) \u00a0We now know that Obama advisor Susan Rice initiated the unmasking. \u00a0As Andrew McCarthy points out<\/a>, \u201cthe thing to bear in mind is that the White House does not do investigations. Not criminal investigations, not intelligence investigations.\u201d \u00a0Only three agencies do those: \u00a0the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA.<\/p>\n

Understand: There would have been no intelligence<\/em> need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked. If there had been a real need to reveal the identities \u2014 an intelligence need based on American interests \u2014 the unmasking would have been done by the investigating agencies. The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president\u2019s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it. If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political<\/em> desire based on Democratic-party interests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So all of this\u00a0amounts to using White House power against a political opponent. \u00a0<\/p>\n

From\u00a0<\/span>Susan Rice requested to unmask names of Trump transition officials, sources say | Fox News<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Multiple sources tell Fox News that Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught <\/b>up in surveillance.<\/p>\n

The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan \u2013 essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.<\/p>\n

The names were part of incidental electronic surveillance of candidate and President-elect Trump and people close to him, including family members, for up to a year before he took office.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Rice was ambassador to the UN when she went on Sunday news shows to say the Benghazi attack was prompted by a video. (Fox News Photo)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It was not clear how Rice knew to ask for the names to be unmasked, but the question was being posed by the sources late Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I know is this \u2026 \u00a0If the intelligence community professionals decide that there\u2019s some value, national security, foreign policy or otherwise in unmasking someone, they will grant those requests,\u201d former Obama State Department spokeswoman and Fox News contributor Marie Harf told Fox News\u2019 Martha MacCallum on \u201cThe First 100 Days. \u201cAnd we have seen no evidence \u2026 that there was partisan political notice behind this and we can\u2019t say that unless there\u2019s actual evidence to back that up.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Photo of Susan Rice by U.S. State Dept. \u2013 http:\/\/usun.state.gov\/leadership\/c31461.htm, Public Domain, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=7729725<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turns out the Trump campaign was\u00a0under surveillance. \u00a0This was reportedly in connection with the surveillance of Russians that our intelligence agencies wanted to keep an eye on. \u00a0In the course of that operation, so it is said, various individuals connected to Donald Trump were also recorded. \u00a0The protocol, when that happens, is for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26,36],"tags":[1613,5341,5340,4683],"class_list":["post-27689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-law","category-politics","tag-obama-administration","tag-susan-rice","tag-trump-campaign-surveillance","tag-trumps-russian-connections"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Trump campaign surveillance and unmasking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Government surveillance of 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