House Resolution 446...The Draining of the Sewer Begins Today 72717....

a reply to: theantediluvian

The unmasking/spying is part of the scope of the investigation, so we should reserve judgement until there has been a full investigation into what the Obama admin was doing. The details of the scope of the investigation can be found in section 10.

The FISA court have already confirmed the issue:

The National Security Agency under former President Barack Obama routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall, according to once top-secret documents that chronicle some of the most serious constitutional abuses to date by the U.S. intelligence community.

More than 5 percent, or one out of every 20 searches seeking upstream Internet data on Americans inside the NSA’s so-called Section 702 database violated the safeguards Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011, according to one classified internal report reviewed by Circa.

The Obama administration self-disclosed the problems at a closed-door hearing Oct. 26 before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that set off alarm. Trump was elected less than two weeks later.

The normally supportive court censured administration officials, saying the failure to disclose the extent of the violations earlier amounted to an “institutional lack of candor” and that the improper searches constituted a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue,” according to a recently unsealed court document dated April 26, 2017.

The admitted violations undercut one of the primary defenses that the intelligence community and Obama officials have used in recent weeks to justify their snooping into incidental NSA intercepts about Americans.

www.circa.com...

So let's wait and see what the investigation uncovers on whether the Trump campaign and Trump himself were targets of Obama's spying, unmasking and sharing.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Grambler

Yes it seems his precise language was wrong, he wasn't wiretapped. Instead the Obama admin unmasked tons of people in his campaign and connected to him illegally.

And yet apparently you are more concerned with Trump hyperbolic claim of this being wiretapping than you are that Obama actually was using intelligence agencies to hurt his political opponents.

Where are you getting "Obama actually was using intelligence agencies to hurt his political opponents" or that "tons of people in his campaign" and otherwise connected to Trump were unmasked?

I might be missing something but I haven't seen any information that details how many people were possibly unmasked or that any of them were part of the campaign. Nor have I seen any information beyond speculation and insinuation that the unmasking was improper or directed by Obama, let alone done so to "hurt his political opponents."

During the Obama years, the National Security Agency intentionally and routinely intercepted and reviewed communications of American citizens in violation of the Constitution and of court-ordered guidelines implemented pursuant to federal law. The unlawful surveillance appears to have been a massive abuse of the government’s foreign-intelligence-collection authority, carried out for the purpose of monitoring the communications of Americans in the United States.

....

So, as noted in coverage of the Obama administration’s monitoring of Trump-campaign officials, FISA section 702 provides some privacy protection for Americans: The FISA court orders “minimization” procedures, which require any incidentally intercepted American’s identity to be “masked.” That is, the NSA must sanitize the raw data by concealing the identity of the American. Only the “masked” version of the communication is provided to other U.S. intelligence agencies for purposes of generating reports and analyses. As I have previously explained, however, this system relies on the good faith of government officials in respecting privacy: There are gaping loopholes that permit American identities to be unmasked if, for example, the NSA or some other intelligence official decides doing so is necessary to understand the intelligence value of the communication.

www.nationalreview.com...

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 up in surveillance.

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 – essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.

www.foxnews.com...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kty., said “several sources” have told him that members of the Obama administration spied on him and other political opponents. The libertarian-leaning defender of privacy rights requested information from the intelligence community on whether he was surveilled, and asked President Donald J. Trump to “promptly investigate” the allegations in a formal probe.

www.peoplespunditdaily.com...

Targeting political opponents did not start with former National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s decision to rifle through classified transcripts for over a year, apparently in an effort to snaffle information about members of Trump’s operation. Nor did it start with the issuance of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court warrant allowing investigators to monitor an informal advisor of the Trump campaign, Carter Page. Indeed, news reports indicate that the Obama Administration previously advanced targeted surveillance in order to stifle debate about the proposed Iran nuclear deal.

aclj.org...

When President Donald Trump met the liberal media’s months of unsubstantiated “Russia” allegations against him with an unsubstantiated allegation of his own against former President Barack Obama, Democrats and their “journalist” allies immediately lost their minds and took turns castigating and mocking Trump for daring to suggest that Obama had spied on his 2016 campaign.

The furiously over-the-top reaction to Trump’s allegation spurred a defense of the current president from a seemingly unlikely source — former Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich — who in an op-ed for Fox News revealed that he had been spied on by the Obama administration.

conservativetribune.com...

a reply to: UKTruth
"Very serious Fourth Amendment issue."
You mean to say that a court has the opinion that the Obama Administration routinely violated the Constitutional rights of US citizens... including members of the campaign of the opposition party's nominee for POTUS???

I am shocked.

And the media isn't trumpeting this fact from the rooftops???

Super shocked.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: UKTruth
"Very serious Fourth Amendment issue."
You mean to say that a court has the opinion that the Obama Administration routinely violated the Constitutional rights of US citizens... including members of the campaign of the opposition party's nominee for POTUS???

I am shocked.

And the media isn't trumpeting this fact from the rooftops???

Super shocked.

Yep - it was a severe rebuke that in itself should warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to bring those involved to justice. It's good that the scope of the House Judiciary investigation includes the follow up to these crimes, though Sessions would be within his power to appoint a Special Counsel now.

a reply to: UKTruth

I want to start by saying that I am highly concerned with the NSA's domestic data collection. American citizens are guaranteed protection against such warrantless searches by the US Constitution. Full stop.

In fact, it's almost certainly the most drastic and egregious violation of our rights in recent memory. It also happens to be a campaign promise that Obama broke and an item at the top of my list of serious issues with Obama. I would also say that more than an American right, protection of privacy is a universal human right and should be paramount to any free society.

So yes, I am concerned that the situation worsened under Obama. I'm also concerned that it's not a topic of discussion with this administration and when asked about it during the campaign, President Trump did not signal any intention of remedying the situation.

And as bad as domestic surveillance is, any intentional abuse of domestic surveillance for untoward purposes would clearly be an even more severe offense and one of the most serious would be the executive abusing these already rights-trampling programs for surveillance of political opponents. It doesn't get much more Orwellian.

If there is compelling evidence that such a thing took place, then heads should roll. As I have stated on numerous occasions, quite plainly, I have no problem with this possibility being thoroughly investigated.

That said, I have yet to see any evidence that it actually did occur. In fact, straight from Nunes as he was announcing these unmasking "concerns" was the statement that it didn't appear that anything illegal had occurred from what he'd seen. Instead, that an unnamed associate or associates of Trump had been picked up in incidental collection, communicating with a foreign person who was legitimately the subject of surveillance.

That is not directed surveillance of a political opponent. A secondary and also important issue is the protection of identities of US citizens caught up in incidental collection. However, here again, I have not seen any actual evidence beyond speculation and innuendo that Rice or anyone else acted improperly in unmasking anyone's identity.

Until I do, I will assume that it's political shenanigans but I'm completely open to a drastic and acute change of opinion.

What I fail to see is what this really has to do with the stunt pulled by the GOP in this instance. This maneuver wasn't about any of that. It was a political stunt to block the request.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I think the 'wait and see' approach is the right one. I too am concerned by Trump's lack of movement on closing off any misuse of intelligence gathering on citizens. You would think he would prioritise it given his view that he was a victim of it.
It's been a criticism of mine on Trump for a while.

Still, the investigation in my view is warranted to drive out exactly what happened, though I think on this specific issue a Special Counsel should be convened to look into what happened and ensure that recommendations come back to stop this kind of behaviour by any President or administration. Congress should pass more specific laws on this too IMO and repeal elements of legislation passed after 911.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I respect everything you said in this posts. Lets not kid ourselves; we all have biases.

You and I seem to come from different sides but often find ourselves agreeing with each other as far as what outcomes we would like to see.

So I commend you for admitting when someone from the left does something bad.

Similarly, I stand by that if it turns out Trump is using intel agencies in an inappropriate manner, I will call that out as well.

The only thing I want to say though is that you (and many others) have jumped all over Trumps wiretapping claims as outrageous and a flat out lie, and yet you admit that there is a possibility that Obama was unmasking political opponents (something Rand Paul and Kucinich seem to think happened to them as well).

Which takes me back to my original point; it seems over the top to be outraged at Trumps statement which while it may be hyperbolic, it could also be rooted in the truth if Obama did illegally surveille trumps people.

NSA spying on congressional members is/was a real thing. And yes they were unmasked and circulated, by whom remains to be seen.

Really it took barely 3 years for us all to forget the NSA spying on congressional members scandal ? No one remembers the frightening response to Bernie Sanders' letter to the NSA ?

"procedures that protect the privacy of U.S. persons, members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons."

Anyone else remember how quick this inquiry was dropped after that answer ? Immediately... I seem to remember that was the last thing asked and the meeting wrapped up immediately after.

I'm not the only person on who understood exactly, what that meant...

Put differently, a program that collects data about virtually every phone call in America cannot help but include the phone numbers that members of Congress dial, as well as the numbers of those who telephone members of Congress.

That's what happens when you hoover up information about everyone.

Access to that telephone metadata would be extremely useful for manipulating the legislature.

- The Atlantic




Can we stop playing partisan games about intelligence abuses ?

Dang...right at the end of the WH press briefing today Sarah dropped a bomb...

Public testimony that FusionGPS was being paid by the Russians....so there goes the dossier out the window....appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

Do you guys ever get tired of saying this and being wrong? The investigation will end when it ends. Nothing you or Huckabee Sanders says is going to change that.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Dang...right at the end of the WH press briefing today Sarah dropped a bomb...

Public testimony that FusionGPS was being paid by the Russians....so there goes the dossier out the window....appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

Shouldn't be a surprise. All the connections were there. We already did that legwork didn't we?

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

Do you guys ever get tired of saying this and being wrong? The investigation will end when it ends. Nothing you or Huckabee Sanders says is going to change that.

There is a difference between an investigation's findings and the truth on some occasions, or do you actually think Mueller is interested in digging up what actually happened?

If he is, he's digging in the wrong direction from all accounts.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

Do you guys ever get tired of saying this and being wrong? The investigation will end when it ends. Nothing you or Huckabee Sanders says is going to change that.

Right.

And the investigation into Comey, Lynch, Hillary, Bill, Uranium 1, the Clinton Foundation, etc. that is being discussed in this thread will end when it ends.

So I guess you will be silent on it until the investigation ends.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Dang...right at the end of the WH press briefing today Sarah dropped a bomb...

Public testimony that FusionGPS was being paid by the Russians....so there goes the dossier out the window....appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

Exact quote from Sarah from public testimony:

"The firm that produced it [dossier] was also being paid by the Russians"

So let me guess...Trump was colluding with the Russians to make it appear as if he was colluding with the Russian but wasn't?

Not sure how to spin this one now....wondering how it will be spun by FAKE NEWS later....if even spoken about at all.

Even Sarah said she was surprised nobody brought up Russia at the presser today.....LOL.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Dang...right at the end of the WH press briefing today Sarah dropped a bomb...

Public testimony that FusionGPS was being paid by the Russians....so there goes the dossier out the window....appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

Shouldn't be a surprise. All the connections were there. We already did that legwork didn't we?

Yep, but it is that much better when it is spoken of in open record and can be discussed by all.

Choo-choo!

a reply to: ketsuko

LOL! HAHAHAHAHA! Sorry I'm not going to respond seriously to you projecting your opinions onto me.

a reply to: Grambler

It hasn't even started yet.

It's starting to look like Russian collusion is real, but they're colluding with the DNC against Trump, not with him.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Dang...right at the end of the WH press briefing today Sarah dropped a bomb...

Public testimony that FusionGPS was being paid by the Russians....so there goes the dossier out the window....appears as if the Russian narrative is falling apart...

It appears FusionGPS was working on Russia's behalf to get the Maginitsky act repealed.

Has little to nothing to do with people around Trump having contacts with Russians.

The "narrative" is not falling apart. The narrative is true.

To what extent people were involved and for what purposes remains to be seen.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: ketsuko

LOL! HAHAHAHAHA! Sorry I'm not going to respond seriously to you projecting your opinions onto me.

Why not, you project yours onto us every day.