Tucker Carlson and the NSA
I haven’t written much about this story yet, but the gist of it is that Tucker Carlson was tipped off that the NSA was intercepting his emails and was planning to leak them to the press in order to discredit him. He was widely mocked – of course – by the left for making this claim. But it turns out to have been correct:
As RedState reported earlier, Tucker Carlson’s previous claims of being spied on and having his communications leaked by the NSA were true. Axios reported on the leaked emails today, which contained nothing but Carlson attempting to set up an interview with Russia’s Vladamir Putin. Of note is that NBC News interviewed Putin just a few weeks ago and there is nothing untoward about a news host seeking an interview with an adversarial figure…
As Carlson points out, when he first made the allegation last week, the usual suspects jumped in to call him a liar with the caveat that if it was true, then it must have been because Carlson was doing something wrong. Now, we know the truth thanks to Axios’ decision to play along with the illegal leak of Carlson’s emails instead of doing the right thing and rebuking the government for spying on a fellow journalist…
Carlson then got to the real heart of the issue — that laws were broken here. The NSA is required to keep the identity of Americans caught up in surveillance of foreign figures secret. Only via an unmasking request could his name have been revealed. After that request was clearly made, likely by someone in the Biden administration and having to have been signed off by the NSA head, they then took that information and leaked it to try to harm Carlson and Fox News.
Years ago this sort of revelation would have been shocking. Now it’s pretty much business as usual.
And I suppose that’s the point – to boil the American public frog very slowly.
And I’ll add the obligatory (but also obvious) “can you imagine if the Trump administration had done this to a journalist?”
Tucker Carlson is one of the most popular voices on the right in broadcasting. He’s also a pretty smart guy, and fearless. That means the left is determined to take him down.
I thought that this Senate hearing video, linked over at Am. Thinker, was interesting. How does the unmasking process work?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs5nFabuxOg&t=112s
Tucker has a revelation about 3 years ago and has taken “I don’t give a damn” approach. Especially after he was forced to move when leftists got his address and harassed his family. When the Totalitarians start their standard take down methods he goes on the offense and name names. That is how you do it.
They are coming for us. All you can do is prepare and share any interaction with the Feds as soon as you find out it.
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2021/07/tucker-carlson-redux.html#more
“And I suppose that’s the point – to boil the American public frog very slowly.”
Yup.
But not so slowly now.
They’re becoming careless. Plus the strange mixture of panic and hubris amping things up.
They’re becoming careless. Plus the strange mixture of panic and hubris amping things up.
Zaphod:
That’s my read.
Trump scared them badly. They’re not sure they can Fabian their way into domination, so they’ve sped up the schedule.
If they could nuke the filibuster, pass the Vote Fraud bill, pack the court, and make DC and PR states in the next year, they would.
A clarification is in order:
The NSA was almost certainly not spying on Tucker Carlson. They were spying on Vlad. THAT is their job. They definitely should not have unmasked and leaked, but yeah, capturing communications between Putin (or his minions) and Americans, that is what we pay them for.
Neo-
Of course taking down Carlson may be a long term goal. Judging by their obvious thin skin the alphabet agencies have shown the last few years. Its possible this would have been a bonus for them.
Yet the more I have thought about this. And with his admission he was trying to set up an interview with Putin. The reasoning for the NSA becomes pretty clear.
An interview with Putin, after his meeting with Biden. Would have allowed someone with firsthand knowledge. And a reason to undermine Biden. To describe his mental state. Judging by what we have seen so far. Even if he stuck close to the truth. It would have been pretty devastating overall.
And would have opened up a huge can of worms.
1) How much the WH has been covering up for Biden.
2) Since there have been no leaks and near silence by the NSA. That they have clearly taken a side. And after literally leaking Trumps food choices by various agencies. They are managing near silence on his obvious mental decline.
3) When did all this start? And without more distance. It becomes really hard to show this is all some sort of quick onset Alzheimer’s. And that the Democratic party did not actively commit what amounts to moral fraud to get him into the White House.
To me seeing the narratives in the press. The various agencies have decided to back Biden (for now). And I doubt Harris’s issues with her image. Were solely of her own making
I hadn’t heard that Carlson was trying to set up an interview with Putin.
And of course those that unmasked Tucker and leaked the information to the news media are being hounded from government employment and forced to pay monetary penalties (loss of retirement, possible incarceration,….) or not at all.
“At this point what difference does it make?”
John Stanford-
It is entirely possible you are correct. And with no evidence to the contrary I agree that Carlson’s interpretation is probably a step too far.
But it appear his name was leaked. And that part of the law was simply ignored. And since that part of the law exists as a protection of his (and our) constitutional right. To NOT be surveilled.
In which case agencies could then simply surveil a foreign national. Someone like Glenn Greenwald. Sans warrant. A person Carlson obviously communicates with. Intercept his communications. And leak that information.
Which was Carlson’s point about their statement. It still violates his rights and many will give it the legal veneer of being “legally collected” and ignore the entire point of leaking the information with his name attached.
If they can do this. Then any communication with any foreign entity can be vacuumed up. And leaked at their whim. With your rights being tossed out the window.
“The NSA was almost certainly not spying on Tucker Carlson.”
That’s certainly possible but WHY, in the name of all that is holy, should the NSA be given the benefit of the doubt?
Mike
Geoffrey Britain-
He admitted the Putin part last night on his show.
The NSA and the FBI have both demonstrated they need to be reined in. Probably the CIA too.
I think it would have been very interesting, and probably illuminating, for an American journalist to ask the Russian President what his reaction to Biden’s mental state. VERY interesting.
Until recently–i.e. the Obama Administration– the primary limitation on the NSA doing this sort of thing was not the courts, but the absolute, non-stop, 24/7 outrage that such conduct should rightly have generated in the press, and in congress.
But our press no longer troubled by such conduct, as the spy agencies are on “their side”, and outrage would be politically harmful–actually devastating–for their cause.
So there are no real consequences. And the Tucker thing is surely only a minor speedbump. Nothing to see here, move on, right-wing nuts trying to justify one of their heroes cozying up to Putin.
And any of you actual journalists who might be thinking of making a name for yourself by stating the obvious–we know where you live, who you communicate with, and what you may like to do late at night.
@boatbuilder:
“and what you may like to do late at night.”
And if by some miracle you don’t do anything late at night, they can invent that for you out of whole cloth.
You’ve neatly laid out the Thesis and Contradiction.
What does a viable Antithesis look like?
And will there be enough ruins left standing after the Millstones of Dialectic have ground out the solution for us to construct even a Single-Occupancy Synthesis?
Uncharted Waters.
CIA reined in? The FIB and DoJ and DoS and…and…and!
In the Edward Snowden bio pic by Oliver Stone (“Snowden”), there’s the segment where he’s stationed with the CIA in Geneva. And his buddy analyst use the NSAs snooping power to find a target from a cocktail party.The bud calls Ed “Snow White” because he’s naive.
In his autobio, Snowden admits that this event was when he starts to question what the “Good Guys” are doing. It no longer looks so good.
Anyway, the arrange to upend a Pakistani businessman’s life and turn him into a CI – a spy asset or confidential informer because of his banking connections.
Eventually, the man’s teenaged daughter attempts suicide and nothing else develops as hoped.
And, as you know, Snowden exposes the digital snoop technology that makes this (the above and Tucker Carlson’s) scenarios possible.
So. We were warned that it would be abused; it was already being abused, Snowden tells us.
Yet we haven’t even debated the morality of this!
Instead, we’re talking about pronouns and gaslit “racism” instead of real crimes, real oppression and the destructive tyranny that chases us away from having any constructive critical opinions, much less demanding real reforms.
How sad is this?
@TJ:
Politics, including much of the ‘Conservative’ Politics is just a Punch and Judy Show.
Meanwhile US Social Capital is strip-mined and monetised by financial elites, more jobs are exported overseas, more replacement peoples belonging to alien races are shipped in, and (as you describe) the Surveillance State grows and grows.
But let’s spend next x years nattering on about which social policy buttons need pressing so that J’aneeqa can achieve her true potential and pen Petrarchan Sonnets. Or learn to read, or some shit like dat.
“…that is what we pay them for.”
Really wonderful to hear from someone authoritative, someone who really knows what he’s talking about, that the NSA folks are doing the job they’re being paid to do.
(So tell us, are they also being paid to leak?)
“None of these scenarios mesh with what Carlson has alleged. A legit unmasking would not result in his emails being offered to another reporter.
It seems that we are back to the bad old days of the Obama era where political enemies of the regime are targeted for espionage, and the results of that espionage used to damage or discredit them.” – streiff at Red State
“They definitely should not have unmasked and leaked,” – John Sanford
But, yeah, that is what why the whistleblower contacted Carlson in the first place, and what the “friendly” reporter confirmed.
They DID unmask and they DID leak, and none of that was necessary to the security interest of surveilling Vlad.
PS – Give my regards to Montage and Manju. We’ve missed them. Not.
“They’re becoming careless.”
Heck, if I had the media spinning for me 24/7 and if I knew that I could lie myself out of every “problematic” situation and if I profoundly understood that my worldview vis a vis the “arc of history” was absolute truth and the wave of the future—and most importantly, if I was euphoric that I was royaly pissing off ALL the right people—and if I was confident that there was absolutely nothing able to stop me, hey, I just might become a bit careless myself.
It’s merely the “What-me-worry?” psychosis played out on the national level with total power as the motivating narcotic and total destruction the glorious (and moral and ethical, don’t forget) goal.
Just imagine what an endless frisson of exhiliration that is for the “No problem, we’ll just tease ’em mercilessly and then squash ’em and grind ’em into the ground” crowd.
File under: “Yes we can!!”
Streiff is still hot on the trail.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2021/07/08/robert-muellers-service-animal-andrew-weissmann-yaps-about-tucker-carlson-and-the-nsa-and-confirms-your-worst-thoughts-about-him-n408295?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=-1
Deja vu all over again. Remember when the Feds tried to say that they weren’t spying on Trump because they hadn’t introduced a covert agent into his entourage? (Except for all we know they may have, and they certainly tried.)
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/07/08/boots-are-licked-after-nsa-spying-on-tucker-carlson-gets-confirmed-n407971?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=-1
PJM’s Margolis reviews the same “new” reports as Red State’s streiff, but adds something I didn’t see anywhere else tonight.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/07/07/theres-a-new-twist-in-tucker-carlsons-nsa-spying-claims-n1460222?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=582
Devil’s Advocate injects: so far, we only have Carlson’s word that a whistleblower alerted him to the unmasking plot, that a journalist friend read him one of his leaked emails, and that these FIBs exist.
However, the NSA and the media (via Axios mostly at the moment) are spinning like tops, so I’m leaning towards Tucker’s side. At least it no longer looks like someone is just playing him to make an outrageous charge that could be proved wrong, or at least not pan out as he claimed.
Double posting, for those not following the comments on all the posts (who in the world would that be among this OCD bunch of readers?!)
https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/07/08/now-we-learn-that-we-have-a-federal-police-force-that-is-not-accountable-to-the-public/#comment-2563457
The dots are connected by J. E. Dyer.
The branch offices of the Capitol Police, the spying on Tucker Carlson, and “the Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, which was promulgated in March 2021. This is the overarching guidance that is supposed to inform all policies relating to national security, which would include the domestic terrorism strategy.”
Plus the Wuhan Lab Leak.
RTWT – but here are some of her conclusions, after walking us carefully through the background and the implications.
(excerpt at my other comment)
“…disinformation…” (from your J.E. Dyer link)
…which is a kinda cute accusation coming from the Party of deception, deviousness, deceit and division. But then everything they do is kinda cute…
Related:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17543/house-select-committee-criminalize-obstruct
And I’ll raise ye’ again (but on this one it’s “caveat emptor”…since if the contention is correct, then several things—and one big thing—don’t make a lot of sense):
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/07/09/niaid-moderna-covid-vaccine-candidate.aspx
Related:
‘… totalitarianism is disguised as “humanitarianism…”’ (not that this is anything new to most of the people on this site, but still…)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-does-not-need-domestic-terrorism-agenda-unless-he-about-violate-american-rights
…and this one’s for artfl…(as well as for those who are Harvey Mansfield groupies):
“…family life today is threatened by what might seem a theoretical proposition, one that very few of its partisans would avow or perhaps even recognize: that humanity will not be perfected until marriage and the family have been abolished….”
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-rolling-revolution/
H/T Powerline blog.
3) When did all this start? And without more distance. It becomes really hard to show this is all some sort of quick onset Alzheimer’s. And that the Democratic party did not actively commit what amounts to moral fraud to get him into the White House.
Compare his condition now to what it was two years ago much less five years ago.
The rapidity of loss of function can vary. Most of Ronald Reagan’s downhill slide occurred during a 21 month period extending from May of 1993 to February of 1995. I knew a woman who was perfectly fine in August of 2004 and could no longer form new memories by November of 2005. She lingered another six years.
They haven’t told us what sort of dementia Biden has. If it’s a vascular dementia, his life expectancy is about two years. If it’s Alzheimer’s, he could easily hang on another 8 or 9 years and perhaps longer. (The two other common forms of dementia involve visual hallucinations and jarring personality changes, respectively. Haven’t seen that publicly yet, but who knows?).
“The NSA was almost certainly not spying on Tucker Carlson.”
This statement is literally true and untrue at the same time!
UNTRUE because the NSA spies on everybody all the time. It hoovers up information from calls and messages constantly all over the world. “Spying” really means just selecting a target and processing a query against its database. This allows it to go back in time, and to jump from target to target. If Bob is the target and Mary calls him, they can surveil Mary. And if Larry also calls or is called by Mary, he can be surveilled!
TRUE because the NSA is not really spying, it is “collecting”, and its “customers” are accessing that collection in order to really do the spying, so they are the spies! Who are the customers? There are thousands who have the right, but the law is supposed to restrict what they can do when an American citizen is incidentally involved.
Yes, the idea that a Democrat would restrict what they do to that which is legal is pretty hilarious, isn’t it?!