easyt65
Diamond Member
- Aug 4, 2015
- 90,307
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Obama administration underreported number of Americans who were unmasked by NSA in 2016
"The Obama administration made history during the 2016 election by releasing statistics for the first time showing how many times government officials sought to unmask the names of Americans captured in accidental National Security Agency intercepts. There was just one problem: the number of affected Americans was grossly underreported.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, now under new management with President Donald Trump, confirms that the 654 unmaskings reported last year for fiscal 2015 was underreported by a factor of more than three times. The correct number was actually 2,232.
National intelligence officials say the 654 figure reported last year actually represented the number of times a government official had a request approved to unmask an American name and not the total number of U.S. persons’ identities that actually were unredacted after the fact in intelligence reports, as had been represented in last year’s report.
“Transparency isn’t any good if the numbers you expose aren’t correct. And there seems to have been a lot of downplaying of unmaskings so I think this a question worth exploring. Who approved the inaccurate number and was it an innocent mistake or part of a larger pattern,” said a congressional aide directly involved in the investigations, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they were not approved to talk to reporters.
Republicans want to question former Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who originally denied know about any unmasking of identities of Trump campaign associates. But after Circa reported she had in fact requested or read several intelligence reports with the names of Trump associates unmasked, Rice reversed course and acknowledged she had done so but insisted her intentions were national security related and not political.
The NSA is allowed under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on foreign powers without a court warrant but the law prohibits the targeting of Americans for such surveillance. If the NSA accidentally intercepts Americans or information about them overseas, it is supposed to legally put the information in a virtual lock box.
But starting in 2011, former President Obama made it easier to access that information, essentially creating keys for intelligence professionals and even his own political aides to unlock the NSA’s lock box to consume surveillance on Americans."
Circa reported last week that since those changes, the number of requests to search NSA records for Americans’ information more than tripled under the former administration from about 10,000 in 2013 to more than 25,000 in 2016."
"The Obama administration made history during the 2016 election by releasing statistics for the first time showing how many times government officials sought to unmask the names of Americans captured in accidental National Security Agency intercepts. There was just one problem: the number of affected Americans was grossly underreported.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, now under new management with President Donald Trump, confirms that the 654 unmaskings reported last year for fiscal 2015 was underreported by a factor of more than three times. The correct number was actually 2,232.
National intelligence officials say the 654 figure reported last year actually represented the number of times a government official had a request approved to unmask an American name and not the total number of U.S. persons’ identities that actually were unredacted after the fact in intelligence reports, as had been represented in last year’s report.
“Transparency isn’t any good if the numbers you expose aren’t correct. And there seems to have been a lot of downplaying of unmaskings so I think this a question worth exploring. Who approved the inaccurate number and was it an innocent mistake or part of a larger pattern,” said a congressional aide directly involved in the investigations, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they were not approved to talk to reporters.
Republicans want to question former Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who originally denied know about any unmasking of identities of Trump campaign associates. But after Circa reported she had in fact requested or read several intelligence reports with the names of Trump associates unmasked, Rice reversed course and acknowledged she had done so but insisted her intentions were national security related and not political.
The NSA is allowed under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on foreign powers without a court warrant but the law prohibits the targeting of Americans for such surveillance. If the NSA accidentally intercepts Americans or information about them overseas, it is supposed to legally put the information in a virtual lock box.
But starting in 2011, former President Obama made it easier to access that information, essentially creating keys for intelligence professionals and even his own political aides to unlock the NSA’s lock box to consume surveillance on Americans."
Circa reported last week that since those changes, the number of requests to search NSA records for Americans’ information more than tripled under the former administration from about 10,000 in 2013 to more than 25,000 in 2016."
