'Denials Don't Add Up'
Susan Rice's alleged unmasking requests not so routine, ex-officials say
"While Susan Rice is defending as routine her requests for the identities of Americans caught up in surveillance of foreign targets, others who’ve served in the intelligence community and at high levels of government say the former national security adviser's requests were
quite unusual."
“The national security adviser person is a manager position, not an analyst position,” he said. “You have analysts in the intelligence community whose job is to sort through who is doing what with what. Susan Rice is a senior manager looking over the entire intelligence community. She should not have time to be unmasking individuals having conversations.
It’s insane. It’s never done.”
And your sources is a former CIA analyst and a retired Lt. Col. LMAO, meanwhile, all active intelligence officials higher up agree it was routine, as does General Hayden and others.
The Bogus Susan Rice Story Shows How Desperate the White House Is Getting
I asked retired Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency, whether it’s unlawful or even unusual for someone in Rice’s position to ask the NSA to unmask the names of Americans caught up in intercepts. He replied, in an email, “
Absolutely lawful. Even somewhat routine.”
There would have been no intelligence need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked. If there had been a real need to reveal the identities — an intelligence need based on American interests — 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’s 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 desire based on Democratic-party interests.
the unmasking would have been done by the investigating agencies.
It was. Rice has no ability to do it on her own.
She had to make a request to the originating agency. The fact that it was granted only shows that it was done correctly.
Correct... That's how it's supposed to work...She didn't, exclusively, do it that way.... She had access to the database and did it on her own, as well!!! in addition to, disseminating that which the agencies had already unmasked...
"American citizens cannot be monitored or searched by this process because, unlike foreigners or foreign intelligence agencies, they are protected by the
4th Amendment", Massie said.
When Americans are accidentally caught in the FISA dragnet, their identity is masked as a legal device to protect their 4th Amendment rights, he said.
Massie said he suspects that Rice went into the government database and searched for the names of Americans caught in the drag net, which were accessible through the database.
This is a common practice inside the executive branch and law enforcement agencies with access to the database, he said.
“It is unconstitutional, when they go in and search the database–essentially they are doing a virtual wiretap–as soon as you ID a U.S. citizen,” he said.
