a couple of things....it was not always the Russians, several other foreign surveillance was going on for other security reasons.She got it from one of the intelligence agencies either unmasked already (which would be illicitly gotten) or she asked for it to be unmasked for her (which would also be illicitly gotten) under no circumstance (on the table in this scenario with Trump) should she as a WH staffer in the executive branch have unmasked US citizens names as it pertains to sect. 702 raw data collection under the warrant approved by the FISA court.
Wrong, wrong and wrong.
Rice was sent the 'masked' transcript because the NSA saw something suspicious, and wanted to make the National Security Advisor aware of a national security issue with the Russians. After reading the 'masked' transcript Rice wanted to know who the Americans colluding with the russians were, and asked the NSA to 'unmask' the names. The NSA approved, and the rest is history.
Nothing illegal.
And if she asked the intel agency to unmask...and the 3 person panel in the Intel agency approved the request....
Rice, had to go to the intel agency's safe room, and there is where it was unmasked, for HER ONLY.....the unmasking was not made public