Posted tagged ‘National Security Agency’

Total Vetting Fail: Left-Wing Snowden Fan Girl Reality Winner Gets Access to Our NSA Secrets

June 6, 2017

Total Vetting Fail: Left-Wing Snowden Fan Girl Reality Winner Gets Access to Our NSA Secrets, BreitbartJohn Hayward, June 6, 2017

(“[I]f the adventures of Reality Winner are an indication of the Deep State’s skill and discipline, Trump doesn’t have much to worry about.” Unfortunately, Ms. Winner is probably not “an indication of the Deep State’s skill and discipline.” — DM)

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Even with a valid top secret clearance, Winner had no legitimate reason to see the documents she allegedly purloined. She was only caught because the website she reportedly leaked to contacted the NSA to ask if her material was legitimate. The agency that was stunned by how much sensitive material Edward Snowden managed to abscond with still doesn’t seem to be properly compartmentalizing information and enforcing need-to-know rules.

Fans of the “Deep State” keep saying Trump made a big mistake picking a fight with them, but if the adventures of Reality Winner are an indication of the Deep State’s skill and discipline, Trump doesn’t have much to worry about. Also, it’s worth repeating that nobody voted to give the Deep Staters or Reality Winners control over America’s national security, law enforcement, and foreign policy.

Democrats created the environment in which left-wingers cannot be trusted in sensitive posts, not Donald Trump. Leftists and extreme NeverTrumpers excuse every offense against this administration by saying Trump brought it on himself, just by being himself. That’s not how the rule of law works.

This anything-goes climate has to be shut down, and fast, before permanent damage to our national interest is inflicted, if that hasn’t happened already. A few words from top Democrats about acknowledging elections, honoring their oaths, and respecting the Oval Office even if you despise the current occupant (remember that?) would be very helpful.

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The news reads like something out of a screwball comedy: a far-left activist named “Reality Leigh Winner” somehow received clearance to work for the National Security Agency, which she allegedly proceeded to rob of classified material in the name of the kookburger anti-Trump “Resistance.” In the post-Edward Snowden era, how does someone like this get anywhere near sensitive data?

Speaking of Snowden, Ms. Winner is a huge fan of his. He was one of only 50 accounts she followed on Twitter, along with WikiLeaks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, and the Anonymous hacker collective. Her own Twitter posts were filled with foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Trump tirades such as, “Why burn a flag? Donald Trump thinks crosses burn much better.”

She was also a supporter of climate change hysteria and the Black Lives Matter radical movement. Her last Tweet, from February, was advice for rapper Kanye West to “make a shirt that says, ‘being white is terrorism.’”

She didn’t just follow the Iranian Foreign Minister, she tweeted at him. “There are many Americans protesting U.S. government aggression towards Iran. If our Tangerine in Chief declares war, we stand with you!” she gushed to Zarif.

She also referred to President Trump as “the orange fascist we let into the White House,” and some other names that cannot be reprinted at a family-friendly website without exceeding our allotment of asterisks for the day.

“On a positive note, this Tuesday when we become the United States of the Russian Federation, Olympic lifting will be the national sport,” she sneered in advance of the 2016 election.

The totality of the Reality Winner experience reads like a joke put together for a presentation by bored NSA staffers about the sort of person that should never, ever be given a security clearance. It’s as though a far-left blog downloaded itself into a human brain and chose a name by reading its own comments section.

It should also be noted that the circumstances of this Iran fangirl’s data theft are a blistering indictment of agency procedures. Even with a valid top secret clearance, Winner had no legitimate reason to see the documents she allegedly purloined. She was only caught because the website she reportedly leaked to contacted the NSA to ask if her material was legitimate. The agency that was stunned by how much sensitive material Edward Snowden managed to abscond with still doesn’t seem to be properly compartmentalizing information and enforcing need-to-know rules.

Fans of the “Deep State” keep saying Trump made a big mistake picking a fight with them, but if the adventures of Reality Winner are an indication of the Deep State’s skill and discipline, Trump doesn’t have much to worry about. Also, it’s worth repeating that nobody voted to give the Deep Staters or Reality Winners control over America’s national security, law enforcement, and foreign policy.

Some hay has been made over Winner’s support for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election, but that’s not nearly enough reason to question someone’s security clearance by itself. It is, however, fair to ask when the media will get around to asking Sanders if he disavows his treacherous supporter – as the press would certainly be doing if a red-hatted MAGAphile supporter of Donald Trump, boasting a Twitter feed full of right-wing causes and celebrities, had looted the NSA to help a “resistance” movement take down President Hillary Clinton.

In the alternate universe where that happened, you may rest assured the media freakout about Trump saboteurs threatening the very fabric of democracy has pushed all other stories off the front page today, and the upcoming Sunday talk shows are already booked solid.

Of course, as we all know, Democrat politicians are firewalled from the misdeeds of their followers, and no left-wing Climates of Hate are ever detected. Certain Democrats have no compunctions about actually encouraging criminality, secure in the knowledge their party will never be made to pay a price for going off the rails:

Now more than ever we need whistleblowers to come forward. I created an official website on how to leak to the press https://lieu.house.gov/federal-employees-guide-sharing-key-information 

Federal Employees Guide to Sharing Key Information with the Public

Washington – On February 16, 2017, Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D | Los Angeles County) and Congressman Don Beyer (D | Virginia) released the following resource guide for federal employees who wish to…

lieu.house.gov

Remember the Democrat freak-out about President Trump supposedly compromising American secrets by warning the Russians about a terrorist plot? Some of them don’t actually seem all that concerned about real leaks of sensitive information, as long as it furthers their political goals.

Democrats have created an anything-goes, get-Trump-at-all-costs environment that’s guaranteed to drive their more loosely-wrapped supporters around the bend. If one believes, as Reality Winner evidently does, that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president who must be resisted by any means necessary, it’s not difficult to justify lawbreaking or even deliberately damaging America, for the greater good of shoving that reality-show usurper out of the White House.

Our security services absolutely must take this into account when granting clearances and sweeping sensitive departments for risky personnel. No one with Reality Winner’s political beliefs can be trusted with anything sensitive, period.

Democrats created the environment in which left-wingers cannot be trusted in sensitive posts, not Donald Trump. Leftists and extreme NeverTrumpers excuse every offense against this administration by saying Trump brought it on himself, just by being himself. That’s not how the rule of law works.

This anything-goes climate has to be shut down, and fast, before permanent damage to our national interest is inflicted, if that hasn’t happened already. A few words from top Democrats about acknowledging elections, honoring their oaths, and respecting the Oval Office even if you despise the current occupant (remember that?) would be very helpful.

House Intelligence Committee sends subpoenas to intel agencies

May 31, 2017

House Intelligence Committee sends subpoenas to intel agencies, Fox NewsJames Rosen, May 31, 2017

Where NSA had previously complied with the House panel’s investigators, sources said that cooperation had ground to a complete halt, and that the other agencies – FBI and CIA – had never substantively cooperated with document requests at all. The investigators believe that even rudimentary document production as a result of the subpoenas will enable them to piece together a timeline linking the unmasking activity to news media reports, based on leaks, that conveyed the same information provided to the officials requesting unmasking.

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Three of the nation’s intelligence agencies received subpoenas Wednesday afternoon issued by the House Intelligence Committee, Fox News has confirmed, with each of the three demands for documents explicitly naming three top officials of the Obama administration: Susan Rice, who served as President Obama’s White House national security adviser; former CIA Director John Brennan; and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power.

The three subpoenas, among a total of seven signed by panel chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), were served on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, and all three explicitly referenced “unmasking” – a signal that the House panel is intensifying its investigation into allegations that Obama-era aides improperly demanded the “unmasking” of names of associates of President Trump that had appeared, in coded form, in classified intelligence reports, then leaked the data to news media organizations.

The other four subpoenas were issued at the behest of the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and were said to be duplicative of subpoenas already issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a parallel probe. These four are focused, sources said, on persistent – but as yet unsubstantiated – allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, as well as the case of Michael Flynn. The former White House national security adviser was dismissed after three weeks on the job because the White House concluded he had misled Vice President Pence about private conversations Flynn had had with the Russian ambassador late last year.

The other target of these four subpoenas is said to be Michael Cohen, a longtime Trump attorney. Cohen has denied participating in any effort at collusion with the Kremlin. Flynn, through attorneys, has unsuccessfully sought immunity from prosecution in exchange for congressional testimony.

The issuance of the seven subpoenas was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The inclusion of Power’s name on the subpoenas marks the first appearance of the former U.N. ambassador in the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s use of unmasking. Capitol Hill sources told Fox News they are devoting increasing scrutiny to Power – a former historian and winner of the Pulitzer Prize who worked as a foreign policy adviser in the Senate office of Barack Obama before joining his administration – because they have come to see her role in the unmasking as larger than previously known, and eclipsing those of the other former officials named.

Rice has previously denied any improper activity in her use of unmasking. “The allegation is somehow Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes, that’s absolutely false,” Rice told MSNBC on April 4. President Trump said at that time that he personally believed Rice had committed a crime. None of those named on the subpoenas has been formally accused of wrongdoing.

Inquiries placed with representatives of Power and Brennan were not immediately returned.

That Nunes signed the seven subpoenas, as is standard practice, underscored the chairman’s continuing influence over key aspects of over his committee’s probe, despite the fact that Nunes in early April “stepped aside” from his panel’s Russia probe. He insists his decision was not a formal recusal, and he is still awaiting a hearing by the House Ethics Committee, which agreed at the time to investigate whether Nunes had improperly shared classified data with the White House before presenting it to Schiff and the rest of the intelligence committee.

Nunes told Fox News in an exclusive interview on May 19 that he is an active chairman, including continuing to preside over the unmasking angle of the investigation

Investigative sources on the committee’s Republican majority staff told Fox News that the unmasking subpoenas do not reflect a “fishing expedition,” but were issued because documentary evidence already in hand warranted demands for additional documents relating to Rice, Brennan and Power.

Where NSA had previously complied with the House panel’s investigators, sources said that cooperation had ground to a complete halt, and that the other agencies – FBI and CIA – had never substantively cooperated with document requests at all. The investigators believe that even rudimentary document production as a result of the subpoenas will enable them to piece together a timeline linking the unmasking activity to news media reports, based on leaks, that conveyed the same information provided to the officials requesting unmasking.

President Trump and the White House have dismissed the long-running allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, and possibly the transition team, as “fake news,” a scandal ginned up by supporters of President Obama and Hillary Clinton to explain the Democratic nominee’s stunning loss to Mr. Trump last November.

However, the Trump administration belatedly acquiesced in the appointment of former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III as a special counsel to investigate the allegations “and related matters.” Critics of the administration have also pointed to sustained reporting alleging undisclosed contacts between key Trump aides and various Russians – Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe at an early stage because of such contacts – and to a memorandum prepared in February by former FBI director James Comey, leaked a few days after his termination by President Trump, in which Comey alleged that the president had personally importuned him to abandon the FBI’s probe of Flynn.

Retired NSA Official: Every Phone Call You Make Is Recorded And Stored | Hannity Fox News

March 8, 2017

Retired NSA Official: Every Phone Call You Make Is Recorded And Stored | Hannity Fox News, Fox News via YouTube, March 6, 2017

 

Remember When Obama Spied on Congressmen Opposed to Iran Deal?

March 6, 2017

Remember When Obama Spied on Congressmen Opposed to Iran Deal? Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 5, 2017

obamanixon

When the media puts on its befuddled face over Trump’s allegations, remember what Obama was doing little more than a year ago.

The National Security Agency’s (NSA) continued surveillance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli leaders may also have swept up private conversations involving members of Congress, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday night.

Further, the Journal reports that intercepted conversations between Israeli leaders confirmed Israel’s knowledge of the talks, as well as its intent to undermine any nuclear deal with Iran by leaking its details. When Netanyahu and his top aides came to Washington to talk with Jewish-American groups and members of Congress to lobby against the deal, the NSA was there to pick up the conversations.

Senior officials told the WSJ that those conversations collected by the NSA raised fears “that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.” The White House wanted the information anyway, however, because it “believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign.”

So in order to avoid leaving a trail, the White House left it to the NSA to figure out what to share, and the NSA obliged, deleting names of members and any personal attacks on the administration.

To summarize…

1. Obama Inc. used surveillance of an ally and of domestic groups, even members of Congress, to defend its own political agenda

2. It did so relying on plausible deniability

3. The information was shared across the administration and planted in the media

Kerry justified his accusation by pointing to Israeli media reports, but those reports were a convenient source, given that “Intelligence officials said the media reports allowed the U.S. to put Mr. Netanyahu on notice without revealing they already knew his thinking. The prime minister mentioned no secrets during his speech to Congress,” wrote the Journal.

There was no firewall between spying for national security and for a political agenda. That was the most important point here. Everything else is plausible deniability.

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

When you hear the current Obama denials, remember that they almost certainly played another variation of the same game.