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Seven years after the arrest that became his lifes preoccupation, Scott Jordan Jr. is still in disbelief.I was blown away at how that all just unfolded and how I was treated, Jordan said in an interview following the recent jury verdict in a civil rights lawsuit he successfully brought against police in Waldoboro, Maine. Jordan, 43, a corrections officer for 23 years at the Cumberland County Jail, has been fighting his 2014 arrest for what police had portrayed as elder abuse.The case centered around Jordans ailing then-66-year-old, father, Scott Jordan Sr., who had once sold and delivered seafood and later co-owned an antique shop.He bounced around from job to job, Jordan said of his father, who he described as an alcoholic smoker with liver disease and diabetes. Jordan said he spent time and money fixing up his fathers house, in Waldoboro, so it could be sold to pay for medical treatment and that he planned to have his father move in with him.Jordan said, Whenever he needed me, I was always there for him. Jordan said, during a hospital stay, his father feared his assets could be seized and asked his son to assume power of attorney over his financial affairs. On May 15, 2014, Jordan Sr. signed the form.I wasnt even in the room when he signed it, Jordan said. At no point was he concerned with me pocketing cash and absconding to Switzerland or something.Jordan raised $3,000 in a yard sale of his fathers belongings, took possession of his 2003 Chevy Silverado pickup truck--and his guns, two shotguns and a revolver, he says, because his father was expressing suicidal and irrational thoughts.Jordan recounted telling his father: Dad, youre in and out of it. I dont want to see you have an episode and then think Im some burglar, and Im really your son, and you take a shot at me.On July 31, 2014, Jordan Sr. rescinded the power of attorney, and his lawyer subsequently asked Jordan Jr. for an accounting of the fathers belongings. Jordan Sr. also called Waldoboro Police.I received numerous complaints from his father, Senior, that he felt his son was exploiting him financially, Larry Hesseltine, then a Waldoboro detective who picked up the investigation, said in an interview.Hesseltine is now police chief in Wiscasset, capping a 30-year career in law enforcement.He said, I take pride in being that police officer that is out there to help people.He said he had no prior experience dealing with a power of attorney agreement.His son had obtained some property that wanted back, and his son was refusing to return it for whatever reason, Hesseltine said. My time talking with Senior, from August on, til November, the time of arrest, I never once felt Senior was suicidal.In November 2014, Jordan Jr. posted an ad on Craigs List selling the truck for $7,900. After learning that, Hasseltine filled out a search warrant for Juniors home approved by a judge.The crime is theft, Hesseltine said. The fact that he was in law enforcement, in my mind back then, didnt put him above the law. However, as court proceedings would later decide, the warrant neglected to mention the original power of attorney or that Jordan Jr. had offered to give his fathers guns to police for safe keeping. On November 21, 2014, without ever interviewing Jordan Jr., Hesseltine arrested him at his Standish home in front of his 10-year-old daughter.Jordan said, I was in full uniform, armed myself, getting her ready for school, and he took me down like a Colombian drug lord, with my house surrounded.Bail conditions required Jordan Jr. to stay away from his father, who died 10 months later, in September 2015, at 67. The son never saw the father again. Without the key prosecution witness, the Knox County District Attorney dropped all criminal charges. In 2016, Jordan Jr, sued Hesseltine, the police department, and the town for wrongful arrest stemming from what the plaintiff depicted as a faulty search warrant resulting in a wrongful arrest.Jordan said, It was done illegally. He didnt present the facts the way he was supposed to. He didnt fact check anything.The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures by their government.For the year his criminal investigation was active, Jordan was suspended from his corrections officer job, six months without pay. Unpaid, on MaineCare, getting Food Stamps, Jordan said.After an eight-day trial in Portland federal court last month, with Hesseltine the only remaining defendant, a jury sided with Jordan and awarded him $15,000 in damages, far less than the $175,000 the town of Waldoboro had offered him to settle the case and keep quiet.Jordan said, Im getting satisfaction. Im getting my name back.Hesseltine was never disciplined and says he acted with guidance from the DA and state attorney general, and until the jury verdict, says no one told hed done anything wrong.I dont agree with the jurys decision, but I have to respect the jurys decision, and going forward, I can only take steps to make sure Im never is this situation again. Hesseltine said. My only regret is I wish I had taken better notes back then. ###

Seven years after the arrest that became his lifes preoccupation, Scott Jordan Jr. is still in disbelief.

I was blown away at how that all just unfolded and how I was treated, Jordan said in an interview following the recent jury verdict in a civil rights lawsuit he successfully brought against police in Waldoboro, Maine.

Jordan, 43, a corrections officer for 23 years at the Cumberland County Jail, has been fighting his 2014 arrest for what police had portrayed as elder abuse.

The case centered around Jordans ailing then-66-year-old, father, Scott Jordan Sr., who had once sold and delivered seafood and later co-owned an antique shop.

He bounced around from job to job, Jordan said of his father, who he described as an alcoholic smoker with liver disease and diabetes.

Jordan said he spent time and money fixing up his fathers house, in Waldoboro, so it could be sold to pay for medical treatment and that he planned to have his father move in with him.

Jordan said, Whenever he needed me, I was always there for him.

Jordan said, during a hospital stay, his father feared his assets could be seized and asked his son to assume power of attorney over his financial affairs.

On May 15, 2014, Jordan Sr. signed the form.

I wasnt even in the room when he signed it, Jordan said. At no point was he concerned with me pocketing cash and absconding to Switzerland or something.

Jordan raised $3,000 in a yard sale of his fathers belongings, took possession of his 2003 Chevy Silverado pickup truck--and his guns, two shotguns and a revolver, he says, because his father was expressing suicidal and irrational thoughts.

Jordan recounted telling his father: Dad, youre in and out of it. I dont want to see you have an episode and then think Im some burglar, and Im really your son, and you take a shot at me.

On July 31, 2014, Jordan Sr. rescinded the power of attorney, and his lawyer subsequently asked Jordan Jr. for an accounting of the fathers belongings. Jordan Sr. also called Waldoboro Police.

I received numerous complaints from his father, Senior, that he felt his son was exploiting him financially, Larry Hesseltine, then a Waldoboro detective who picked up the investigation, said in an interview.

Hesseltine is now police chief in Wiscasset, capping a 30-year career in law enforcement.

He said, I take pride in being that police officer that is out there to help people.

He said he had no prior experience dealing with a power of attorney agreement.

His son had obtained some property that wanted back, and his son was refusing to return it for whatever reason, Hesseltine said. My time talking with Senior, from August on, til November, the time of arrest, I never once felt Senior was suicidal.

In November 2014, Jordan Jr. posted an ad on Craigs List selling the truck for $7,900.

After learning that, Hasseltine filled out a search warrant for Juniors home approved by a judge.

The crime is theft, Hesseltine said. The fact that he was in law enforcement, in my mind back then, didnt put him above the law.

However, as court proceedings would later decide, the warrant neglected to mention the original power of attorney or that Jordan Jr. had offered to give his fathers guns to police for safe keeping.

On November 21, 2014, without ever interviewing Jordan Jr., Hesseltine arrested him at his Standish home in front of his 10-year-old daughter.

Jordan said, I was in full uniform, armed myself, getting her ready for school, and he took me down like a Colombian drug lord, with my house surrounded.

Bail conditions required Jordan Jr. to stay away from his father, who died 10 months later, in September 2015, at 67. The son never saw the father again.

Without the key prosecution witness, the Knox County District Attorney dropped all criminal charges.

In 2016, Jordan Jr, sued Hesseltine, the police department, and the town for wrongful arrest stemming from what the plaintiff depicted as a faulty search warrant resulting in a wrongful arrest.

Jordan said, It was done illegally. He didnt present the facts the way he was supposed to. He didnt fact check anything.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures by their government.

For the year his criminal investigation was active, Jordan was suspended from his corrections officer job, six months without pay.

Unpaid, on MaineCare, getting Food Stamps, Jordan said.

After an eight-day trial in Portland federal court last month, with Hesseltine the only remaining defendant, a jury sided with Jordan and awarded him $15,000 in damages, far less than the $175,000 the town of Waldoboro had offered him to settle the case and keep quiet.

Jordan said, Im getting satisfaction. Im getting my name back.

Hesseltine was never disciplined and says he acted with guidance from the DA and state attorney general, and until the jury verdict, says no one told hed done anything wrong.

I dont agree with the jurys decision, but I have to respect the jurys decision, and going forward, I can only take steps to make sure Im never is this situation again. Hesseltine said. My only regret is I wish I had taken better notes back then.

###

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Cumberland County corrections officer sees vindication in jury verdict for wrongful arrest - WMTW Portland

The University initially required mandatory vaccines in order to come back to school for the fall, but their policy was challenged with a lawsuit.

MANSFIELD, Connecticut UConn has approved more than 500 unvaccinated students to return to campus this fall.

Recently filed court documents showed they were granted exemptions from the University's requirement for non-medical reasons.

The University initially required mandatory vaccines in order to come back to school for the fall, but their policy was challenged with a lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, it argued, "imposing mandatory vaccinations as a condition for attending UConn violates their Fourth Amendment procedural due process" and it went on to say it violated state and federal laws that gives individuals an option to choose.

That is how Katrell Clay felt; while he is vaccinated, he believed it should not be forced.

"The vaccine is new and not a lot of people are comfortable with putting something into their body that there's not a whole lot of research on it but at the end of the day it's only been out for a year," said Clay, a senior at UConn.

Dr. Ted Doolittle, a state healthcare advocate said he is worried as these exemptions could mean getting the vaccinated infected too.

"Now they'll be around vaccinated people and we now know the vaccinated people can carry the virus too. Again, my concern is for the safety of these vaccinated students," said Dr. Doolittle of the CT State Office of the Healthcare Advocate.

The University's spokesperson said students who are vaccinated must show proof of their card to student health and wellness.

Their most recent figures showed over 90-percent of on-campus students are vaccinated, a percentage they expect to keep increasing.

Governor Lamont expressed his concern about UConn's decision at a news conference on Wednesday.

"We've got to sit down and talk to UConn about this. Look, people live in a congregate setting at UConn. They live in a congregate setting ... all our colleges ... really important for all our colleges to get back, an overwhelmingly amount is vaccinated so I do worry there's a lot of leakage there," said Gov. Lamont.

Even with strict guidelines, the unvaccinated must follow, some students said it still would make them uncomfortable.

"There's a level of uneasiness still because you can say you're getting quarantined and say you'll put your mask on but there's really no guarantee," said Jones, a senior at UConn.

UConn's spokesperson told FOX61 if students want to wait to get their vaccine until they arrived on campus, they can do so, and following up with those students, the University said a majority of them plan to.

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UConn's non-medical vaccine exemption met with criticism from students and healthcare advocates - FOX 61

Originally printed in the July 2021 issue of Produce Business.

It is not all that often that a produce company winds up with a case before the Supreme Court. So when Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid rose up a case involving Cedar Point, a strawberry nursery, and Fowler Packing, a shipper of grapes and mandarins we reached out to Jeremy Rabkin, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School and asked if he would explain the nature of the issues that brought the produce industry to the Supreme Court.

He was kind enough to do so. The Supreme Court wound up deciding in favor of Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing on June 23. We thought sharing Professor Rabkins analysis of what the case involved would be very valuable:

The first case in this century to deal with labor law involving agricultural workers Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid was heard by the Supreme Court this year.

The dispute [involved] a regulation requiring agricultural employers to grant access to union organizers to private land, so the organizers can make direct appeals to farm workers to support the union. This regulation requires growers to grant access for up to three hours a day and 120 days a year (in four 30-day periods). Cedar Point and Fowler Packing Co. refused (or tried to refuse) access to union organizers and so ran afoul of the regulatory body, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (CALRB).

As most of the California-based judges viewed the issue, CALRB is imposing reasonable regulation of commercial operations. The regulation is constitutional (in their view), since it does not impose costs that preclude commercially viable use of the affected land.

On the other side, advocates for Cedar Point argue that CALRB is not simply regulating how Cedar Point operates but it is taking control of its property. The right to exclude outsiders, they argue, is a fundamental aspect of ownership, and the regulation deprives Cedar Point of that right (even if the deprivation is limited and time-bound).

In the background, then, are different constitutional perspectives on property rights. These constitutional arguments about property have generated considerable interest in Cedar Point. Seventeen amicus briefs were filed with the Supreme Court, all arguing on behalf of property rights of the growers, most from organizations with no particular connection to agriculture policy.

But the Supreme Court likely sees the background constitutional issues only after noticing the foreground dispute about labor relations in agriculture. Perceptions of that foreground setting may well have changed since California began to regulate in this area, nearly a half century ago.

Defenders of the California regulation seem to have a solid precedent on their side. In NLRB v. Babcock & Wilcox(1956), the U.S. Supreme Court held that union organizers might have a legal claim to enter isolated work sites where they could not get access to workers otherwise. In 1975, it was at least plausible to think efforts to organize farm workers in California would fall under this dispensation.

In Babcock, the Supreme Court saw the need for balance between the organizing rights of employees (under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act) and the property rights of employers. But the Court saw that rule as inapplicable to the factory in Babcock (and related cases appealed at the same time): The plants are close to small well-settled communities where a large percentage of the employees live. The usual methods of imparting information are available. The Court concluded that the National Labor Relation Act does not require that the employer permit the use of its facilities for organization when other means are readily available.

Such reasoning in the 1970s might have seemed to justify access requirements for organizers trying to reach farm workers. Back then, a large proportion of farm work was done by migrant workers who lived in temporary shelters on the farms where they worked.

In its amicus brief, the California Farm Bureau Federation (representing growers) points out that some three-quarters of crop workers now work at a single location within 75 miles of their home (and almost all within a metropolitan area); all but a relative handful of workers live outside the properties where they work. The UFW even operates radio stations where it can easily give notice to workers about places to seek information (or impending meetings with organizers at other locations). It is not uncommon for farm workers to have cell phones. Off-site organizers can call them (or the workers can call the organizers) to get information about the time and place of outside meetings where the benefits of unionizing will be discussed.

On the other side, defenders of the CALRB regulation say it is not a great imposition on land owners because it stipulates that organizers should only be allowed an hour before and an hour after work and an hour during the lunch break. The growers complain, however, that the actual practice of organizers was to show up with bull-horns, blaring at workers during their lunch. The regulation, they say, goes beyond provision for distribution of leaflets or scheduling subsequent voluntary meetings. It facilitates bullying tactics, with organizers showing up day after day, haranguing the workers.

The reason to fear bullying tactics is that participation in the United Farm Workers Union has fallen off considerably. It is not because CALRB has failed to support organizing efforts. Even a quite liberal state supreme court chided the board in another case Gerawan Farming vs. ALRB for holding back ballots in a dispute over a union election which turned out to be overwhelmingly against joining the union.

If you accept the premise that workers can decide the question of unionizing for themselves, you might conclude they should be left to decide whether they want to attend organizing meetings at outside locations, rather than insist the organizers must come unto the land where workers happen to be engaged during the day. Or is that making too much fuss about land ownership?

The Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution prohibits taking private property except for public use and with just compensation. The guarantee does not emphasize land or real estate in particular. But the Supreme Court has long been more sympathetic to complaints about taking of physical property, even when partial and minor.

In this case, the Ninth Circuit judges previously concluded that the access rule imposed by CALRB was not a taking in this sense, because the access rights were of limited duration. An owner may sell a right of access or transit to a particular neighbor or affected business. The sale would not be less valid if the owner stipulated that it was only, say, for weekdays during daylight hours or alternately, only for holidays and other special days.

An amicus brief in Cedar Point, submitted by ten state attorneys general, poses the arresting question: If the government simply claimed such access rights and then handed them off to particular private parties, would that not be regarded as a taking of property?

One can object that it is overly formalistic to focus on whether there is some outside physical presence hence per se taking without analyzing how costly or intrusive it really might be in practice. But there is considerable attraction to drawing a bright line that isolates any ongoing outside presence as objectionable.

The point of private property is that the private owner gets to decide what is the best way to manage it, hence what intrusions to allow and what to reject. True, government regulations may require owners to adopt various safety devices (such as fences around pools or water) and environmental safeguards (say, by protecting endangered species), but the owners get to determine when and how to implement such obligations. Its something else arguably to allow outsiders to come in when they choose and operate directly on the owners land.

The danger of letting courts weigh costs and convenience is that public agencies with license from accommodating judges come to make more and more substantial claims, ending up as co-managers or nearly co-owners of the property, as they weigh how much of its use can be diverted to purposes the actual owner does not approve. It makes private property less private or makes property less meaningful as a claim to control by the owner.

An amicus brief in Cedar Point by the libertarian Cato Institute makes this point by analogy with the Fourth Amendment. That includes the guarantee that police (or other government agents) will not conduct searches except on probable cause [to suspect crime] and normally only after securing search warrants.

The analogy is instructive. Would we say it is acceptable for police to enter homes without warrants, so long as they only show up during the day, dont stay more than 45 minutes and merely take photographs of what can be seen from the center of each room? Would this really be so disruptive? Perhaps not, by some reckonings. But it might well undermine the point of the Fourth Amendment, to protect the home as a refuge from prying eyes.

Of course, we do empower governments to check up on things, even things on private property. Is there a danger that a sweeping decision in Cedar Point will endanger necessary government regulatory measures? It seems unlikely.

Some advocates may see union organizers as helping to implement a public purpose of bringing more workers under the protection of unions. The premise of labor legislation is not that everyone should be in a union but that workers should have a right to decide.

If workers need to be protected against pressure from employers, they may also deserve protection from bullying organizers. Perhaps growers here who add so much to the healthfulness and variety of our meals have some claim to be protected from disruptions, too.

The Supreme Courts willingness to take up Cedar Point suggests it wants to say more about labor law. Perhaps it also wants to say more about property rights. The immediate upshot may be little more than requiring California to pay compensation for letting union organizers march onto private property. But how the Court explains this result may cast a shadow over future legal developments (for good or ill).

The follow up to this decision has been relatively quiet, mostly because the case is complicated. There is no question, though, that it is an important win for growers and, we would say, for all who believe in the concept of private property.

In a conversation with Professor Rabkin after the decision, he pointed out that the 6-3 decision with all the Republican appointees in favor and all the Democratic appointees opposed that this might indicate a common line in defending property rights, even when that requires them to expand the reach of settled precedent.

The legal question revolved heavily on what was a taking and what was a regulation. The majority of justices joined Chief Justice John Roberts opinion relying on the constitutional provision calling for just compensation in the event of a government taking and finding a law that allowed Union Organizers onto private property such a taking:

Government-authorized invasions of property whether by plane, boat, cable, or beachcomber are physical takings requiring just compensation.

In contrast, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the dissenting justices:

The regulation does not appropriate anything. It gives union organizers the right temporarily to invade a portion of the property owners land. It thereby limits the landowners right to exclude certain others. The regulation regulates (but does not appropriate) the owners right to exclude.

The California law at issue was enacted in 1975, and the United States Supreme Court had, in 1976, refused to take up the case. So this is a big change of settled law.

Though it didnt seem to be a big issue in the opinion, we would argue that communications technology has made a huge change in the way these types of cases will fall in the future. The invention of cell phones, the Internet, social media, etc., changes these issues. Back in 1975, maybe workers were isolated but, nowadays, they all have cell phones and go on the Internet.

It also was disturbing that Justice Breyers dissent did not give more credence to the rights of property owners. It is one thing to let in police, fire fighters, property inspectors or other government employees who have legal obligations in how to behave and what to do on your property. It is something else entirely to have private actors, not constrained in the same way, traipsing across ones property.

We thank Professor Rabkin for helping the industry think through this important case.

Read more here:
A Produce Industry Victory In The US Supreme Court - Produce Business

Modern technology has many benefits, but one potential downside concerns its effect on individual privacy. A bill scheduled for a hearing this morning in the Massachusetts legislature seeks to protect one aspect of privacy the right to be free from being videotaped in our own backyards. Daniel Medwed, Northeastern University law professor and GBH News legal analyst, joined Aaron Schachter on GBH's Morning Edition to talk about the proposed backyard privacy bill.

Schachter: Lets start with the basics. Who proposed the bill and what is it about?

Medwed: Representative Joseph McKenna is the chief sponsor of the bill, and it is scheduled for a hearing later this morning in the judiciary committee. Heres what it would do, if enacted in its current form: Any owner or tenant of residential real property would have the right to sue anyone who sets up a camera on adjoining property for the purpose of taping or taking photos of activities in the backyard without their consent and with the intent to harass, annoy, alarm or threaten. And that lawsuit could result in the award of monetary damages. Those are the key features.

Schachter: Lots of questions here. What about security cameras? Many people have cameras for surveillance purposes and some of those devices presumably capture images in a neighbors backyard. Would that behavior fall under the bill?

Medwed: No, and heres why. The law is defined quite narrowly. First, the camera must be set up for the purpose of capturing images of backyard activities; A homeowner could claim that a security camera did not have that purpose, that its purpose was to safeguard the home. Second, the person must have the intent to harass, annoy, alarm or threaten those subject to the backyard images and that is a high bar to meet. So I think security cameras, for the most part, wouldnt fall under this potential law. Also, its important to keep in mind that this law would just set up whats called a private civil right of action a right to sue someone in court. It wouldnt create a new criminal offense.

WATCH: Daniel Medwed on "backyard privacy" bill and security cameras

Schachter: Daniel, what about law enforcement? I imagine the police sometimes use video technology to capture images of backyard activities. Would that be covered by this law?

Medwed: No, it wouldnt. The language of the law specifies that it shall not apply to any law enforcement personnel engaged in the conduct of their authorized duties. The key phrase there, I think, is authorized duties. Just because youre a law enforcement officer [it] wouldnt give you license to film your neighbors in violation of this law only if you are authorized to do so, that is, youve gone through the appropriate processes to make sure youre in compliance with the Fourth Amendment and internal policies.

Schachter: What about front yards? I find it curious that the law only addresses backyard activities. Any thoughts on that?

Medwed: Thats an interesting question. I often tell my students that legislation is like a piece of sausage we see it in its nice, tidy casing but dont really know whats inside and how it was exactly produced. My hunch is that the drafters here realized that including front yards would be a tough sell to the legislature and eventually perhaps the courts. To be sure, we have a privacy interest in our front yards and the comings and goings of our front doors but, unlike backyards, our front yards typically face a public street and we all have diminished expectations of privacy in public spaces.

Its possible, though, that front yards could be included in a future iteration or amendment of this bill. Last year our Supreme Judicial Court expressed concerns about the police using long-term pole cameras to track visitors to and from a private residence, so there is precedent for the idea that we have some expectation of privacy even in the front of our homes.

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GBH Do You Have A Right To Privacy In Your Own Backyard? - wgbh.org

U.S. intelligence officials face bipartisan congressional pressure to explain their use of surveillance powers, following a rebuke from a federal judge and Fox News host Tucker Carlson's high-profile dispute with the National Security Agency.

"Our institutions are only as good as the American public's confidence in them," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote a top intelligence official, requesting an investigation of Carlson's allegation the NSA violated his privacy. "The NSA publicly responded to Mr. Carlson's allegations with a statement on Twitter that frankly only created more questions."

Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not dispute the NSA's denial of wrongdoing in Carlson's case. Yet, Rubio's request for "a formal inquiry" into Carlson's complaint coincided with a sharper rebuke of the FBI, which has drawn bipartisan ire due to a federal judge's revelation of "pervasive" misuse of data collected by the NSA.

"We each share an obligation to protect Americans' civil liberties," Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz and California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren wrote in a Tuesday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray. "However, the FBI has repeatedly violated the civil liberties of Americans through widespread misuse of Section 702 data."

TUCKER CARLSON'S NAME IN NSA INTERCEPTS REVEALED THROUGH 'UNMASKING': REPORT

Section 702 is a provision of federal law that allows the NSA to collect the communications of foreign targets overseas without a warrant. That surveillance authority looms over both controversies, as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge revealed FBI officials have failed to follow the rules designed to prevent the Section 702 program from being used in violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.

"The FBI's failure to properly apply its querying standard when searching Section 702-acquired information was more pervasive than was previously believed," the judge wrote in a November 18, 2020, opinion that the Office of the Director of Intelligence published in April.

Carlson, for his part, has accused President Joe Biden's administration of "spying" on him and planning to leak his plans to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I wasn't embarrassed about trying to interview Putin. He's obviously newsworthy," Carlson said last month. "But still, in this case, I decided to keep it quiet. I figured that any kind of publicity would rattle the Russians and make the interview less likely to happen. But the Biden administration found out anyway, by reading my emails."

NSA officials denied that Carlson was a "target" of surveillance, while his account spurred outside analysts to surmise the U.S. spy agencies tasked with monitoring the communications of Putin's associates detected Carlson's interview request a phenomenon known as "incidental" collection.

"By law, I should have been identified internally merely as a U.S. journalist or American journalist," Carlson said. "But that's not how I was identified. It was identified by name. I was unmasked."

Rubio, following Carlson's demand for an explanation from National Intelligence director Avril Haines and NSA Director Paul Nakasone, urged Haines to coordinate with the NSA to launch a "formal inquiry" into both aspects of the controversy: the initial information gathering and the alleged unmasking.

However, the senator did not dispute the NSA's denial and suggested a transparent investigation might clear the air.

"Our institutions are only as good as the American public's confidence in them," Rubio wrote to Haines. "As such, it is essential that the IC under your leadership hold itself to account if misconduct has occurred, and convincingly reassure an American public increasingly attuned to the perception of widespread misconduct where it has not occurred."

Spartz, Lofgren, and 15 other House lawmakers took up the FISA court judge's findings rather than Carlson's complaint. They signaled to Wray they are confident the FBI is guilty of "misuse of raw Section 702 data," although they did not refer to Carlson. They set a deadline for the FBI chief to schedule a classified briefing on the controversy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

"The FBI has systematically failed to comply with Section 702 restrictions and its own regulations to protect Americans' civil liberties," Spartz, the Indiana Republican, said Tuesday in a statement accompanying the release of the Aug. 2 letter. "The core function of the government is to protect our constitutional rights, and members of Congress should be briefed by FBI officials regarding the bureau's efforts to remediate this issue."

Original Location: Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA

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Congress pressures US spy agencies as Tucker Carlson feuds with NSA - Denver Gazette