Mediaboss Marketing

CNSNews.com (blog)

NSA Director: Decision to Unmask 'Really Important' People Can Depend on Whether He's 'Comfortable' CNSNews.com (blog) If the person mentioned in an investigation is really important, officials will check with him to make sure he's comfortable before making that person's name public, National Security Agency (NSA) Director Mike Rogers testified in a House hearing Monday. and more »

See the original post:
NSA Director: Decision to Unmask 'Really Important' People Can Depend on Whether He's 'Comfortable' - CNSNews.com (blog)

5542330

WASHINGTON House Intelligence Committee Republicans told the intelligence community Monday that they may not want to reauthorize an intelligence gathering tool that may have snagged and IDed former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn during surveillance of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

I have every expectation that those we are going to get all the evidence that we need. Now if it wasnt then, yeah wed have a problem, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told The Daily Caller when asked if members may not reauthorize the surveillance initiative if the intel community does not cooperate and provide names of any individual involved with the leak of Flynns name.

Florida Republican Rep. Tom Rooney, who chairs a subcommittee that oversees the National Security Agency, disclosed at the House Intelligence Committee hearing Monday he was concerned he will have a difficult time convincing his fellow Republican members that they should vote for reauthorizing an expiring section of the Patriot Act at the end of the year.

Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government can collect intelligence by targeting foreigners suspected to be outside U.S. borders. However, incidental conversations these individuals have with Americans can happen and that is what members believe happened to Flynn.

But as an American citizen, his name must be masked. Instead, Flynns name was revealed and released to the press.

If it hurts, this leak, which through the 702 tool which we all agree is vital, you and I at least agree to that, do you think that leak threatens our national security? If its a crime and if its unveiling a masked personand this tool is so important and when we have to reauthorize it in a few months if this is used against us to reauthorize this tool and we cant get it done, Rooney said in an exchange with NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers.

He continued, Whoever did this leak or these nine people who did this leak [if they] create such a stir, whether it be in our legislative process or whatever, and they dont feel confident that a U.S. person under the 702 program can be masked successfully and not be leaked to the press, doesnt that leak hurt our national security?

Rogers answered in the affirmative.

Fellow intelligence committee member South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy stated that getting their members to support reauthorization may only happen if the intelligence community tell them who leaked Flynns name.

What we are reauthorizing this fall has nothing to do with what we are discussing, Gowdy said, but added that the public does not draw the distinction.

During the hearing, Rogers disclosed that only 20 people, including himself and FBI Director James Comey, could possibly have decided to have unmasked Flynns name. However, the other names were not revealed.

Follow Kerry on Twitter

See original here:
Republicans Warn Reauthorization Of NSA Surveillance Tool Will Be Hard After Flynn Leaks - Daily Caller

NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett answers questions during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the House-passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reform bill while on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 5, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are arrant nonsense, the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday.

President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that Britains GCHQ was behind the surveillance.

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, told BBC News the idea that Britain had a hand in spying on Trump was just crazy.

It belies a complete lack of understanding of how the relationship works between the intel community agencies, it completely ignores the political reality of would the UK government agree to do that?', Ledgett said.

There would be no advantage for Britains government in spying on Trump, given the potential cost, he said.

It would be epically stupid, said Ledgett, who is due to retire shortly.

Current and former NSA officials have described an acrimonious relationship between intelligence agencies and the Trump administration.

Trump, who became president in January, tweeted earlier this month that his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign. The Republican president offered no evidence for the allegation, which an Obama spokesman said was simply false.

Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday accused the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) the British equivalent of the NSA of having helped Obama to spy on Trump.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer quoted Napolitanos comments on Thursday.

GCHQ said the claims it spied on Trump were utterly ridiculous and should be ignored, in a rare public statement.

On Friday, Trump said questions on this should be asked of Fox News, not him.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Go here to see the original:
Just crazy: Top NSA official ridicules Trump for British ...

Allegations from the United States that British spy agency GCHQ snooped on Donald Trump during his election campaign are arrant nonsense, the deputy head of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) said in an interview on Saturday.

President Trump has stood by unproven claims that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race. On Thursday his spokesman cited a media report that Britains GCHQ was behind the surveillance.

Richard Ledgett, deputy director of the NSA, told BBC News the idea that Britain had a hand in spying on Trump was just crazy.

It belies a complete lack of understanding of how the relationship works between the intel community agencies, it completely ignores the political reality of would the UK government agree to do that?', Ledgett said.

There would be no advantage for Britains government in spying on Trump, given the potential cost, he said.

It would be epically stupid, said Ledgett, who is due to retire shortly.

Current and former NSA officials have described an acrimonious relationship between intelligence agencies and the Trump administration.

Trump, who became president in January, tweeted earlier this month that his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him during the late stages of the 2016 campaign. The Republican president offered no evidence for the allegation, which an Obama spokesman said was simply false.

Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday accused the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) the British equivalent of the NSA of having helped Obama to spy on Trump.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer quoted Napolitanos comments on Thursday.

GCHQ said the claims it spied on Trump were utterly ridiculous and should be ignored, in a rare public statement.

On Friday, Trump said questions on this should be asked of Fox News, not him.

More:
NSA official: Trump's British spying claim is 'nonsense' - New York Post

In the sworn declarations, however, Murphy and Hayden argued no such thing occurred.

"Neither the PSP (President's Surveillance Program), nor any other NSA intelligence-gathering activity, at any time has involved indiscriminate 'blanket' surveillance in Salt Lake City or the vicinity of the 2002 Winter Olympic venues, whether during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games or otherwise," Murphy wrote.

He noted that NSA collection of communications did and does continue to exist but was "targeted at one-end foreign communications where a communicant was reasonably believed to be a member or agent of al-Qaeda or another international terrorist organization."

Murphy noted he wouldn't reveal more specific details about NSA surveillance techniques including the PSP program, which expired in 2007, because it remains classified in order "to protect sensitive intelligence sources and methods."

Even making a decision to deny the allegations of blanket surveillance was a decision "not taken lightly" within the NSA, Murphy said. Usually, he said, the NSA would neither "confirm nor deny" such allegations regarding intelligence gathering.

"Indeed, the very existence of the PSP was a closely guarded state secret for over four years, until a wave of unauthorized public disclosures about the (terrorist surveillance program) were reported by the media in December 2005," he wrote.

Murphy in his declaration also said it was untrue that the NSA had stored the contents of communications, or metadata, obtained as part of any blanket surveillance.

Hayden added that it was untrue that there was both blanket surveillance of email, text messages, and metadata of phone calls during the Olympics, and he denied that he was the one who "personally" caused the NSA to engage in such a practice.

"All of these allegations are false," Hayden said.

The plaintiffs are represented by former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Anderson in 2015 told The Salt Lake Tribune that the Olympics surveillance "was the most immense, clearly illegal and unconstitutional, indiscriminate wholesale surveillance of the content of communications of people in this country by our government in our nation's history."

Anderson could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, was the first to report in 2013 that the NSA and FBI "monitored the content of all email and text communications in the Salt Lake City area," around the 2002 Games.

lramseth@sltrib.com

Twitter: @lramseth

Continue reading here:
Top NSA officials deny 'blanket' surveillance during Salt Lake City ... - Salt Lake Tribune