Surveillance in the Obama Era Senator describes another potential abuse of intelligence powers, media yawns.By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/surveillance-in-the-obama-era-1496683972
How far did the Obama Administration go in collecting intelligence on Americans, including members of the political opposition? This question has aroused little curiosity in much of the press corps or among Democratic politicians like Rep. Adam Schiff, who used to at least pretend they were concerned about government monitoring of telephone networks. But for citizens who still care about such potential threats to liberty, there was interesting news on Friday.
Specifically, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said during an appearance on Fox News:
I have reason to believe that a conversation that I had was picked up with some foreign leader or some foreign person and somebody requested that my conversation be unmasked. I’ve been told that by people in the intelligence community. All I can say is that there are 1,950 collections on American citizens talking to people that were foreign agents being surveilled either by the CIA, the FBI or the NSA. Here’s the concern: Did the people in the Obama Administration listen in to these conversations? Was there a politicizing of the intelligence gathering process? So what I want to know: Of the 1,950 incidental collections on American citizens, how many of them involved presidential candidates, members of Congress from either party and if these conversations were unmasked, who made the request? Because I want to know everything there is about unmasking, how it works and who requested unmasking of conversations between foreign people and American members of Congress.
Mr. Graham added that he does not know if he was in fact unmasked. But he made clear that he intends to learn the extent of the executive branch’s surveillance of him:
…I’ve sent a letter to the NSA, to the FBI and the CIA requesting any collection on Lindsey Graham. Now if you’ve got a reason to believe that a member of Congress is committing a crime, then you go get a warrant to follow us around like you would any other citizen. But I meet with foreign leaders all the time. And I would be upset if any executive branch agency listened in on my conversations, because I’m in another branch of government.
Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) has been saying for a while that two reporters have told him that he too was surveilled by the Obama Administration, according to the journalists’ sources within government. And then last month Mr. Paul said, also on Fox News, that a Senate colleague had confided that he believed he was also surveilled by the Obama Administration. Today a spokesman for Sen. Paul tells this column that the Kentuckian was referring to Sen. Graham and adds:
Senator Rand Paul remains very concerned about potential abuses committed by the Obama administration that led to members of congress being surveilled or unmasked. He has discussed potential legislative reforms with Senator Graham on preventing the executive branch from spying on the legislative branch in the future.
That’s fine to consider sensible legislation, but first let’s find out if the existing laws have been followed. Along with Messrs. Graham and Paul, the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team were swept up in the net of Obama-era intelligence collection. Mr. Graham, Mr. Paul and of course Mr. Trump were all competitors in seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. All of this raises the question: which Republican presidential candidates in 2016 were not surveilled? CONTINUE AT SITE
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