consortiumnews | As those paying rudimentary attention to modern methods of
surveillance know, “wiretapping” is passé. But Trump’s use of the word
allowed FBI and Department of Justice officials and their counterparts
at the National Security Agency to swear on a stack of bibles that the
FBI, DOJ, and NSA have been unable to uncover any evidence within their
particular institutions of such “wiretapping.”
At the House Intelligence Committee hearing on March 20, FBI Director
Comey and NSA Director Michael Rogers firmly denied that their agencies
had wiretapped Trump Towers on the orders of President Obama.
So, were Trump and his associates “wiretapped?” Of course not.
Wiretapping went out of vogue decades ago, having been rendered obsolete
by leaps in surveillance technology.
The real question is: Were Trump and his associates surveilled? Wake
up, America. Was no one paying attention to the disclosures from NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 when he exposed Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper as a liar for denying that the NSA
engaged in bulk collection of communications inside the United States.
The reality is that EVERYONE, including the President, is
surveilled. The technology enabling bulk collection would have made the
late demented FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s mouth water.
Allegations about the intelligence community’s abuse of its powers
also did not begin with Snowden. For instance, several years earlier,
former NSA worker and whistleblower Russell Tice warned about these
“special access programs,” citing first-hand knowledge, but his claims
were brushed aside as coming from a disgruntled employee with
psychological problems. His disclosures were soon forgotten.
However, earlier this year, there was a stark reminder of how much
fear these surveillance capacities have struck in the hearts of senior
U.S. government officials. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New
York told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow
that President Trump was “being really dumb” to take on the intelligence
community, since “They have six ways from Sunday at getting back at
you.”
Maddow shied away from asking the logical follow-up: “Senator
Schumer, are you actually saying that Trump should be afraid of the
CIA?” Perhaps she didn’t want to venture down a path that would raise
more troubling questions about the surveillance of the Trump team than
on their alleged contacts with the Russians.
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