BREAKING>>>>Nunes: Intel community surveiled Trump transition officials

[Silver Pines]

Ben Shapiro‏Verified account @benshapiro  52m52 minutes ago

 1. Nunes said Trump monitored via intelligence collected on foreigners. Legally.
2. Leaks are illegal.
3. Trump said Obama wiretapped him.

[don-o]

Nunes just stated these were legal surveillance through Fisa warrants...also said the FBI is not cooperating re this.

Well, well. Last time I checked, a warrant was not required to stand on the street and note who is going into a building.

[DiogenesLamp]

If you're gonna scold me, at least get your facts straight.

1.  The story reports that the information was apparently collected on the members of Trump's transition team, and as such it would have been after, not "leading up to" the election.

That is only what has been owned up to so far.   I shall not be surprised if we find this initial offing to be the tip  of the larger iceberg.   


   

[Idiot]

Didn't all the Trump haters tell us this was a made up non story that Trump just made up without any evidence?

Hmmm....I doubted the Donald.  I was wrong and apologize. 

[don-o]

Ben Shapiro‏Verified account @benshapiro  52m52 minutes ago

 1. Nunes said Trump monitored via intelligence collected on foreigners. Legally.
2. Leaks are illegal.
3. Trump said Obama wiretapped him.

https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/paa-dispelling-myths.html


3. MYTH: The Protect America Act allows the government to target Americans in the United States under the guise of surveilling a person located overseas – a practice known as "reverse targeting."

    FACT: "Reverse targeting" was, and remains, prohibited by law.

    FACT: The provisions of FISA that protect against this practice remain unchanged by the Protect America Act.  The law excludes from the category of "electronic surveillance," and thus from the FISA warrant requirement, only surveillance directed at individuals reasonably believed to be in foreign countries.

    FACT: "Reverse targeting" constitutes electronic surveillance and thus generally requires a court order under FISA.  Nothing in the Protect America Act changes this.

    FACT: "Reverse targeting" makes little sense as a matter of intelligence tradecraft.  If the government believes a person in the United States is a terrorist, it is more useful to obtain a court order to collect all of the person's communications than to conduct surveillance on that person by listening only to a fragment of the person's calls to individuals overseas.

[driftdiver]

If you're gonna scold me, at least get your facts straight.

1.  The story reports that the information was apparently collected on the members of Trump's transition team, and as such it would have been after, not "leading up to" the election.

2.  "Collecting information" could be as simple as taking note of who went in and out of Trump Towers -- not a "massive issue," and certainly not "wiretapping."  "Collection" might include data collected through regular, legal search warrants, such as would have been required to obtain information on Russian wire transfers into Paul Manaforte's bank account.

3.  The data collected is characterized as "incidental," suggesting that the primary targets of whatever intelligence gathering were not Trump's people, but rather different people who were under investigation, and who ended up contacting members of Trump's team.

@r9etb

I've seen reports that they started surveillance in July. 

Doesn't matter if its before or after.  This is a serious issue and will undermine our entire form of government regardless of whether you like the chump in charge or not.   That you would discount it and quibble over semantics is quite telling.

[driftdiver]

You've got more patience with these people than I do. They reflexively adopt childish leftist tactis of claiming they "din no nuffin"  Some of my earliest posts here during the primaries were about all the Russian ties.

Then they go to the straw men arguments. I never said anything about me taking down Trump and I at least know what the line of presidential succession is as I pointed out in this thread earlier today.

http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,255054.msg1267758.html#msg1267758

Stating a simple fact that Trump's administration will go down is not a statement of support. Its a simple statement of fact

@Cripplecreek
yep it'll go down in 3 years and about 9 months.    Or maybe 7 years and 9 months.   But it will end

[Victoria33]

It means Trump was sorta right.....

@mystery-ak

No, it means the NSA was collecting Russian phone calls/other ways of Russian communicating in this country and anyone who spoke to them/communicated by other means, would get incidentally collected.  There were no deliberate wiretaps/electronic surveillance of Trump Tower.  If he or his people had not communicated to Russian sources, there would be NO incidental information collected.  We know for sure his son-in-law communicated with them since he met in Trump Tower with the Russian Ambassador.  The NSA, Justice Dept., FBI have already gone on public record at that committee meeting, that there was no direct surveillance done on anyone in Trump Tower, no warrant issued to do that.

Trump will spin this present info. from the Republican Chairman of that Committee, saying he was right and his supporters will believe it.

[driftdiver]

@mystery-ak

No, it means the NSA was collecting Russian phone calls/other ways of Russian communicating in this country and anyone who spoke to them/communicated by other means, would get incidentally collected.  There were no deliberate wiretaps/electronic surveillance of Trump Tower.  If he or his people had not communicated to Russian sources, there would be NO incidental information collected.  We know for sure his son-in-law communicated with them since he met in Trump Tower with the Russian Ambassador.  The NSA, Justice Dept., FBI have already gone on public record at that committee meeting, that there was no direct surveillance done on anyone in Trump Tower, no warrant issued to do that.

Trump will spin this present info. from the Republican Chairman of that Committee, saying he was right and his supporters will believe it.

Is it illegal to talk to Russians?

[Silver Pines]

@mystery-ak

No, it means the NSA was collecting Russian phone calls/other ways of Russian communicating in this country and anyone who spoke to them/communicated by other means, would get incidentally collected.  There were no deliberate wiretaps/electronic surveillance of Trump Tower.  If he or his people had not communicated to Russian sources, there would be NO incidental information collected.  We know for sure his son-in-law communicated with them since he met in Trump Tower with the Russian Ambassador.  The NSA, Justice Dept., FBI have already gone on public record at that committee meeting, that there was no direct surveillance done on anyone in Trump Tower, no warrant issued to do that.

Trump will spin this present info. from the Republican Chairman of that Committee, saying he was right and his supporters will believe it.

@Victoria33

So will his hardcore supporters.  They're already off on tangents of assumptions.

Republicans and conservatives have become creatures of pure emotion.  It isn't about facts or truth anymore; it's about proving a personality right. 

[r9etb]

@r9etb

I've seen reports that they started surveillance in July. 

Doesn't matter if its before or after.  This is a serious issue and will undermine our entire form of government regardless of whether you like the chump in charge or not.   That you would discount it and quibble over semantics is quite telling.

I prefer to talk about factual facts, not facts that seem to kind of look like what you already hoped might be the case.  I like to be precise in the details, because that helps me to understand what is being said, done, and/or lied about.

What you dismiss as "semantics" is important -- or would be, if you really wanted to understand what's true.

[Right_in_Virginia]

It means Trump was sorta right.....

It means more than sorta @mystery-ak

House Intelligence Chairman: Trump Transition Members Were Monitored By Intel Community Under Obama
TownHall, Mar 22, 2017,  Katie Pavlich

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes revealed a number of American citizens who worked on the Trump transition team were monitored, surveilled and unmasked by the intelligence community during the previous Obama administration.

Although the monitoring was legal, it was certainly inappropriate. Information collected on these individuals was then widely disseminated, despite being irrelevant to ongoing investigations into Russia.

Nunes revelation comes three weeks after President Trump claimed President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. There hasn't been any evidence of wiretapping, but the White House argues Trump was referring to overall surveillance of his campaign, not specifically wiretapping.

Nunes will brief President Trump about his findings this afternoon.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/03/22/house-intelligence-chairman-trump-transition-members-were-inappropriately-monitored-n2302550

[r9etb]

If he or his people had not communicated to Russian sources, there would be NO incidental information collected.

I was told that such crucial distinctions are meaningless -- mere "semantics."  You will be assimilated.

[Right_in_Virginia]

@mystery-ak

No, it means the NSA was collecting Russian phone calls/other ways of Russian communicating in this country and anyone who spoke to them/communicated by other means, would get incidentally collected. 

Read this @Victoria33 -- you don't seem to recognize that disseminating the information collected .... is illegal.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/03/22/house-intelligence-chairman-trump-transition-members-were-inappropriately-monitored-n2302550

[Restored]

I think they already admitted to wiretapping the Russians in Trump Tower.

[Sanguine]

Bookmark.

[r9etb]

I think they already admitted to wiretapping the Russians in Trump Tower.

Which isn't quite the same thing as wiretapping Trump in Trump Tower.

The fact that Trump and his Russian tenants appear to have been jolly friends is interesting information, though.

[don-o]

@mystery-ak

No, it means the NSA was collecting Russian phone calls/other ways of Russian communicating in this country and anyone who spoke to them/communicated by other means, would get incidentally collected.  There were no deliberate wiretaps/electronic surveillance of Trump Tower.  If he or his people had not communicated to Russian sources, there would be NO incidental information collected.  We know for sure his son-in-law communicated with them since he met in Trump Tower with the Russian Ambassador.  The NSA, Justice Dept., FBI have already gone on public record at that committee meeting, that there was no direct surveillance done on anyone in Trump Tower, no warrant issued to do that.

Trump will spin this present info. from the Republican Chairman of that Committee, saying he was right and his supporters will believe it.

Read  up on "reverse targeting" *(illegal) in my 54 above. Incidental is supposed to be destroyed. Obama set the table for this by a large increase in the number of agencies who get a look at data that has been collected. Basically assured that some leakers could be counted on.

[skeeter]

I can't believe this is a breaking story when most of us paying attention see that Obama was spying on Trump and that the Rats are the ones up to their eyeballs in taking Soviet money for favors.

Its pretty clear some folks have an emotional stake in being 'right' about Trump to the point that their comments are beginning to border on ludicrous.

Earlier last year those people were pretty much on the Trump side. Not so anymore.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Still no evidence from what I can see. A Congressman asserting stuff, but no evidence.

[Victoria33]

I was told that such crucial distinctions are meaningless -- mere "semantics." 

@r9etb

That is why posting facts here gets you no where with some Trump people - their cortex doesn't have a high level of function when Trump is the subject.

[skeeter]

Still no evidence from what I can see. A Congressman asserting stuff, but no evidence.

A congressman who's the chairman of the House intelligence committee.

[r9etb]

Read  up on "reverse targeting" *(illegal) in my 54 above. Incidental is supposed to be destroyed.

This is not necessarily a case of reverse targeting, though.  In the link you provided, "reverse targeting" is a method of trying to get around domestic wiretap rules by pretending to target a person overseas.

However, if a legal warrant for a wiretap has been issued for one person, and that person happens to contact, or is contacted by, an outside person, that is not a case of "reverse targeting" on the outside person.

As for the incidental information collected, "When a FISA wiretap or search reveals evidence of a crime, the FBI is obligated under both Executive Order 123337 and the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to take reasonable steps to pass such evidence to the law enforcement community for use in investigating and/or prosecuting that case as a criminal matter."  https://www.fletc.gov/sites/default/files/imported_files/training/programs/legal-division/downloads-articles-and-faqs/research-by-subject/miscellaneous/ForeignIntelligenceSurveillanceAct.pdf

Which could in fact explain the "widely disseminated" part of Nunes' comment.

[SirLinksALot]

Still no evidence from what I can see. A Congressman asserting stuff, but no evidence.

Yep, a Congressman who just so happens to be the chair of the HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE...., the committee tasked with INVESTIGATING this issue of Russian Collusion, alleged wiretaps and leaks.

 Are you telling us that he's making stories up and not getting his information from sources he finds reliable? Hard to believe.

[Frank Cannon]

@mystery-ak

No, it means the NSA was collecting Russian phone calls/other ways of Russian communicating in this country and anyone who spoke to them/communicated by other means, would get incidentally collected. 

Give me a break. There is no incidentally. If Trump was to admit to criminality on those calls he wouldn't be given a pass, he would be arrested. Beyond all that spin you gave the practice is illegal and Obama and his people were fully aware of it.