Rand Paul Fears His Conversations May Have Been ‘Unmasked’ by the Obama Administration

Before we get into the meat of this post, it’s important to refresh our memories on what the unmasking scandal is and why it’s important. In order to do that, let’s revisit excerpts from last month’s post, If What Susan Rice Did Wasn’t Illegal, It Should Be:

U.S. citizens who are caught up incidentally in foreign intelligence surveillance are typically subject to minimization rules to conceal their identities, though there are some exceptions.

Individuals can be exempt from the minimization rules if their identities are necessary to understand the value of the foreign intelligence.

Paul used Monday’s development to renew his push for reform of a controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allows the U.S. intelligence community to target non-Americans outside the United States without a warrant. The provision, Section 702, is up for renewal later this year.

Paul’s emphasis on reforming the law is exactly where it ought to be. For example, Susan Rice herself explained during a recent MSNBC interview, how the unmasking process works. Basically, she sees an intelligence report containing surveilled conversations between a foreigner and an American, and if she decides she wants to unmask the American, she makes that request to the intelligence community, which then approves or denies the request. That’s all it takes. Think about how potentially abusive this is. What happened when you have a situation where the deep state and the President are adamantly united against a candidate, as they were against Trump? Naturally they’re going to approve the unmasking of a political enemy, and it appears that is precisely what happened.

The key thing to remember here is that the current “process” of unmasking an American is rife for abuse. All it takes is a political operative who wants the surveillance intelligence, in this case Susan Rice, to request it from the intelligence community. No normal judge is needed to issue a warrant in a transparent process as should be the case. This makes a political hit using classified intelligence extremely easy, particularly against a guy like Trump. Just submit the request to an intel community that already hates the guy, get the information you want, then make sure it gets leaked to the press. Whether you like Mike Flynn or not, this is what seems to have happened to him, and it’s shady as hell.

Given what we know happened to Flynn, the logical next question is who else did Susan Rice, or others in the Obama administration, “unmask” while they were in power? We don’t have answers to that yet, but Rand Paul has some concerning suspicions.

Here’s some of what he had to say on the subject, courtesy of a Fox News interview:

Earlier this week, Paul said reporters have told him they have evidence he was a target of Obama administration spying.

This is the first time that Paul mentioned another senator is also concerned about the Obama administration’s surveillance.

He said if this proves to be true, it’s a much bigger story than any allegations about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the presidential election.

“It’s about your own government spying on the opposition party,” Paul said. “That would be enormous if it’s true.”

Paul told Fox Business Network’s Charles Payne on Wednesday that he’s asked the White House and the House and Senate intelligence committees to investigate.

He said if the intelligence community is indeed being used for politics, it’s a “very, very serious crime.”

I completely agree with his assessment. We really need to get to the bottom of this fast, and reform the entire amateurish “unmasking” process.

Here’s the full interview, I suggest you watch it. Starts off slowly, but really gets going toward the end.

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Michael Krieger

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11 thoughts on “Rand Paul Fears His Conversations May Have Been ‘Unmasked’ by the Obama Administration”

  1. The title of the Fox article is intentionally misleading due to the imprecise language:
    “Paul: Another Senator Told Me He Was Surveilled by Obama Admin.”

    Most conservatives take the knee-jerk reaction/interpretation:
    “Paul: Another Senator (confirmed to me that I) Was Surveilled by Obama Admin,”
    when in essense this statement boils down to: two Senators believe that Obama surveiled them, but have zero proof. Either way, while Trump may not have friends in the intelligence field (and continues his best to make more enemies there), I can’t believe that of the Republican party in general.

    I’m also much more concerned that our President is so easily manipulated because of his tiny…ego… that he indirectly reveals intelligence assets to the Russians.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

    I can see how the conversation goes:
    Trump: “I have the greatest spies in the the world.”
    Russians: “No, we do.”
    Trump: “Oh, yeah? Well my spies (notice he wouldn’t say ‘our’ spies) are the ones who told us about laptop bombs on planes.”
    Russians: “Everybody already knows about that.”
    Trump: “Well, did you know that knowledge came form an ISIS spy in Damascus?”
    Russians: “No, we didn’t”
    Trump: “See? I am the greatest.”
    Russians: “Yes, you are truly the greatest (fool) that we have ever come across. Can I shake your hand? Smile for our camera.”

    Reply
  2. All this Russian crap is to move the conversation away from domestic spying. Such a joke the media and this government. That is the bigger story. So keep pushing the non stories to distract everyone. Thank you Mike for posting this story. This spying by our own government and previous administration is the bigger story!! Obama’s legacy is at stake as well as the Democratic Party!!

    Reply
  3. Dustin,
    One note on “domestic” spying: so far, the issue (both with Flynn and Rand Paul) has been about unmasking Americans that were communicating with foreigners. I’m not saying that unmasking is always okay, but that is significantly different than directly surveiling Americans. Let’s try to use clear terminology instead of clouding the issue.

    Reply
  4. BTN
    Never trust the media or your government. They are spying on everyone. The sooner we realize this the better we will all be. You are believing what you are told by the media. Aka government. Think bold ask bold questions. Watch I will be correct on this.

    Reply
  5. @ Btn

    “but that is significantly different than directly surveiling Americans”

    That is exactly the type of mindset they are hoping to create, Btn.

    You’re just whistling past the graveyard.

    Reply
  6. Genaro and Dustin,

    I only see 4 possible scenarios.
    1) Americans aren’t being surveilled illegally.
    2) Some people were illegally surveiled by Obama’a Administration, but Trump wasn’t one of them. In this case, perhaps the surveilance is limited to true threats (which isn’t great news, but better than a nationwide dragnet or just surveiling for political purposes).
    3) Trump was surveiled illegally (as he has already publicly claimed), but *Billionaire President* Trump doesn’t have the resources or access to prove it. In this case, any official gov’t investigation or any media investigation will go absolutely nowhere. The only chance for this story to come out is a major leak (eg, Snowden). Anything else is just spinning your tires.
    4) Trump was surveiled illegally and has the proof, but chooses not to release it, perhaps to protect the surveilance program. While this is a possibility, this behavior it is very uncharacteristic of an egotistical, self-centerred snowflake like Trump.

    So which scenario do you guys envision, 2, 3, or 4?

    Side note:

    Reply
    • None of them. You are buying into the main stream medias propoganda. It’s simple Snowden proved we are all survelled. The fact that the opposition party is and their names unmasked is the big story. All this needs to stop. You seem to be rationalizing illegal over reach of our government. All this is so against the constitution. You have bought into the idea of having no privacy. You need to not rationalize this. You need to be demanding answers and trying to make this stop. The people who did this should be facing persecution.

  7. Dustin, please read the options again – I covered all the bases, so it is logically impossible for them to be all false.

    Americans are either being surveiled illegally (Option 1 is true), or they aren’t (1 is false).
    If 1 is false, then either Trump was not surveiled illegally (2 is True) or he was surveiled illegally (2 is False).
    If Trump was being surveiled illegally (1 and 2 are both false), then that means he either can prove it (4 is true) or he can’t (3 is true).

    So all four options can’t be false.

    Reply

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