Obama Surveillance of Trump

Discussion in 'The Thunderdome' started by Tenacious D, Apr 4, 2017.

  1. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator

    Ok. Just asking. The timing of several things just strike me as curious. But like you said, probably nothing.
     
  2. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator

    Would her seeking immunity speak to her guilt should she seek it?
     
  3. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    No.

    Why wouldn't she, or anyone else, seek immunity?

    If I'm ever asked to testify before Congress, I'll seek it - just in case, and even if I am sure that I didn't do shit.
     
  4. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    Just like with a chunk of the Trump folks, you gotta be careful that you don't become a scapegoat.
     
  5. IP

    IP Super Moderator

  6. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

  7. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator


    Interesting.
     
  8. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator

  9. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator

    Is there anything to be gleaned from Bannon being removed from NSC and Nunes stepping away to deal with ethics complaints he released classified info stemming from his late night trip to WH? Or merely coincidence?
     
  10. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    I'm hoping tenny or someone can answers how one can know who they are unmasking? Isn't that what's being claimed? How do you know who you are asking to know? And why shouldn't she have asked that, given her position?
     
  11. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    Not sure what's interesting about it, really. Seems to be standard fare. I'd recommend that anyone ask for it - what's the worst they can do, besides say no?
     
  12. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    Why must a subpoena indicate that someone is hiding something?

    If your employer came to you right now and demanded to see the contents of your phone, would you allow them to do that, absent a subpoena? Should your demand that they produce a subpoena be seen by others, say your co-workers, as being indicative of your hiding some wrongdoing?

    I get that you're set in your belief on things, but I'm certain that you know how easily these suppositions and arguments can be refuted, and even before you make them. I don't know why there's got to be a demon or angel beneath each rock, to be honest, but as you wish and is your right to believe.
     
  13. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator

    I must have misunderstood your statements on Rice being helpful vs being compelled to testify.
     
  14. JayVols

    JayVols Walleye Catchin' Moderator

    My phone is my personal property. If it were their phone, I have no grounds, but I would have nothing to hide on my personal phone either.

    I have been questioned about bullshit before. I was happy to answer, so I could inform folks that if my name was mentioned again by an anonymous person they declined to tell me who was in connection with the foolishness, I'd have my employer subpoenaed to find out who it was so they could be included in the lawsuit I would be filing against my employer.
     
  15. Tenacious D

    Tenacious D The law is of supreme importance, or no importance

    I don't know that I can answer this, as I am not sure that I know, but I believe that the potential problems are three-fold:

    1. It is not normal for a person in her elevated role to receive "raw" intel, but only summaries of it. There are allegations that she was asking for "raw" intel, and which may have arrived unmasked.
    2. She may have received "masked" names of Americans (that's important to note), but knew of the names of the foreign principals involved and used other details to assume who the masked American names were most likely to be (for example, a masked report cannot contain "Ivanka Trump"...but it might say, "Surveillance intercepted communication originating from Trump Tower in NYC by 'Anonymous American Person A' to Sergei Kovalov of the Russian Ministry"). A better question is why someone in her elevated position would have asked for any names to be unmasked at all, for any reason, as her position is a consumer of intel, and is neither part of any agency who is charged with collecting and appraising any information in the course of a criminal investigation (i.e. The FBI), nor a member of any entity which is charged with the oversight of such criminal investigations. Simply, based on this, any request that she made to unmask a name could not have been motivated by any active criminal investigation (i.e. looking into any Russian interference, collusion with Trump Team, embezzling funds, etc.) by definition alone, and which essentially leaves her doing so (if she did it) for purely political motives, alone.
    3. The worst possible problem in this, at least for Rice, is that while her position allowed her access to unmasked names (I don't think anyone is questioning this, at all), she was part of a very, very tight and strictly controlled group who has a similar access - I'd wager that list of similarly authorized persons would have no more than 25 or so names on it - and ostensibly, any source of leaking of that sort of intensely sensitive and top secret information would be both quickly and easily discovered. In fact, I want to say - but can in no way be certain, nor should be trusted to reliably know - that if the leaking of that information could be successfully argued as to have caused a "grave and imminent" threat to the US interests / security, that the first amendment protections of the media member who first reported it, specifically their right to refuse to name sources, can be overruled or suspended.

    I think that it is important to ask if Susan Rice was capable of doing this, meaning, did she have the requisite authority, and did she have the necessary motive to leak it. I don't know the answer to either of those questions. But if baseless internet rumors are to be believed, I am nearly certain that she is going to be asked, and compelled if needed, to come before Congress and either tell her side of the story, or invoke her 5th amendment right, as she is certainly entitled to do.
     
  16. dc4utvols

    dc4utvols Contributor

    The Judge on the spying

    "The American public has permitted the most massive and thorough domestic surveillance apparatus in history to come about right under our collective and formerly freedom-loving nose. Beginning in 1978 and continuing up to the present, Congress has passed statutes that purport to confine domestic spying to foreign people communicating with anyone in America. Yet that confinement is a myth -- a myth accepted even by the Congresses that have authorized and reauthorized it.

    In theory, spying in America is done pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and subsequent statutes that provide for the intervention of judges who issue warrants. In practice, the warrants are general warrants. They are not based on suspicion. They do not identify the person whose communications are to be intercepted. They permit the NSA to search where it wishes -- for example, in certain ZIP codes, area codes and service provider customer lists -- and retain whatever it finds.

    On top of this subterfuge is the below-the-radar-screen behavior of the NSA, which looks to a Reagan-era executive order to justify its capture in real time of every telephone conversation and every computer keystroke of everyone in the U.S. since 2005.

    That massive amount of raw data is stored digitally in NSA facilities in Maryland and in Utah, and it is available for examination by select people. One of the people who have access to it is the president’s national security adviser. My colleagues at Fox News and at other media outlets have reported that Susan Rice, President Obama’s final national security adviser, sought and obtained transcripts of conversations of people at Trump Tower, ostensibly looking for a connection to Russia. Rice has admitted this."

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/06/andrew-napolitano-mass-spying-without-suspicion-and-hole-in-our-constitution.html
     
  17. dc4utvols

    dc4utvols Contributor

    Bannon was and is a tool...LOL but he was there to keep Flynn in check...McMaster will have none of it and Trump doesn't feel the need. Also Bannon still has access to the meetings just not the tittle/position. He wants badly to have his hands on the levers. He has an interesting and admirable personal history. But his edginess and ambition give you the feel that he is the virgin in a room full of hot naked women and still can't score. I dont like him for the duplicity he engaged in concerning my candidate Cruz.

    "Several leftwing activist groups have filed accusations against me with the Office of Congressional Ethics. The charges are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power. Despite the baselessness of the charges, I believe it is in the best interests of the House Intelligence Committee and the Congress for me to have Representative Mike Conaway, with assistance from Representatives Trey Gowdy and Tom Rooney, temporarily take charge of the Committee’s Russia investigation while the House Ethics Committee looks into this matter. … I will continue to fulfill all my other responsibilities as Committee Chairman, and I am requesting to speak to the Ethics Committee at the earliest possible opportunity in order to expedite the dismissal of these false claims." - Rep. Nunes
     
  18. bigpapavol

    bigpapavol Chieftain

    He's the president. He has no option. She's old news from a dirty presidency.

    She wasn't unmasking to learn anything. That's stupid. She might have the first time. She didn't the next 30.
     
  19. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    They talked to Russian agents 31 times? Huh. Nothing worth looking into there.
     
  20. IP

    IP Super Moderator

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