{"id":72347,"date":"2017-05-09T10:07:18","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T14:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=72347"},"modified":"2017-05-09T10:07:18","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T14:07:18","slug":"rand-paul-requests-info-on-whether-obama-surveilled-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=72347","title":{"rendered":"Rand Paul requests info on whether Obama surveilled him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->BY JOE UCHILL<br \/>\nThe Hill<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/launch.newsinc.com\/?type=VideoPlayer\/Single&amp;widgetId=1&amp;trackingGroup=69016&amp;playlistId=19132&amp;siteSection=thehill2300_nws_pol_sec&amp;videoId=32364878\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\" frameborder=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sen. <span class=\"rollover-people\" data-behavior=\"rolloverpeople\"><a class=\"rollover-people-link\" href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/rand-paul\" data-nid=\"188293\">Rand Paul<\/a><\/span> (R-Ky.) says he has asked the intelligence community and White House for any evidence that he was surveilled by former President <span class=\"rollover-people\" data-behavior=\"rolloverpeople\"><a class=\"rollover-people-link\" href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/people\/barack-obama\" data-nid=\"188226\">Barack Obama<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have formally requested from the WH and the Intel Committees info on whether I was surveilled by Obama admin and or the Intel community!&#8221;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/RandPaul\/status\/860482401109258242\">Paul\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The tweet appears to build off of President Trump&#8217;s claim, presented without evidence, that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower during last year&#8217;s presidential race.<\/p>\n<p>FBI Director James Comey has flatly denied any direct surveillance of the Trump campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Paul tweeted about his request for information in the context of both Trump&#8217;s allegations of deliberate surveillance and a recent NSA report stating that the NSA abided by nearly 2,000 requests to unmask names in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The NSA report does not, however, state that the NSA was unmasking names with the hope they would turn out to be specific people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Did the Obama admin go after presidential candidates, members of Congress, journalists, clergy, lawyers, fed judges? Did the Obama admin use warrantless &#8216;wiretapping&#8217; on other candidates besides @realDonaldTrump?&#8221; Paul wrote in his previous two tweets, both linking to a piece from the news organization Circa requesting documents about unmasked intercepts.<\/p>\n<p>Paul has argued that incidental collection of Trump associates&#8217; calls with foreign citizens who were themselves under surveillance is &#8220;a big deal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul and many civil libertarians argue that, since foreign surveillance requires no warrant, Americans caught up in that surveillance are being observed without a warrant.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign, warrantless surveillance is authorized under Section 702 of the\u00a0Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which comes up for renewal later this year. Comey has described Section 702 as the &#8220;crown jewels&#8221; of FBI surveillance tools.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/cybersecurity\/332084-rand-paul-requests-info-on-whether-obama-surveilled-him\">http:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/cybersecurity\/332084-rand-paul-requests-info-on-whether-obama-surveilled-him<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}