{"id":84198,"date":"2017-09-21T08:20:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T12:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=84198"},"modified":"2017-09-21T08:20:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T12:20:41","slug":"wiretapgate-confirmed-obama-really-did-spy-on-trump-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=84198","title":{"rendered":"WIRETAPGATE CONFIRMED: Obama really did spy on Trump campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>It looks like Obama did spy on Trump, just as he apparently did to me<\/h1>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nBY SHARYL ATTKISSON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR<br \/>\nThe Hill<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\" src=\"http:\/\/launch.newsinc.com\/?type=VideoPlayer\/Single&#038;widgetId=1&#038;trackingGroup=69016&#038;playlistId=19132&#038;siteSection=thehill2300_nws_pol_sec&#038;videoId=32997488\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" noresize marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had \u201ctapped\u201d \u201cwires\u201d in Trump Tower just before the election.<\/p>\n<p>According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed \u201cwiretap\u201d the former head of Trump\u2019s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials \u2014 or Trump himself \u2014 communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.<\/p>\n<p>But we\u2019re missing the bigger story.<\/p>\n<p>If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.<\/p>\n<p>Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump \u201ctransition officials\u201d were \u201cincidentally\u201d captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktxs.com\/news\/politics\/rice-told-house-investigators-why-she-unmasked-senior-trump-officials\/620226589\">admitted<\/a>\u00a0\u201cunmasking,\u201d or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or \u201cmasked,\u201d even inside the government, to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n<p>In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/post-politics\/wp\/2017\/05\/08\/full-transcript-sally-yates-and-james-clapper-testify-on-russian-election-interference\/\">acknowledged<\/a>\u00a0they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weaponization of intel agencies?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes. The prospect of our own NSA, CIA and FBI becoming politically weaponized has been shrouded by untruths, accusations and justifications.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll recall DNI Clapper falsely assured Congress in 2013 that the\u00a0NSA was not collecting \u201cany type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Intel agencies secretly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/u-s-spy-net-on-israel-snares-congress-1451425210\">monitored<\/a>\u00a0conversations of members of Congress while the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, the CIA got caught spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, though CIA Director John Brennan had explicitly denied that.<\/p>\n<p>There were also wiretaps on then-Congressman\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/opinion\/2017\/03\/10\/dennis-kucinich-im-no-fan-trumps-but-hes-got-point-about-wiretapping.html\">Dennis Kucinich<\/a>\u00a0(D-Ohio) in 2011 under Obama. The same happened under President George W. Bush to former Congresswoman\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2012\/11\/14\/jane-harmon-and-israeli-spying\">Jane Harman<\/a>\u00a0(D-Calif.).<\/p>\n<p>Journalists have been targeted, too. This internal\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/wikileaks.org\/gifiles\/docs\/12\/1210665_obama-leak-investigations-internal-use-only-pls-do-not.html\">email<\/a>, exposed by WikiLeaks, should give everyone chills. It did me.<\/p>\n<p>Dated Sept. 21, 2010, the \u201cglobal intelligence\u201d firm Stratfor wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>[John] Brennan [then an Obama Homeland Security adviser] is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Note &#8212; There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode&#8230;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, The Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/cbs-news-confirms-sharyl-attkissons-computer-hacked\">announced<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u2026 correspondent Sharyl Attkisson\u2019s computer was hacked by \u2018an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,\u2019 confirming Attkisson\u2019s previous revelation of the hacking.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Then, as now, instead of getting the bigger story, some in the news media and quasi-news media published false and misleading narratives pushed by government interests. They implied the computer intrusions were the stuff of vivid imagination, conveniently dismissed forensic evidence from three independent examinations that they didn\u2019t review. All seemed happy enough to let news of the government\u2019s alleged unlawful behavior fade away, rather than get to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sharylattkisson.com\/2017\/08\/01\/new-attkisson-v-doj-the-computer-intrusion-lawsuit-against-the-federal-govt\/\">bottom<\/a>\u00a0of it.<\/p>\n<p>I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer\u2019s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.<\/p>\n<p>We survived the government\u2019s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There\u2019s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice \u2014 like the Obama Department of Justice \u2014 is fighting me in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sharylattkisson.com\/2017\/04\/02\/attkisson-v-eric-holder-department-of-justice-et-al\/\">court<\/a>\u00a0and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.<\/p>\n<p>Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was \u201cnot a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Patterns<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s difficult not to see patterns in the government\u2019s behavior, unless you\u2019re wearing blinders.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0intelligence community secretly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dni.gov\/files\/documents\/DNI%20Clapper%20Section%20702%20Declassification%20Cover%20Letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expanded<\/a>\u00a0its authority in 2011 so it can monitor innocent U.S. citizens like you and me for doing nothing more than mentioning a target\u2019s name a single time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In January 2016, a top secret inspector general report found the\u00a0NSA violated the very laws designed to prevent abuse.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2016, Obama officials searched through intelligence on U.S. citizens a record\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/icontherecord.tumblr.com\/transparency\/odni_transparencyreport_cy2016\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">30,000 times<\/a>, up from 9,500 in 2013.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Two weeks before the election, at a secret hearing before the FISA court overseeing government surveillance, NSA officials confessed they\u2019d violated privacy safeguards \u201cwith much greater frequency\u201d than they\u2019d admitted. The judge accused them of \u201cinstitutional lack of candor\u201d and said, \u201cthis is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies \u2014 under multiple administrations \u2014 has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials.<\/p>\n<p>Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren\u2019t thinking.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sharyl Attkisson (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/SharylAttkisson\">@SharylAttkisson<\/a>) is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times bestsellers \u201cThe Smear\u201d and \u201cStonewalled,\u201d and host of Sinclair\u2019s Sunday TV program \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/fullmeasure.news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Full Measure<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/campaign\/351495-it-looks-like-obama-did-spy-on-trump-just-as-he-did-to-me\">http:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/campaign\/351495-it-looks-like-obama-did-spy-on-trump-just-as-he-did-to-me<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like Obama did spy on Trump, just as he apparently did to me<\/p>\n","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-84198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84198","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=84198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}