The Surveillance State Behind Russia-Gate
The White House in Washington, D.C. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)
Educate! Intelligence, Russia, Surveillance, US Foreign Policy
By Ray McGovern and Bill Binney, www.consortiumnews.com
March 30th, 2017
Above Photo: The White House in Washington, D.C. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)
Exclusive: Amid the frenzy over the Trump teams talks with Russians, are we
missing a darker story, how the Deep States surveillance powers control the
nations leaders, ask U.S. intelligence veterans Ray McGovern and Bill
Binney.
Although many details are still hazy because of secrecy and further
befogged by politics it appears House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Devin Nunes was informed last week about invasive electronic surveillance of
senior U.S. government officials and, in turn, passed that information onto
President Trump.
This news presents Trump with an unwelcome but unavoidable choice: confront
those who have kept him in the dark about such rogue activities or live
fearfully in their shadow. (The latter was the path chosen by President
Obama. Will Trump choose the road less traveled?)
What President Trump decides will largely determine the freedom of action he
enjoys as president on many key security and other issues. But even more so,
his choice may decide whether there is a future for this constitutional
republic. Either he can acquiesce to or fight against a Deep State of
intelligence officials who have a myriad of ways to spy on politicians (and
other citizens) and thus amass derogatory material that can be easily
transformed into blackmail.
This crisis (yes, crisis is an overused word, but in this highly unusual
set of circumstances we believe it is appropriate) came to light mostly by
accident after President Trump tweeted on March 4 that his team in New York
Citys Trump Towers had been wiretapped by President Obama.
Trump reportedly was relying on media reports regarding how conversations of
aides, including his ill-starred National Security Advisor Michael Flynn,
had been intercepted. Trumps tweet led to a fresh offensive by Democrats
and the mainstream press to disparage Trumps ridiculous claims.
However, this concern about the dragnets that U.S. intelligence (or its
foreign partners) can deploy to pick up communications by Trumps advisers
and then unmask the names before leaking them to the news media was also
highlighted at the Nunes-led House Intelligence Committee hearing on March
20, where Nunes appealed for anyone who had related knowledge to come
forward with it.
That apparently happened on the evening of March 21 when Nunes received a
call while riding with a staffer. After the call, Nunes switched to another
car and went to a secure room at the Old Executive Office Building, next to
the White House, where he was shown highly classified information apparently
about how the intelligence community picked up communications by Trumps
aides.
The next day, Nunes went to the White House to brief President Trump, who
later said he felt somewhat vindicated by what Nunes had told him.
The Wiretap Red Herring
But the corporate U.S. news media continued to heckle Trump over his use of
the word wiretap and cite the insistence of FBI Director James Comey and
other intelligence officials that President Obama had not issued a wiretap
order aimed at Trump.
imagePresident Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot
from Whitehouse.gov)
As those paying rudimentary attention to modern methods of surveillance
know, wiretapping is passé. But Trumps use of the word allowed FBI and
Department of Justice officials and their counterparts at the National
Security Agency to swear on a stack of bibles that the FBI, DOJ, and NSA
have been unable to uncover any evidence within their particular
institutions of such wiretapping.
At the House Intelligence Committee hearing on March 20, FBI Director Comey
and NSA Director Michael Rogers firmly denied that their agencies had
wiretapped Trump Towers on the orders of President Obama.
So, were Trump and his associates wiretapped? Of course not. Wiretapping
went out of vogue decades ago, having been rendered obsolete by leaps in
surveillance technology.
The real question is: Were Trump and his associates surveilled? Wake up,
America. Was no one paying attention to the disclosures from NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 when he exposed Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper as a liar for denying that the NSA engaged in
bulk collection of communications inside the United States.
The reality is that EVERYONE, including the President, is surveilled. The
technology enabling bulk collection would have made the late demented FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoovers mouth water.
Allegations about the intelligence communitys abuse of its powers also did
not begin with Snowden. For instance, several years earlier, former NSA
worker and whistleblower Russell Tice warned about these special access
programs, citing first-hand knowledge, but his claims were brushed aside as
coming from a disgruntled employee with psychological problems. His
disclosures were soon forgotten.
Intelligence Communitys Payback
However, earlier this year, there was a stark reminder of how much fear
these surveillance capacities have struck in the hearts of senior U.S.
government officials. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York told
MSNBCs Rachel Maddow that President Trump was being really dumb to take
on the intelligence community, since They have six ways from Sunday at
getting back at you.
imageSen. Charles Schumer, D-New York.
Maddow shied away from asking the logical follow-up: Senator Schumer, are
you actually saying that Trump should be afraid of the CIA? Perhaps she
didnt want to venture down a path that would raise more troubling questions
about the surveillance of the Trump team than on their alleged contacts with
the Russians.
Similarly, the U.S. corporate media is now focused on Nuness alleged
failure to follow protocol by not sharing his information first with Rep.
Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Democrats promptly demanded that Nunes recuse himself from the Russia
investigation.
On Tuesday morning, reporters for CNN and other news outlets peppered Nunes
with similar demands as he walked down a corridor on Capitol Hill, prompting
him to suggest that they should be more concerned about what he had learned
than the procedures followed.
Thats probably true because to quote Jack Nicholsons character in A Few
Good Men in a slightly different context, the mainstream media cannot
handle the truth even if its a no-brainer.
At his evening meeting on March 21 at the Old Executive Office Building,
Nunes was likely informed that all telephones, emails, etc. including his
own and Trumps are being monitored by what the Soviets used to call the
organs of state security.
By sharing that information with Trump the next day rather than consulting
with Schiff Nunes may have sought to avoid the risk that Schiff or someone
else would come up with a bureaucratic reason to keep the President in the
dark.
A savvy politician, Nunes knew there would be high political cost in doing
what he did. Inevitably, he would be called partisan; there would be more
appeals to remove him from chairing the committee; and the character
assassination of him already well under way in The Washington Post, for
example might move him to the top of the unpopularity chart, displacing
even bête noire Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But this episode was not the first time Nunes has shown some spine in the
face of what the Establishment wants ignored. In a move setting this
congressman apart from all his colleagues, Nunes had the courage to host an
award ceremony for one of his constituents, retired sailor and member of the
USS Liberty crew, Terry Halbardier.
On June 8, 1967, by repairing an antennae and thus enabling the USS Liberty
to issue an SOS, Halbardier prevented Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats
from sinking that Navy intelligence ship and ensuring that there would be no
survivors to describe how the Israeli allies had strafed and bombed the
ship. Still, 34 American seamen died and 171 were wounded.
At the time of the award ceremony in 2009, Nunes said, The government has
kept this quiet I think for too long, and I felt as my constituent, he
[Halbardier] needed to get recognized for the services he made to his
country. (Ray McGovern took part in the ceremony in Nuness Visalia,
California office.)
Now, we suspect that much more may be learned about the special
compartmented surveillance program targeted against top U.S. national
leaders if Rep. Nunes doesnt back down and if Trump doesnt choose the road
most traveled acquiescence to Americas Deep State actors.
