By Anthony Zurcher
...Mr Nunes made headlines (click here) last March when he visited the White House and then publicly announced that some members of Donald Trump's post-election team had been the subject of "incidental surveillance" by US intelligence agencies. He later had to step down from overseeing the Russian hearings because he was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for possibly sharing classified intelligence with the White House. He has since been cleared in the matter by the ethics panel, but he has not returned to his previous position.
The four-page memo is said to draw on highly classified information about FBI surveillance practices that, according to many of the Republicans who have read it, were abused by the intelligence community in order to undermine Mr Trump's campaign and, subsequently, his presidency.
The memo reportedly asserts that the decision to begin surveillance of Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page was based on the so-called Steele dossier - the collection of largely unsubstantiated raw intelligence gathered by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. That set the ball rolling for broader investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, an inquiry that continues, under the direction of special counsel Robert Mueller, to this day.
Members of the intelligence community dispute this claim and insist that Page was on the counter-intelligence radar long before the dossier research, which was funded by anti-Trump conservatives and later Democrats, was ever circulated....
If President Trump was worried about incidental surveillance that early on in his administration, there is seriously something wrong. A person caught in incidental surveillance collection other than a spouse or casual friend seriously may have something to worry about.
There is a lot of backroom meetings in the Congress these days. The Democratic Senators are stating they don't even know where the meetings are being held as they are never included. I am sure Minority Speaker Pelosi is seeing the same thing. It only reflects the demand by Trump for complete loyalty to his agenda. That is my opinion.
Donny, Jr. is involved and he has been involved directly with the Russians. I am curious as to any contact Nunes has had with the Russians. Someone provided intelligence to Congress in this report. If it wasn't USA intelligence than who?
Trump is paranoid and insecure enough to believe the intelligence wasn't incidental, but, only looks that way and was conducted to ensnare Trump.
Members of the intelligence community dispute this claim and insist that Page was on the counter-intelligence radar long before the dossier research, which was funded by anti-Trump conservatives and later Democrats, was ever circulated....
If President Trump was worried about incidental surveillance that early on in his administration, there is seriously something wrong. A person caught in incidental surveillance collection other than a spouse or casual friend seriously may have something to worry about.
There is a lot of backroom meetings in the Congress these days. The Democratic Senators are stating they don't even know where the meetings are being held as they are never included. I am sure Minority Speaker Pelosi is seeing the same thing. It only reflects the demand by Trump for complete loyalty to his agenda. That is my opinion.
Donny, Jr. is involved and he has been involved directly with the Russians. I am curious as to any contact Nunes has had with the Russians. Someone provided intelligence to Congress in this report. If it wasn't USA intelligence than who?
Trump is paranoid and insecure enough to believe the intelligence wasn't incidental, but, only looks that way and was conducted to ensnare Trump.
...Incidental collection (click here) happens when an individual is in contact with the target of surveillance. So if Bob were being targeted for surveillance and Alice called or emailed Bob, Alice’s communications with him would be collected incidentally. Incidental collection happens over the course of most surveillance, whether it is targeted surveillance under traditional FISA authorities, or it is large scale surveillance pursuant to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act where vast amounts of Americans’ communications are swept up by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Under traditional FISA authorities, surveillance is targeted at a single person, and the NSA conducts it pursuant to a warrant based on probable cause that the target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Here, if Bob is targeted for surveillance and Alice contacts him during that surveillance, resulting in the incidental collection of her communications with him, her name should be redacted or “masked” unless leaving it un-redacted provides foreign intelligence value....
