![\"070821\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/070821.jpg\")
\nI don\u2019t know about your viewing habits, but as a retiree, I find \u2018staying up late\u2019 to be anything beyond eight o\u2019clock in the evening. I try to catch Tucker Carlson when the evening medication has not dulled my senses overmuch, but can\u2019t say I often make it beyond the introductory monologue. Last night was interesting, since he talked about what happened to him in an operation conducted by the National Security Agency.<\/p>\n
As an old Spook, the latest event is interesting. We talked about it in the morning Editorial Meeting, and there was general agreement about what is going on. I was taking notes, as is my old habit. The bullet points went something like this, chronologically:<\/p>\n
1. \u201cTucker claims NSA copied his emails and then leaked them to the press.\u201d
\n2. \u201cYeah, but Tucker was attempting to talk to Putin in Russia.\u201d
\n3. \u201cWell, can\u2019t journalists or other Americans do that? Or at least try?\u201d
\n4. \u201cSure. But anyone should be aware that contacting a Russian these days means NSA will copy those communication as an \u201cincidental\u201d event in their legitimate mission to monitor the Russians. After all, they are essentially copying the entire internet every day.\u201d
\n5. \u201cFrom what we know, there is a \u201ctwo-hop\u201d rule about directly following up on the communications of anyone swept up in an incidental collection event. Which means that everything done by someone who stumbles into a collection event can then legally be collected against.\u201d
\n6. \u201cStop it. That sounds exactly like the way they got to the Trump campaign. They found a low-level guy who had been in contact with the Russians, opened a FISA case against him. Then, everyone who talked to him was subject to the \u2018two-hop\u2019 collection rules.\u201d
\n7. \u201cYeah, but that guy was a CIA source against the Russians, so they knew all that. Instead, that Clinesmith guy at FBI lied on the FISA application for a warrant, saying he wasn’t a CIA asset. That would include everyone in a Presidential campaign.\u201d
\n8. \u201cOf course. The rules are that such collection is not identified by name of American citizens. You have to call them \u201cBusinessman 1\u201d or \u201823\u2019 or whatever.\u201d
\n9. \u201cUnless they are a national security threat, or potentially one. Then the names can be \u201cunmasked.\u201d
\n10. \u201cBy whom? Doesn\u2019t that require a warrant to ensure that collection is in keeping with the 4thAmendment ensuring people\u2019s papers are private without a court-issued warrant?\u201d
\n11. \u201cSamantha Powers was one who unmasked General Flynn.\u201d
\n12. \u201cThe Ambassador to the UN? Because he was talking to the Russians as incoming National Security Advisor? That seems to be part of his job.\u201d
\n13. \u201cUnless you didn\u2019t like him and wanted to tie him up in legal shenanigans for years.\u201d
\n14. \u201cSo, how does that apply to some guy on television? He is hardly a national security threat.\u201d
\n15. Talk stilled suddenly. Coffee cups were raised. \u201cWe still don\u2019t know why Tucker stopped wearing bow ties.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is where my notes ran out, since there ensued a fairly long discussion about whether the cravats in question were hand-knotted or clip-ons like the ones Chairman Socotra used to wear. And the open question about whether anyone wearing a clip-on bow tie could be identified and targeted for warrantless electronic investigation by the Government in its search for domestic terrorists. <\/p>\n
Given the challenges there, and whether the Chairman had talked to Tucker was a big deal, since that made anyone who talked to the Boss- which would include the entire Production staff- subject to two-hop collection rules. Even if we didn\u2019t know what hop we could be included on, or from whom.<\/p>\n
One of the Interns said \u201cthey\u201d had seen the unmasking attributed to a very bright young political operative who is currently a Deputy National Security Advisor. We would type the name, but that could have consequences. We then decided to put the matter aside, like they did the last time this happened. By the same people. They obviously know the rules better than we do.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t know about your viewing habits, but as a retiree, I find \u2018staying up late\u2019 to be anything beyond eight o\u2019clock in the evening. I try to catch Tucker Carlson when the evening medication has not dulled my senses overmuch, but can\u2019t say I often make it beyond the introductory monologue. Last night was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21595,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21593\/revisions\/21595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}