On Way Out of Office, Obama, Get This, Conferred Broad New Powers on the NSA Giving Them Right to Share Unredacted Classified Information With All Intelligence-Related Agencies

Hmmm, I wonder why he did that on his way out the door and with his loyalists still in the government and ready, willing, and now enabled to leak classified NSA intercepts to the press?

Michael Walsh notes this January 12, 2017 report from the New York Times which received little attention when it was published.

But now Walsh is very attentive towards it.

From the NYT (link in Walsh's article):

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government's 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.

Does anyone think a conversation like this might have occurred?:

FLUNKY: The FBI has found nothing criminal on Flynn. But the NSA has wiretaps of Flynn and other Trump aides, but they can't get the information out under current rules.

OBAMA: Can we just have the NSA leak this stuff?

FLUNKY: The NSA doesn't want to do that because there are very small circulation lists for such highly classified intercepts, and it would be pretty easy to find the leakers and prosecute them. Plus, they actually don't even want to admit they're transcribing people's phone calls. But if we could get the information out to our loyalists in the DOJ, FBI, and CIA, they could paw through the intercepts, and leak them to the press. Now there'd be hundreds of people who could leak this stuff -- and they'd be hard to find. The list of possible leakers now expands from 5-10 to 50-500. As you know from your community organizing days, saboteurs and subversives need masses to swim amongst, if they're to remain undetected.

OBAMA: I've got tee time in 20 minutes. Tell me what I need to sign.

FLUNKY: I already signed it for you, Sir. I didn't want you to lose any finger strength on your drives.

In the meanwhile, Trump is appointing an ally to "review" the intelligence agencies and how they operate.

President Trump plans to assign a New York billionaire to lead a broad review of American intelligence agencies, according to administration officials, an effort that members of the intelligence community fear could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview.

The possible role for Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has met fierce resistance among intelligence officials already on edge because of the criticism the intelligence community has received from Mr. Trump during the campaign and since he became president.

posted by Ace at 02:31 PM

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