Last night Fox news host Tucker Carlson reported on a whistleblower contact from within the intelligence community who informed him the NSA was conducting electronic surveillance of his private communication (email and text messages). Tonight the NSA responded via Twitter:
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Techno Fog spotted something most of us would also note {SEE HERE} the NSA statement is an obtuse non-denial. However, there’s a lot more in that statement that should alarm everyone. I don’t know if I can cover it all here; this is actually serendipitous for a larger framework article I have been working on. But here’s some top-line initial reactions.
First, notice the time of the tweet message. Exactly 8:00pm to coincide with the beginning of Tucker Carlson’s broadcast. That’s typical political operative snark, which wouldn’t be too surprising if it were not the fact this is from the National Security Agency.
Many people in/around the intelligence apparatus have noted and confirmed to me that most of the modern human resources, within the working analytical part of the intelligence apparatus, are immature, solitary and emotionally stunted individuals. Accepting things as they directly appear, this subtle snark is actual confirmation.
Second, “Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency“, is akin to the NSA previously saying the 17 Republican candidates in the 2016 presidential race were not “officially” targets of metadata surveillance; the extraction just happened because, well, it was rogue contractors from our partner agency (FBI) using the facilitation of the NSA database for their opposition research. Oh, well, if that’s all it was… and not official NSA conduct… then, well, okay, move along. Or something.
In essence, TechnoFog’s point is well taken: “there’s something else going on here,” indeed there is.
Third, don’t get too granular to the point where you cannot just see the exhibited political nature of the statement. Someone at a very high level of the NSA wanted to transmit this obtuse denial in order to give the media some framework for an Alinsky rebuttal along the lines of : right-wing ‘conspiracy theorists’ concoct wild accusation by lying about the world’s premier electronic data collection and intelligence operation. It’s the high-minded defense that appeals to an elitist world-view of being above the fray.
The peasants are revolting and our above reproach NSA institution will not be defamed on such matters. The New York Times, Washington Post and Politico will take that framework and run with it.
Fourth, the last paragraph is stunningly false…
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