Trump Falsely Links NSA Antiterrorist Program to Mueller Probe



[ad_1]

In a tweet on Tuesday, President Trump falsely connected the recent deletion of information from an intelligence agency database to the news. Special Council inquiry to find out if his presidential campaign has plotted with the Russian government. election.

"Wow! The NSA has removed 685 million phone calls and text messages." Violation of Privacy? " Trump wrote a reference to the Agency's decision Security Council, announced last week, to purge the documents legally obtained as part of its counterterrorism and foreign intelligence missions. "They accuse the technical irregularities. Such a disgrace. The witch hunt continues! "

The President regularly calls the investigation of the special advocate, led by Robert S. Mueller III, a witch hunt.But the NSA program to which the president referred is mainly used to Counterterrorism The President provided no evidence to suggest how the program was connected to Mueller's investigation.The special advocate also gets communications using application tools of the law such as subpoenas and warrants.

Trump's tweet seems to be the last case where the president, frustrated by an investigation into his administration, attempted to involve intelligence agencies. The president's assertion that the NSA allegedly committed privacy violations echoes his previous charges of violating privacy against him, including the false assertion that the Obama administration has "stopped" Trump Tower in New York. spy on his campaign. More recently, the president claimed, without proof, that the Obama administration had placed a human spy in his campaign.

The FBI used a confidential informant, who had worked with intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the past. Learn from the Trump campaign assistants about their suspicious interactions with the Russians.

Trump is a staunch supporter of the strong antiterrorist authorities. It was not clear what caused his tweet. "It is disturbing that the President seems to be getting his information from cable TV and not from his own intelligence experts," said Rachel Cohen, a spokeswoman for Senator Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who oversees the NSA.

Spokesmen of the Republican Chairman of the Committee, Senator Richard Burr (RN.C.), did not respond to a request comment

Last week, the NSA announced with little to say. 39; explanations that he was purging 685 million records showing who called and texted to whom. The NSA can legally obtain this information from telecom companies.

In a statement, the agency said it began deleting registrations in May after analysts discovered "technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunications service providers." the telecom companies had provided more information on American communications that the NSA could not legally receive. Rather than trying to delete this information on a case-by-case basis, the agency has decided to purge all information from its systems, officials said.

The documents date back to 2015. Intelligence experts said that the incident points to deeper and systematic failures in the way the NSA collects information on American communications.

The NSA program was modified from an earlier version that allowed the agency to collect telephone records from all Americans. in an investigation. Congress reduced this authority after revelations from the former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, who exposed the monitoring program

The precise cause of the technical problems that led to the recent overfishing did not occur. is not clear. The White House also provided no information

The NSA did not respond to a request for comment on the president's tweet

[ad_2]
Source link