NSA Whistleblower Backs Trump Up on Wiretap Claims
Bill Binney, who resigned from NSA in 2001, did not elaborate on President Obama’s specific role in surveilling Trump.
A veteran of the NSA has said President Donald Trump is righ to claim he was wiretapped and monitored. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump is "absolutely right" to claim he was wiretapped and monitored, a former NSA official claimed Monday, adding that the administration risks falling victim to further leaks if it continues to run afoul of the intelligence community.
"I think the president is absolutely right. His phone calls, everything he did electronically, was being monitored," Bill Binney, a 36-year veteran of the National Security Agency who resigned in protest from the organization in 2001, told Fox Business on Monday. Everyone's conversations are being monitored and stored, Binney said.
Binney resigned from NSA shortly after the U.S. approach to intelligence changedfollowing the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He "became a whistleblower after discovering that elements of a data-monitoring program he had helped develop -- nicknamed ThinThread -- were being used to spy on Americans," PBS reported.
On Monday he came to the defense of the president, whose allegations on social media over the weekend that outgoing President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 campaign have rankled Washington.
"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Trump tweeted.
"Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!... I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!," he continued.
Binney seemed to go further than the assessment of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a George W. Bush administration official, who offered a tacit defense of Trump to ABC on Sunday.
"This is the difference between being correct and right," Mukasey said. "The president was not correct in saying President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump Tower. However, I think he's right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general – at the Justice Department through the FISA court."
But Binney told Sean Hannity's radio show earlier Monday, "I think the FISA court's basically totally irrelevant."
The judges on the FISA court are "not even concerned, nor are they involved in any way with the Executive Order 12333 collection," Binney said during the radio interview. "That's all done outside of the courts. And outside of the Congress."
Binney told Fox the laws that fall under the FISA court's jurisdiction are "simply out there for show" and "trying to show that the government is following the law, and being looked at and overseen by the Senate and House intelligence committees and the courts."
"That's not the main collection program for NSA," Binney said.
What Binney did not delve into, however, was if President Obama directed surveillance on Trump for political purposes during the campaign, a core accusation of Trump's. But Binney did say events such as publication of details of private calls between President Trump and the Australian prime minister, as well as with the Mexican president, are evidence the intelligence community is playing hardball with the White House.
"I think that's what happened here," Binney told Fox. "The evidence of the conversation of the president of the U.S., President Trump, and the [prime minister] of Australia and the president of Mexico. Releasing those conversations. Those are conversations that are picked up by the FAIRVIEW program, primarily, by NSA."
MORE IF YOU NEED IT:
Binney gives technical explanations to why these claims are false. Binney is a cryptanalyst-mathematician and a Russia specialist with 30 years with the NSA:
ReplyDelete“The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods,” the letter stated. “Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider – as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be anyone in a government department or agency with access to NSA databases, or perhaps someone within the DNC.”
This entire charade reeks of a Clinton/Obama Russian false flag covering for the exposure of Clinton by the leaked emails.
( Bill Clinton has had plenty of practice) and Hillary is a pathological liar.
Binney also said:
Delete“In order to get to the servers, they [hackers] would have to come across the network and go into the servers, penetrate them, and then extract data out of the servers and bring it back across the network,” Binney explained. “If it were the Russians, it would then go to Russia, and it would have to go from there across the network again to get to WikiLeaks.”
Binney explained that “anything doing that would be picked up by the NSA’s vast surveillance system, both in terms of collecting the data as it transits the fiber optics inside the US, as well as internationally.”
The retired intelligence analyst also noted that traceroute packets are embedded in hundreds of switchers around the world, and that email messages are easily traced.
“With all the billions of dollars we spend on this collection access system that the NSA has, there’s no way that could have missed all the packets being transferred from those servers to the Russians,” Binney said. “I mean, they should know exactly how and when those packets left those servers and went to the Russians, and where specifically in Russia it went. There’s no excuse for not knowing that.”
Remember Petraeus, all of his calls? Flynn, Trump, Sessions and who knows how many more?
ReplyDeleteI repeat: Who Is Running The Country?
I have no idea how you stop this. I do know that it will never, never, never end well.
ReplyDeleteI know there are some that treat all of this with great mirth and derision because they believe Trump is a buffoon. But he rid us of Clinton and is well on the way to dismantling Obama.
ReplyDeleteI find two separate things hard to reconcile:
1. How could anyone be so enamored with their personal craven power quest and greed that they would want to risk a worsening climate with Russia? Why would US Media buy this or worse, how do they benefit?
2. Why would the Russians do something so foolish when they know exactly what the technical capabilities of the NSA and the CIA are?
I remember posting that the first time I heard the phrase,"high confidence" coming out of the NSA/CIA it ranked of bullshit.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was technically involved in US intelligence operations, the NSA was prohibited from any domestic spying. My time was Cold War. My specialty was Soviet Missile Launches. There was clarity as to the danger. That was the end of the sixties, but Viet Nam was a mess and the US put a man on the moon. The fun finally ended when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed.
ReplyDeleteOver one million of us, engineers, technicians, analysts and technical military personnel moved out into the real world, but the permanent party in the intelligence agencies had to create new threats to keep their jobs.
Then something miraculous happened and that was mobile telephones and the internet. Salvation.
Technology is fun and profitable and the military industrial cartel had a field day that has lasted thirty years and shows no sign of ending. Why do they do what they do? Simple. Because they can.
WE are into our seventh presidency where none have had significant military or technological experience and are we paying for that serial cluster fuck.
DeleteWe need Quirk as head of NSA, and CIA too.
DeleteHe's warned us years ago, and would put an end to it, unless they put an end to him first.
Either way our Nation would come out ahead.
(not to make light of it....just don't know what to do about it....legislation doesn't work)
DeleteI've got the hots for Ghazala...
ReplyDeleteKhizr Khan's claim that the US is restricting his travel may be unraveling
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Khizr-Khan-s-claim-that-the-US-is-restricting-his-10983885.php
That woman ought to wear head to toe slit eyed burkas.
DeleteMaybe there is something to some of these muzzie traditions after all.
They need to touch up some details in the selection process.
DeleteSeems the Keepers got selectively stoned to death instead of vice versa.
DeleteSpeed Kills:
ReplyDeleteAn investigation into the June mauling death of a Forest Service cop in Montana has determined that the officer was riding a mountain bike at a high rate of speed when he crashed into a grizzly bear.
Brad Treat, 38, was descending the "Outer Trail" of the Green Gate Trails in the Flathead National Forest between 1:30 and 2 p.m. June 29 when he rounded a blind curve and collided with the grizzly, according to a Board of Review Report.
http://www.sfgate.com/national/article/Mauled-cop-was-riding-mountain-bike-at-full-speed-10983474.php
He hit the animal at full-speed and flew over the handlebars, fracturing his wrists and his left shoulder blade when he tried to break his fall.
DeleteWhen Treat's companion, who was not identified, came upon the scene, the "very big, brownish-black" bear with "bristled up" fur was standing over Trent. The fellow rider reported that he had heard the bear cry out, making a sound "like it was hurt."
The companion froze, not knowing what to do. Neither man was carrying bear spray, a firearm or a cellphone.
By this time the bear was "intent and focused" on attacking Treat and either ignored or did not notice the other man.
According to the board report, the companion left to seek help because he did not feel comfortable trying to get the bear off Trent. Chickenshit
Treat was dead by the time responders arrived. His helmet was reportedly bitten to pieces, but no part of his body was eaten by the bear, indicating that the encounter probably was not a predatory attack.
Treat's death was the first bear-related mountain bike death in Montana.
From now on, I'm carrying my cell phone.
DeleteI would have just stared the bar down, like Davy Crockett. Done that many a time out in the Bitteroot.
DeleteSo far nobody has captured me on electronic recording device, though.
A pissed griz is easy to dominate with the eyes if one knows what one is doing, as I do.
Doug, I'd recommend you carry a 10 gauge shotgun and .45 Magnum, both.
DeleteLeave the stare downs to me.
DougTue Mar 07, 11:27:00 PM EST
DeleteFrom now on, I'm carrying my cell phone.
Great. You'll be able to take a Drudge quality moment of death selfie, and finally be famous for fifteen minutes.
See directly above for a better idea.
.
DeleteA pissed griz is easy to dominate with the eyes if one knows what one is doing, as I do
Keep the car running and don't roll down the window.
.
Naw.
DeleteShows what you know, City Boy.
Or, rather, what you don't know.
You can't stare down a griz through car windows.
And the engine noise disturbs the necessary silence required.
It's got to be done face to face, sometimes inches apart.
For this, we out this way have an old rule:
The Closer The Better
I urge you to try it sometime.
DeleteIsn't it a fact that the glass attenuates parts of the visual spectrum that are necessary to carry out the required communication?
Yes, exactly.
DeleteAnd the noise is distractive.
What we are seeking here is an aura of sacred calm and silence and lucidity....
I like to call it my moment of Sacred Hush...that wonderful moment when I have bent Griz to my will....
DeleteI can control an entire herd of elk this way, but they are easy....
DeleteWith my greatest effort, I can change the weather, just a little, like Black Elk did in a sacred moment atop Harney Peak, South Dakota, recently renamed Black Elk Peak.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Elk_Peak
Black Elk Peak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Elk Peak
Harneygranite.jpg
Black Elk Peak (formerly Harney Peak) is the highest natural point in South Dakota. It lies in the Black Elk Wilderness area, in southern Pennington County, in the Black Hills National Forest.[2] The peak lies 3.7 mi (6.0 km) WSW of Mount Rushmore.[5] At 7,242 feet (2,207 m),[1] it has been described by the Board on Geographical Names as the highest summit in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. It is also known as Hinhan Kaga (in Lakota). The Federal Board of Geographic Names has designated it "Black Elk Peak".
Guadalupe Peak and Sierra Blanca also lie far to the east of the Continental Divide and are substantially higher, but they are located south of the Rockies.
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which has jurisdiction in federal lands, officially changed the mountain's name from "Harney Peak" to "Black Elk Peak" on August 11, 2016, honoring Black Elk, the noted Lakota Sioux medicine man for whom the Wilderness Area is named.[6]....
Beautiful area....visit it sometime.
DeleteCellphone in hand.
DeleteSometimes I experience a small version of the Sacred Hush in the relative safety of my bedroom with my 5 pound female Siamese cat.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteI know there are some that treat all of this with great mirth and derision because they believe Trump is a buffoon.
Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.
I do dislike the man no denying that. That is because of his inability to accept responsibility for his own mistakes that and don't consider him serious. I've yet to see him accept responsibility for one screw-up. He has blamed everyone but himself for his mistakes. Something goes wrong, it's the media, the Dems, Oboma, Comey, the intelligence agencies the GOP, his team, his own staff, the generals, the judges, you name it. And I often do call him a buffoon, but mainly because of some of the truly weird things he says or tweets.
That said, if he were able to accomplish some of the things that he promised to the people who put him in office that would change my opinion of him. I was one of the biggest critics of Obama but I gave him his props when I thought he did something right like the Iran nuclear agreement. I'll praise Trump in the same way, for instance, in his knocking down TPP. But honestly, it probably wouldn't have gotten through Congress anyway. Others, I don't like as with the Immigration order for reasons we have discussed ad nauseum.
But there are three areas coming up that will affect every American especially the little guys who have taken it in the ass over the past couple of decades and especially since 2007, the same people that put Trump over the top in the last elections. Those items are the Budget, Healthcare, and Regulations. From what we have seen so far, I don't see many of Trump's promises being kept.
His first six weeks have not been promising and he doesn't seem to really understand things are beginning to drift.
Trump has talked a good game for the easily persuaded. Now, it's time to produce and I just don't think he has the stones for it. What I've seen in his first 6 weeks is troubling. It's all been PR, daily tweets to keep the base revved up, a few jobs saved here a few there, big savings on a couple of contracts, but when you get into it much of it would have happened with or without Trump. Compare those result to 230,000 jobs created in January and you see the insignificance of what he has accomplished so far, and he is already a third of the way through his first 100 days.
He worries about the insignificant and ignores the significant. He has the wrong priorities, IMO. He seems to have no concern about the open nominations needed to be filled, he punts on healthcare and turns it over to Ryan, the working joes best friend, he cuts key programs to the core so he can buy more shiny new bullets, and it goes on.
You talk of his need to get control of the intelligence agencies. Heck, he came into office thinking he would bend the bureaucracy to will. I fear it will be the other way around. He's the man on a wire that looks like he's barely hanging on.
The sad part is that a good part of the American people, those who had voted for him saw him as someone new, a truth teller, a caller out of all the pricks, media, Wall Street, the Banks, the Establishment, all the forces that have been beating them down for decades, he was the promised one, the guy who could break the back of the two party system, the guy who could bring back the jobs. I don't see Trump as the guy to do it.
And that's his biggest crime, giving these people hope only to allow it all to slip away. I don't think Trump has the balls or the will to get it done, not when it is so easy to blame the fact that it doesn't happen on the Dems, or a recalcitrant Congress, maybe even the media in a pinch.
If it does all fall apart, the only thing that will be worse than the guy who let it happen will be the enablers wo buy into his excuses.
.
"Compare those result to 230,000 jobs created in January and you see the insignificance of what he has accomplished so far, and he is already a third of the way through his first 100 days."
Delete===
I don't understand exactly how the "230,000 jobs created in January" fit into your argument.
Please explain.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI'm trying to create 20 building jobs.
DeleteIt's rough.
Creating jobs is tough.
Try it sometime, Quirk.
Then get back to us.
.
DeleteThe unemployment rate is affected by the amount of new people entering workforce age because of population increases. For instance, the population increased by around 18 million people during the Obama years. A certain percentage of the population increase rotates into the potential labor pool each year.
In order to accommodate the increase, a certain amount of jobs necessarily have to be created each month from negatively affecting the unemployment percentage. I've seen that number estimated as low as 150,000 per month. However, most estimates I've seen put it at about 200,000 per month. I offered the 230,000 created in January merely as a baseline. It represents the last month of the Obama administration. Might be a somewhat specious argument but politically, that 230,000 is likely to be the number Trump will be judged against.
However, I used it merely as an example of the minimum that needs to be done each month. The events Trump as been putting on with Ford, Carrier, Intel, Boing, Lockheed are represented as bringing a lot of jobs back to the US and saving $billions. Good as far as it goes but effectively we are talking a few thousand jobs, a drop in the bucket. Ignore the fact, that in everyone of these cases when pushed (not sure about Carrier) had been planning the moves and in a couple of cases actually implementing them before Trump took office.
It"s good PR but Trump is going to have to do much more than a success here or there. He's going to have to come up with a sustained economic policy. His economic team, what he has of one right now, looks weak.
.
This isn't exactly writing ad copy for Red Rubber Catheters:
ReplyDeleteTrump Opens ‘All Available’ Gulf Of Mexico Waters To Oil Drilling
By Pamela Geller - on March 7, 2017
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
Common sense. Much needed. We need to be freed from dependence upon Middle East oil. This will do a great deal to dry up the jihadis’ money stream.
“Trump Opens ‘All Available’ Gulf Of Mexico Waters To Oil Drilling,” by Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, March 7, 2017:
The Department of the Interior will include “all available” federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that have not already been leased out for offshore oil drilling.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Monday 73 million acres off the coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida would be offered at a lease sale in August as part of the Interior Department’s five-year leasing plan.
“Opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling is a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy independent,” Zinke said in a statement.
Interior finalized its current five-year offshore leasing program in January, just before Trump took office. The current plan includes 11 potential lease sales — 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
The Obama administration, however, did not include any lease sales in most of the Arctic Ocean and all of the Atlantic Ocean. The administration initially considered offshore drilling in those areas, but decided not to on the urging of environment groups.For now, it seems like the Trump administration will stick with current policies. that could possibly change one Secretary Zinke gets all his appointees in place. The Senate confirmed Zinke last week, and it’s unclear when they will hold confirmation hearings for other high-level Interior positions.
“The Gulf is a vital part of that strategy to spur economic opportunities for industry, states, and local communities, to create jobs and home-grown energy and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Zinke said.
Zinke’s announcement came the same day as President Donald Trump congratulated ExxonMobil on its $20 billion investments in Gulf Coast states to boost its petrochemical refining operations. Exxon started making big investments in the region in 2013 and continue until 2022.
Exxon says its investment is creating more than 45,000 construction and manufacturing jobs with salaries ranging from $75,000 to $125,000. Exxon CEO Darren Woods said Trump’s agenda of deregulation”enhanced” his company’s investments.
Shortly before leaving office, former President Barack Obama locked up even more offshore areas from drilling, issuing an executive order in December making 31 canyons in the Atlantic off limits to drilling. The order took 3.8 million acres of the Atlantic ocean out of play for drillers.
In that same order, Obama designated “the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas leasing.”
Environmentalists supported keeping Arctic and Atlantic waters off limits to drilling. Activists say it’s necessary to protect marine life and slow global warming.
Trump, on the other hand, promised to boost U.S. energy production through opening more federal lands and waters for exploration and eliminating regulations. That includes rolling back Obama-era policies blocking offshore drilling.
“This is exactly the kind of investment, economic development and job creation that will help put Americans back to work,” Trump said of Exxon’s investments announced Monday.
http://pamelageller.com/2017/03/trump-gulf-oil.html/
45,000 construction and manufacturing jobs with salaries ranging from $75,000 to $125,000
DeleteBeats humping the My Pillow account:
DeleteTrump opens “all available” Gulf of Mexico waters to oil drilling
MARCH 7, 2017 12:32 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
“Opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling is a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy independent,” said Zinke.
And not only that: it will also cut off a great part of the funding for the global jihad, which goes from our gasoline money to oil-producing states, where all too much of it finds its way into the hands of the jihadists who have vowed to destroy the U.S. and the free world.
“Trump Opens ‘All Available’ Gulf Of Mexico Waters To Oil Drilling,” by Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, March 7, 2017:
The Department of the Interior will include “all available” federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that have not already been leased out for offshore oil drilling.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Monday 73 million acres off the coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida would be offered at a lease sale in August as part of the Interior Department’s five-year leasing plan.
“Opening more federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling is a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy independent,” Zinke said in a statement.
Interior finalized its current five-year offshore leasing program in January, just before Trump took office. The current plan includes 11 potential lease sales — 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet.
The Obama administration, however, did not include any lease sales in most of the Arctic Ocean and all of the Atlantic Ocean. The administration initially considered offshore drilling in those areas, but decided not to on the urging of environment groups.For now, it seems like the Trump administration will stick with current policies. that could possibly change one Secretary Zinke gets all his appointees in place. The Senate confirmed Zinke last week, and it’s unclear when they will hold confirmation hearings for other high-level Interior positions.
“The Gulf is a vital part of that strategy to spur economic opportunities for industry, states, and local communities, to create jobs and home-grown energy and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Zinke said….
Shortly before leaving office, former President Barack Obama locked up even more offshore areas from drilling, issuing an executive order in December making 31 canyons in the Atlantic off limits to drilling. The order took 3.8 million acres of the Atlantic ocean out of play for drillers.
In that same order, Obama designated “the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas leasing.”
Environmentalists supported keeping Arctic and Atlantic waters off limits to drilling. Activists say it’s necessary to protect marine life and slow global warming.
Trump, on the other hand, promised to boost U.S. energy production through opening more federal lands and waters for exploration and eliminating regulations. That includes rolling back Obama-era policies blocking offshore drilling.
“This is exactly the kind of investment, economic development and job creation that will help put Americans back to work,” Trump said of Exxon’s investments announced Monday.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/03/trump-opens-all-available-gulf-of-mexico-waters-to-oil-drilling
You just wait:
DeleteThem jobs will largely be going to The Ruskies:
Why the Hell do you think he put Tillerson in there?
I must respectfully disagree on one point.
DeleteThe Ruskie knows nothing about deep warm water drilling.
Up in the Arctic, maybe....
Unless T Rex really really has something up his sleeve....which, of course, we all know he does....bribe money....so, in the end, you are probably right after all.
Markets: $80K Jobs? Few Takers in Red-Hot Shale Country - D. Wethe, Bloomberg
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-07/-80-000-jobs-find-few-takers-in-america-s-red-hot-shale-country
Jobs real Americans refuse to do.
Mexicans needed ?
GREAT IDEA !!
ReplyDeleteA bone for the left: How about halting visas to nations that kill gays?
March 8, 2017
Instead of fussing about a Muslim ban, how about a visa ban for countries that put gays to death? Bzzt! Same countries! More
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/03/a_bone_for_the_left_how_about_halting_visas_to_nations_that_kill_gays.html
Not even THE SMIRK'n'QUIRK TWINS could be against such a wonderful idea !
How about a ban on immigration from countries that treat woman as 1/2 half a man ?
DeleteOr just restrict to women only from such countries ?
Surely Smirk'n'Quirk couldn't have a problem with this idea either.
Without being hypocrites.