I don't know enough to to say whether the accusation here is true or false - and am unlikely to get any useful corroborating evidence out of Carlson or the NSA - but I'm curious what you make of the reports that while Carlson's beating this spying drum during FOX News' opinion hours, the folks working in the actual newsroom don't want to touch his claims with a ten-foot pole:
"The highest-rated Fox News host is reportedly 'extra pissed' at his employer for not vocally championing his far-fetched allegations against the federal government. Since Tucker Carlson claimed two weeks ago that he is being secretly spied on by the National Security Agency in an attempt to take him off the air, the network has largely ignored his supposed revelations both from a PR standpoint and in its coverage—silence that suggests not even Fox News is buying the surveillance narrative. A perceived lack of support from colleagues and network executives—the top two of which have not issued statements of public support or decried the NSA’s alleged behavior—has Carlson 'furious' that Fox, especially its PR team, is “not backing him up,” one source told CNN, adding: 'Tensions are sky high.'"
Fake news or does the Deep State extend so deeply into FOX News itself that Carlson can't get his fellow folks there to jump on the kind of story that would otherwise be bleeding red meat to throw up on their front page and lead their news segment with? In the absence of any hard evidence one way or the other, why should I take Carlson's self-interested claims more seriously than the silence of the actual reporters in that organization?
I went ahead and sent $5 Taibbi's way to read the article, and it seems like the strongest evidence that the NSA is doing what Tucker said they are doing as the fact that the Axios article came out a couple of hours after his appearance on Bartiromo’s Fox Business show:
"The NSA story took a turn on the morning of July 7th last week, when Carlson went on Maria Bartiromo’s program. He said that it would shortly come out that the NSA 'leaked the contents of my email to journalists,' claiming he knew this because one of them called him for comment. On cue, hours later, a piece came out in Axios, 'Scoop: Tucker Carlson sought Putin interview at time of spying claim.'"
Maybe I'm missing something, but the Axios piece that Taibbi cites as evidence isn't so much about Tucker's outreach to Putin (journalists reaching out to leaders seem to be fairly routine as per the article), and more about Tucker's NSA claims. It's all very circular, as the contents of those "leaked" e-mails and texts don't seem to establish anything more than he was looking for an interview (again, not all that notable).
While trying to untangle this, I revisited the Axios piece and this seems to be the core to all of this:
"On Wednesday, Carlson told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business that only his executive producer knew about the communications in question and that he didn't mention it to anybody else, including his wife."
I question how factual this actually was, if we are plumbing for leaks. Do we know that his producer didn't delegate the outreach to someone else? Is Tucker the only person that reads his e-mail, or does he have staff to help filter it for him? It seems like he needs to establish a bit stronger how exactly he was communicating so that we can evaluate the security of his end of the communications. Once we do that, then there's the question of who is on the other side receiving Tucker's messages. Why would we have any confidence that they would keep those communications confidential? I wouldn't put it past the Russians to pretend to be a whistleblower, just to raise some hell around here.
I'm not going to hold my breath here, as Carlson feels free to bounce back and forth between telling the truth and engaging in hyperbole for his audience. From the dismissal of Karen McDougal's slander lawsuit last year, the judge wrote[1]:
"[In] the context of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Court finds that Mr. Carlson’s invocation of 'extortion' against Ms. McDougal is nonactionable hyperbole, intended to frame the debate in the guest commentator segment that followed Mr. Carlson’s soliloquy. As Defendant notes, Mr. Carlson himself aims to “challenge political correctness and media bias.” This 'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.'"
Note that the judge didn't invent this reasoning, it was the defense that the Fox lawyers offered on his behalf. (He invented the same defense that Sydney Powell's actually using now. Furthermore, since Tucker's carved out his "take me seriously, not literally space" with this case, the inaction from news side of Fox might be understood as not tripping up the side of the business that is expected to be telling the truth to be peddling Tucker's story.
I remain as confused and even less certain of Carlson's sincerity AFTER reading the Taibbi piece, so tell me what I'm missing, misinterpreting, or refusing to see that convinced you that this was a worthy hill to be defending.
Whether Carlson is lying or pandering is not the biggest story here. The NSA sucks in everything like a giant vacuum and government people can’t resist “a peek” and some juicy bits to help out a pal. This is much more common than you ever hear.
Whether Carlson is truthful here or not IS relevant. If it's found that he's making crap up, then it makes it harder to go after the case where someone else ISN'T making it up, because then we have to litigate whether someone's "Carlson'ing" or not.
Gov't people taking peeks at the data is serious business, and it's only going to get harder to enforce those laws. If this is a serious issue for you, and not a throwaway topic to prove your loyalty to a particular tribe, rather than echoing and amplifying a Boy Crying Wolf, you might get more mileage out of writing about the laws (or the lack of) that enable these kinds of activity, such as FISA amendments, the Patriot Act, etc.[1] that should constrain gov't actors.
The problem with going pro-Tucker independent of the veracity of his claim is that his "truthiness" will start to rub off on you and we'll have good reason to question whether what you're writing actually reflects objective reality (take you literally) or whether it's Michael Wolff-esque fan fiction[2] that's intended to reflect reality, but is so embellished that we don't know which parts actually happened, and which parts were embellished to generate clicks.
The libertarians at Reason seem to have a pretty good take on this[1]:
"Let's be skeptical of Carlson's claims that this is an attempt to make him look bad. He says now, "The point, of course, was to paint me as a disloyal American. A Russian operative. Been called that before. A stooge of the Kremlin, a traitor doing the bidding of a foreign adversary." This simply doesn't seem to track with how the NSA has handled other journalists who have attempted to interview Putin."
"We don't actually know who Axios' sources are here. And Axios reporter Jonathan Swan notes that the very people Carlson was talking to could have been responsible for distributing the communications to others. Even though Carlson says only his executive producer knew about his outreach to Putin, Carlson has no idea what those Russian intermediaries might have done with the emails. For all we know the NSA might have actually seen the contents of the email via the communications between two Russian surveillance targets."
"Nevertheless, this entire affair helps shine a spotlight on the NSA's backdoor search problem. It remains far too easy for the federal government to skirt the Fourth Amendment and access Americans' communications without a warrant just because they're talking with a foreign target. A bipartisan group of privacy-minded lawmakers, including the likes of Sens. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D–Ore.), have been trying to close these backdoors."
A decent follow-up to this might be to disregard Carlson altogether and let his claims stand or fall without dragging you down with them, and write a bit more about what Rand Paul and Ron Wyden are attempting to do with their legislation and whether those efforts are worth supporting or not.
This is a straight up conspiracy theory. Based solely on Tucker freaking Carlson. I give it six months before you start saying the election was actually stolen and Jan 6th rioters were actually heroes.
Not gonna happen. And yes this story will fade. And yes it will happen again (and again) with different targets. Because there are no rules with the NSA and the media willing to receive their juicy bits.
I've kept up with Steve for a few years now, dating back to when he was writing for The Resurgent. Nothing I ever read from him up to the present day gives me any reason to believe that he'll become an election truther or insurrectionist sympathizer. Steve has his own nuanced takes on issues that concur or differ with mine own at times. But to say that he will be an election truther in 6 months because one doesn't agree with his take on the Tucker Carlson/NSA matter, is not a good faith argument.
Any chance you can quote some passages containing factual (falsifiable/verifiable) assertions? I'm pretty much at my financial and attention limit when it comes to Substack newsletters.
One alternative theory I've heard for Tucker's NSA leak story is that he was recently outed as a source for other media reporting on Tucker's contemporaries:
"The answer is one of Washington’s open secrets. Mr. Carlson, a proud traitor to the elite political class, spends his time when he’s not denouncing the liberal media trading gossip with them. He’s the go-to guy for sometimes-unflattering stories about Donald J. Trump and for coverage of the internal politics of Fox News (not to mention stories about Mr. Carlson himself). I won’t talk here about any off-the-record conversations I may have had with him. But 16 other journalists (none from The Times; it would put my colleagues in a weird position if I asked them) told me on background that he has been, as three of them put it, 'a great source.'"
"'In Trump’s Washington, Tucker Carlson is a primary supersecret source,' the media writer and Trump chronicler Michael Wolff writes in his forthcoming collection of essays, 'Too Famous.' Mr. Wolff, who thanked Mr. Carlson in the acknowledgments of his 2018 book, 'Fire and Fury,' explained, 'I know this because I know what he has told me, and I can track his exquisite, too-good-not-to-be-true gossip through unsourced reports and as it often emerges into accepted wisdom.'"[1]
I don't remember who first floated the theory, but one I've encountered is that with Tucker's outing, he has plenty of media and political "frienemies" who have dirt on him and are keen to leak it as retribution for the stuff that he's leaked on them. Tucker claiming that the NSA is spying on him an attempt to get ahead of these other leaks, in order to flip the forthcoming unflattering news about him as some grand gov't conspiracy instead.
As with all of this, I'm unable to venture to what extent this is true, but it was a pretty compelling alternative explanation for what we're seeing with Tucker and his lone war against folks purportedly spying on him.
Not what I expect from you - it's less factual and more rumor (anonymous sources) based. Of course I'm not allowed to read the NYT link which might shed some light, but I doubt it.
That's why I included "I'm unable to venture to what extent this is true", but it has as much evidence to support it right now as the "NSA is spying on Tucker" story that's also in play (which is to say next to none).
Looking back on this, I'm fairly certain (75% positive) that I first heard this floated on one of Jonah Goldberg's podcasts, for whatever that's worth.
And here's a third-party archive link of Ben Smith's NYT story linked above that should help you avoid any paywall issues or sending NYT traffic issues:
I try to be fair and level headed, but Tucker Carlson is hated outside Fox News sycophants because he is a noun that starts with the letter a that makes up stuff and tries to spin agenda driven opinion as facts with senseless gorp like white people are under attack and vaccines are bad.
I realize this story is about something more (don’t use words like blindingly obvious as a suggestion if you hope to invoke any sort of persuasion), but I’m not able to get past the words: Tucker Carlson.
Sir, you have been infected with a new variant of TDS. I suggest that if you have not already had your 3 shots of vaccine that you do so immediately and, for heaven sakes, don't forget your mask.
No mention of any alternative possibilities is some malpractice, Steve. Tucker was reportedly reaching out to Russia to get an interview with Russia: how likely is it that he was talking to someone that *is* under NSA surveillance, thus recording his communications as well? Or: how likely is it that it's not from the NSA but from the Russians themselves?
"When senior officials in the U.S. government see an intelligence report that say U.S. person one or U.S. person two, they can go back to the agency that collected the information, typically – but not only – NSA, and ask “who is that person?” The requestor has to have a good reason for asking that question, and that reason tends to be that you need the know the name in order to understand the intelligence report."
Also: Tucker's submitted a FOIA from Jan 2019 through June 2021 (found from an FOIA of the FOIA) and the NSA has outright stated that he's not under investigation.
So I'm gonna hold off on any determination on the matter until anything other than Tucker's mouth is providing the "evidence", 'cause this all started with him saying he's being spied upon. Right now all we have is his flapping gums, and no real evidence.
"What's next: Experts say there are several plausible scenarios — including legal scenarios — that could apply."
" * The first — and least likely — scenario is that the U.S. government submitted a request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Carlson to protect national security."
" * A more plausible scenario is that one of the people Carlson was talking to as an intermediary to help him get the Putin interview was under surveillance as a foreign agent."
"In that scenario, Carlson's emails or text messages could have been incidentally collected as part of monitoring this person, but Carlson's identity would have been masked in any intelligence reports."
"In order to know that the texts and emails were Carlson's, a U.S. government official would likely have to request his identity be unmasked, something that's only permitted if the unmasking is necessary to understand the intelligence."
" * In a third scenario, interceptions might not have involved Carlson's communications. The U.S. government routinely monitors the communications of people in Putin's orbit, who may have been discussing the details of Carlson's request for an interview."
"But under this scenario, too, Carlson's identity would have been masked in reports as part of his protections as a U.S. citizen, and unmasking would only be permitted if a U.S. government official requested that his identity be unmasked in order to understand the intelligence. And it's not clear why that would be necessary here."
You can lay out all the details and paint the government/democrats in whatever favorable light you want, Fact is Tucker is hitting too close to home and he is in trouble. I want him to know, when they come for him, i will stand with him.
Also not mentioned here are all the other incidences of Tucker "crying wolf" in the past, which make rational people question this situation more than they would otherwise. Remember when he had evidence mailed to him about Hunter Biden that "suspiciously" never showed up?
From: The little infrastructure bill that could by David Thornton 7/25/21
"The latest on the Tucker Carlson spying tempest-in-a-teapot is that an internal investigation found that there was no spying on Tucker.
The Record reports that “the Fox News host’s communications were not targeted — as the NSA has previously stated publicly — nor intercepted through so-called ‘incidental collection,’ where the U.S. government sometimes obtains the emails or phone calls of Americans in contact with a foreign target under surveillance.”
“Instead,” the report continues, “The nation’s top electronic spy agency found that Carlson was mentioned in communications between third parties and his name was subsequently revealed through ‘unmasking,’ a process in which relevant government officials can request the identities of American citizens in intelligence reports to be divulged provided there is an official reason, such as helping them make sense of the intelligence documents they are reviewing.”
The report cites sources that gave details about the internal investigation, which was prompted by congressional inquiries. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
It’s possible that the report is a coverup, but outrageous claims require evidence. The onus is on Tucker at this point.
Unlike his report on the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, Tucker may not have intentionally misled people on the surveillance report. He may have simply reported what he was told by his own sources.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt to this point, but his future claims need to be supported by evidence."
No. "Unmasking" is illegal. I don't think the claims are outrageous. This has happened again and again and if it was a reporter for the Washington Post or CNN you'd be hearing "government coverup" as loud as the volume knob can go. Because it's Carlson, now it's just a nutcase conspiracy kook theory.
There isn't anyone you won't defend from nonsense is there? No matter how much they lie or steal or misinform. Even if it kills people. You have absolutely no idea what is actually going on with Tucker but you seem to buy into all his nonsense even though he has a history of being a bold face liar. He should run for president, you love voting for that type.
I hope this site remains free because I wouldn't be able to support any website that has you on staff even if the rest of the writing pool I really enjoy.
I don't know enough to to say whether the accusation here is true or false - and am unlikely to get any useful corroborating evidence out of Carlson or the NSA - but I'm curious what you make of the reports that while Carlson's beating this spying drum during FOX News' opinion hours, the folks working in the actual newsroom don't want to touch his claims with a ten-foot pole:
"The highest-rated Fox News host is reportedly 'extra pissed' at his employer for not vocally championing his far-fetched allegations against the federal government. Since Tucker Carlson claimed two weeks ago that he is being secretly spied on by the National Security Agency in an attempt to take him off the air, the network has largely ignored his supposed revelations both from a PR standpoint and in its coverage—silence that suggests not even Fox News is buying the surveillance narrative. A perceived lack of support from colleagues and network executives—the top two of which have not issued statements of public support or decried the NSA’s alleged behavior—has Carlson 'furious' that Fox, especially its PR team, is “not backing him up,” one source told CNN, adding: 'Tensions are sky high.'"
Fake news or does the Deep State extend so deeply into FOX News itself that Carlson can't get his fellow folks there to jump on the kind of story that would otherwise be bleeding red meat to throw up on their front page and lead their news segment with? In the absence of any hard evidence one way or the other, why should I take Carlson's self-interested claims more seriously than the silence of the actual reporters in that organization?
[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/tucker-carlson-is-reportedly-pissed-at-fox-news-for-not-backing-his-nsa-claims
Read Taibbi.
I went ahead and sent $5 Taibbi's way to read the article, and it seems like the strongest evidence that the NSA is doing what Tucker said they are doing as the fact that the Axios article came out a couple of hours after his appearance on Bartiromo’s Fox Business show:
"The NSA story took a turn on the morning of July 7th last week, when Carlson went on Maria Bartiromo’s program. He said that it would shortly come out that the NSA 'leaked the contents of my email to journalists,' claiming he knew this because one of them called him for comment. On cue, hours later, a piece came out in Axios, 'Scoop: Tucker Carlson sought Putin interview at time of spying claim.'"
Maybe I'm missing something, but the Axios piece that Taibbi cites as evidence isn't so much about Tucker's outreach to Putin (journalists reaching out to leaders seem to be fairly routine as per the article), and more about Tucker's NSA claims. It's all very circular, as the contents of those "leaked" e-mails and texts don't seem to establish anything more than he was looking for an interview (again, not all that notable).
While trying to untangle this, I revisited the Axios piece and this seems to be the core to all of this:
"On Wednesday, Carlson told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business that only his executive producer knew about the communications in question and that he didn't mention it to anybody else, including his wife."
I question how factual this actually was, if we are plumbing for leaks. Do we know that his producer didn't delegate the outreach to someone else? Is Tucker the only person that reads his e-mail, or does he have staff to help filter it for him? It seems like he needs to establish a bit stronger how exactly he was communicating so that we can evaluate the security of his end of the communications. Once we do that, then there's the question of who is on the other side receiving Tucker's messages. Why would we have any confidence that they would keep those communications confidential? I wouldn't put it past the Russians to pretend to be a whistleblower, just to raise some hell around here.
I'm not going to hold my breath here, as Carlson feels free to bounce back and forth between telling the truth and engaging in hyperbole for his audience. From the dismissal of Karen McDougal's slander lawsuit last year, the judge wrote[1]:
"[In] the context of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Court finds that Mr. Carlson’s invocation of 'extortion' against Ms. McDougal is nonactionable hyperbole, intended to frame the debate in the guest commentator segment that followed Mr. Carlson’s soliloquy. As Defendant notes, Mr. Carlson himself aims to “challenge political correctness and media bias.” This 'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.'"
Note that the judge didn't invent this reasoning, it was the defense that the Fox lawyers offered on his behalf. (He invented the same defense that Sydney Powell's actually using now. Furthermore, since Tucker's carved out his "take me seriously, not literally space" with this case, the inaction from news side of Fox might be understood as not tripping up the side of the business that is expected to be telling the truth to be peddling Tucker's story.
I remain as confused and even less certain of Carlson's sincerity AFTER reading the Taibbi piece, so tell me what I'm missing, misinterpreting, or refusing to see that convinced you that this was a worthy hill to be defending.
[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv11161/527808/39/
Whether Carlson is lying or pandering is not the biggest story here. The NSA sucks in everything like a giant vacuum and government people can’t resist “a peek” and some juicy bits to help out a pal. This is much more common than you ever hear.
Whether Carlson is truthful here or not IS relevant. If it's found that he's making crap up, then it makes it harder to go after the case where someone else ISN'T making it up, because then we have to litigate whether someone's "Carlson'ing" or not.
Gov't people taking peeks at the data is serious business, and it's only going to get harder to enforce those laws. If this is a serious issue for you, and not a throwaway topic to prove your loyalty to a particular tribe, rather than echoing and amplifying a Boy Crying Wolf, you might get more mileage out of writing about the laws (or the lack of) that enable these kinds of activity, such as FISA amendments, the Patriot Act, etc.[1] that should constrain gov't actors.
The problem with going pro-Tucker independent of the veracity of his claim is that his "truthiness" will start to rub off on you and we'll have good reason to question whether what you're writing actually reflects objective reality (take you literally) or whether it's Michael Wolff-esque fan fiction[2] that's intended to reflect reality, but is so embellished that we don't know which parts actually happened, and which parts were embellished to generate clicks.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/nsa-surveillance
[2] https://observer.com/2018/02/michael-wolff-was-thrown-off-msnbcs-morning-joe-for-nikki-haley-affair-rumors/
The libertarians at Reason seem to have a pretty good take on this[1]:
"Let's be skeptical of Carlson's claims that this is an attempt to make him look bad. He says now, "The point, of course, was to paint me as a disloyal American. A Russian operative. Been called that before. A stooge of the Kremlin, a traitor doing the bidding of a foreign adversary." This simply doesn't seem to track with how the NSA has handled other journalists who have attempted to interview Putin."
"We don't actually know who Axios' sources are here. And Axios reporter Jonathan Swan notes that the very people Carlson was talking to could have been responsible for distributing the communications to others. Even though Carlson says only his executive producer knew about his outreach to Putin, Carlson has no idea what those Russian intermediaries might have done with the emails. For all we know the NSA might have actually seen the contents of the email via the communications between two Russian surveillance targets."
"Nevertheless, this entire affair helps shine a spotlight on the NSA's backdoor search problem. It remains far too easy for the federal government to skirt the Fourth Amendment and access Americans' communications without a warrant just because they're talking with a foreign target. A bipartisan group of privacy-minded lawmakers, including the likes of Sens. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D–Ore.), have been trying to close these backdoors."
A decent follow-up to this might be to disregard Carlson altogether and let his claims stand or fall without dragging you down with them, and write a bit more about what Rand Paul and Ron Wyden are attempting to do with their legislation and whether those efforts are worth supporting or not.
[1] https://reason.com/2021/07/08/treat-tucker-carlsons-nsa-snooping-claims-seriously-but-not-literally/
This is a straight up conspiracy theory. Based solely on Tucker freaking Carlson. I give it six months before you start saying the election was actually stolen and Jan 6th rioters were actually heroes.
Not gonna happen. And yes this story will fade. And yes it will happen again (and again) with different targets. Because there are no rules with the NSA and the media willing to receive their juicy bits.
I've kept up with Steve for a few years now, dating back to when he was writing for The Resurgent. Nothing I ever read from him up to the present day gives me any reason to believe that he'll become an election truther or insurrectionist sympathizer. Steve has his own nuanced takes on issues that concur or differ with mine own at times. But to say that he will be an election truther in 6 months because one doesn't agree with his take on the Tucker Carlson/NSA matter, is not a good faith argument.
Any chance you can quote some passages containing factual (falsifiable/verifiable) assertions? I'm pretty much at my financial and attention limit when it comes to Substack newsletters.
Has anyone even seen a leak? It looks like Tucker's just saying stuff, and nothing has (as of yet) been leaked from any Federal agency.
One alternative theory I've heard for Tucker's NSA leak story is that he was recently outed as a source for other media reporting on Tucker's contemporaries:
"The answer is one of Washington’s open secrets. Mr. Carlson, a proud traitor to the elite political class, spends his time when he’s not denouncing the liberal media trading gossip with them. He’s the go-to guy for sometimes-unflattering stories about Donald J. Trump and for coverage of the internal politics of Fox News (not to mention stories about Mr. Carlson himself). I won’t talk here about any off-the-record conversations I may have had with him. But 16 other journalists (none from The Times; it would put my colleagues in a weird position if I asked them) told me on background that he has been, as three of them put it, 'a great source.'"
"'In Trump’s Washington, Tucker Carlson is a primary supersecret source,' the media writer and Trump chronicler Michael Wolff writes in his forthcoming collection of essays, 'Too Famous.' Mr. Wolff, who thanked Mr. Carlson in the acknowledgments of his 2018 book, 'Fire and Fury,' explained, 'I know this because I know what he has told me, and I can track his exquisite, too-good-not-to-be-true gossip through unsourced reports and as it often emerges into accepted wisdom.'"[1]
I don't remember who first floated the theory, but one I've encountered is that with Tucker's outing, he has plenty of media and political "frienemies" who have dirt on him and are keen to leak it as retribution for the stuff that he's leaked on them. Tucker claiming that the NSA is spying on him an attempt to get ahead of these other leaks, in order to flip the forthcoming unflattering news about him as some grand gov't conspiracy instead.
As with all of this, I'm unable to venture to what extent this is true, but it was a pretty compelling alternative explanation for what we're seeing with Tucker and his lone war against folks purportedly spying on him.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/business/media/tucker-carlson.html
Not what I expect from you - it's less factual and more rumor (anonymous sources) based. Of course I'm not allowed to read the NYT link which might shed some light, but I doubt it.
That's why I included "I'm unable to venture to what extent this is true", but it has as much evidence to support it right now as the "NSA is spying on Tucker" story that's also in play (which is to say next to none).
Looking back on this, I'm fairly certain (75% positive) that I first heard this floated on one of Jonah Goldberg's podcasts, for whatever that's worth.
And here's a third-party archive link of Ben Smith's NYT story linked above that should help you avoid any paywall issues or sending NYT traffic issues:
https://archive.is/fS1SI
Bon appétit!
I try to be fair and level headed, but Tucker Carlson is hated outside Fox News sycophants because he is a noun that starts with the letter a that makes up stuff and tries to spin agenda driven opinion as facts with senseless gorp like white people are under attack and vaccines are bad.
I realize this story is about something more (don’t use words like blindingly obvious as a suggestion if you hope to invoke any sort of persuasion), but I’m not able to get past the words: Tucker Carlson.
Sir, you have been infected with a new variant of TDS. I suggest that if you have not already had your 3 shots of vaccine that you do so immediately and, for heaven sakes, don't forget your mask.
No mention of any alternative possibilities is some malpractice, Steve. Tucker was reportedly reaching out to Russia to get an interview with Russia: how likely is it that he was talking to someone that *is* under NSA surveillance, thus recording his communications as well? Or: how likely is it that it's not from the NSA but from the Russians themselves?
It doesn’t work that way. Unless Tucker is the target of an investigation, it’s illegal to unmask him.
One does not need to be the target of an investigation to be unmasked.
From https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/unmasking-critical-national-security:
"When senior officials in the U.S. government see an intelligence report that say U.S. person one or U.S. person two, they can go back to the agency that collected the information, typically – but not only – NSA, and ask “who is that person?” The requestor has to have a good reason for asking that question, and that reason tends to be that you need the know the name in order to understand the intelligence report."
Also: Tucker's submitted a FOIA from Jan 2019 through June 2021 (found from an FOIA of the FOIA) and the NSA has outright stated that he's not under investigation.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/tucker-carlson-nsa-foia-request
So I'm gonna hold off on any determination on the matter until anything other than Tucker's mouth is providing the "evidence", 'cause this all started with him saying he's being spied upon. Right now all we have is his flapping gums, and no real evidence.
The Axios link covers this:
"What's next: Experts say there are several plausible scenarios — including legal scenarios — that could apply."
" * The first — and least likely — scenario is that the U.S. government submitted a request to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor Carlson to protect national security."
" * A more plausible scenario is that one of the people Carlson was talking to as an intermediary to help him get the Putin interview was under surveillance as a foreign agent."
"In that scenario, Carlson's emails or text messages could have been incidentally collected as part of monitoring this person, but Carlson's identity would have been masked in any intelligence reports."
"In order to know that the texts and emails were Carlson's, a U.S. government official would likely have to request his identity be unmasked, something that's only permitted if the unmasking is necessary to understand the intelligence."
" * In a third scenario, interceptions might not have involved Carlson's communications. The U.S. government routinely monitors the communications of people in Putin's orbit, who may have been discussing the details of Carlson's request for an interview."
"But under this scenario, too, Carlson's identity would have been masked in reports as part of his protections as a U.S. citizen, and unmasking would only be permitted if a U.S. government official requested that his identity be unmasked in order to understand the intelligence. And it's not clear why that would be necessary here."
Supposed to say "interview with Putin".
You can lay out all the details and paint the government/democrats in whatever favorable light you want, Fact is Tucker is hitting too close to home and he is in trouble. I want him to know, when they come for him, i will stand with him.
Also not mentioned here are all the other incidences of Tucker "crying wolf" in the past, which make rational people question this situation more than they would otherwise. Remember when he had evidence mailed to him about Hunter Biden that "suspiciously" never showed up?
Any chance of a mea culpa on this one?
From: The little infrastructure bill that could by David Thornton 7/25/21
"The latest on the Tucker Carlson spying tempest-in-a-teapot is that an internal investigation found that there was no spying on Tucker.
The Record reports that “the Fox News host’s communications were not targeted — as the NSA has previously stated publicly — nor intercepted through so-called ‘incidental collection,’ where the U.S. government sometimes obtains the emails or phone calls of Americans in contact with a foreign target under surveillance.”
“Instead,” the report continues, “The nation’s top electronic spy agency found that Carlson was mentioned in communications between third parties and his name was subsequently revealed through ‘unmasking,’ a process in which relevant government officials can request the identities of American citizens in intelligence reports to be divulged provided there is an official reason, such as helping them make sense of the intelligence documents they are reviewing.”
The report cites sources that gave details about the internal investigation, which was prompted by congressional inquiries. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
It’s possible that the report is a coverup, but outrageous claims require evidence. The onus is on Tucker at this point.
Unlike his report on the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, Tucker may not have intentionally misled people on the surveillance report. He may have simply reported what he was told by his own sources.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt to this point, but his future claims need to be supported by evidence."
No. "Unmasking" is illegal. I don't think the claims are outrageous. This has happened again and again and if it was a reporter for the Washington Post or CNN you'd be hearing "government coverup" as loud as the volume knob can go. Because it's Carlson, now it's just a nutcase conspiracy kook theory.
There isn't anyone you won't defend from nonsense is there? No matter how much they lie or steal or misinform. Even if it kills people. You have absolutely no idea what is actually going on with Tucker but you seem to buy into all his nonsense even though he has a history of being a bold face liar. He should run for president, you love voting for that type.
I hope this site remains free because I wouldn't be able to support any website that has you on staff even if the rest of the writing pool I really enjoy.
It’s my site along with David and Jay. Sorry to be the one to tell you.