Tuesday, November 05, 2013

EXCLUSIVE: NSA routinely intercepted Jimmy Carter's and Hillary Clinton's phone calls



EXCLUSIVE: NSA routinely intercepted Jimmy Carter's and Hillary Clinton's phone calls

The National Security Agency intercepted so many of the phone calls and other communications of former President Jimmy Carter and then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, special internal procedures were established within NSA to handle the intercepts. According to declassified formerly CONFIDENTIAL HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY memos issued by the NSA General Counsel's office, Mrs. Clinton was to be treated as any other U.S. government employee owing to her being the Chairperson of the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform.

An NSA memo dated December 15, 1994 states that intercepts of President Carter's phone calls pertaining to his efforts to bring about a peace agreement with Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic were to identify Carter as a "U.S. person" and not as a "former President."Transcripts of Carter's calls were only to refer to him as a "former U.S. President" if his status changed from private peace envoy to official U.S. government representative.

If Carter's status had become official in 1994 or 1995, there were only four living "former U.S. Presidents -- Carter, Ford, Reagan, and Bush -- but only Carter was involved in Balkan peace talks. It would not have been difficult for anyone reading a "minimized" transcript omitting Carter's name to determine the intercepted communications involved Carter. Even being referred to as a "U.S. person" would not have done much to mask Carter's identity since he would have been one of but a few involved in peace talks with Karadzic, who was considered an international pariah and a number one target for NSA surveillance.

However, the memo on Carter does not mention his private life or potential criminal wrongdoing as does the July 8, 1993 memo dealing with intercepts of Mrs. Clinton's communications by NSA. NSA sources have told WMR that every government employee or contractor who uses a U.S. government telephone or e-mail account is subject to NSA monitoring of their domestic and international communications. Domestic monitoring is done for the purpose of ensuring communications security or "COMSEC." NSA sources have also revealed that on more than one occasion, Mrs. Clinton's conversations while she was First Lady revealed some potentially embarrassing sexual content to NSA eavesdroppers. The 1993 memo states that "no reports may be published concerning Mrs. Clinton's private life."



A June 6, 1996 NSA memo reveals that special procedures were put in place for NSA interception of the communications of U.S. presidential and Senate candidates, as well as U.S. political parties. The memo also states that NSA intercepts were not merely confined to a "U.S. political party" or a "U.S. Senate candidate," but other office seekers as well. The 1996 presidential campaign pitted Democratic President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore against the Republican ticket of Senator Bob Dole and former Representative and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp.

Several newspapers have refrained from publishing the names of NSA or British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) personnel. The NSA and GCHQ claim that these names are sensitive. WMR has obtained a circa early 1990s UNCLASSIFIED organization chart, complete with names of NSA and GCHQ, from the NSA station (F83) in Menwith Hill, England.If the identities of NSA and GCHQ personnel are so sensitive, the UNCLASSIFIED chart does not indicate so. WMR is publishing the organizational chart in full, without redactions. We can only hope that newspapers like The New York TimesThe GuardianThe Washington Post, and Le Monde, will see the foolishness of their past redactions of names.



F83 (Menwith Hill) org chart. Click image to enlarge.

The Washington Post
, in particular, has treated its cache of classified NSA documents as if they were in possession of the keys to the gold vaults at Fort Knox. However, the Post was not always so reticent over publishing details about NSA surveillance. For example, on July 19, 1980, the Post ran a story titled "Magazine Says NSA Is Tapping Phones, Telex from Britain." The original article about the tapping, which involved Menwith Hill and British Post Office microwave towers, appeared in the New Statesman in the UK. The Post reporter in London who covered the surveillance story was none other than Leonard Downie, Jr., who would later become the managing editor of The Washington Post.



Once upon a time, when The Washington Post had just a little intestinal fortitude.

The Guardian
 had no problem in skirting Britain's infamous "D-Notice" press censorship regulations when, on February 7, 1981, it ran a story titled "US agency 'bugged Labour MPs.'" The paper was reporting on a BBC "Panorama" television story that revealed that the NSA was bugging the telephones of Labor Party Members of Parliament. It has always been assumed that NSA does not spy on the British government in keeping with the UK-USA signals intelligence agreement, originally the BRUSA (British-US Agreement of 1946, that prohibits reciprocal surveillance of each government by NSA or GCHQ.

Former MI6 agent James Rusbridger revealed that NSA was authorized by GCHQ to spy on Labor MPs because the Margaret Thatcher government believed they were in contact with Communist agents or were, themselves, Communists. NSA spying resumed on British MPs after Prime Minister Harold Wilson put a stop to the practice, according to Rusbridger.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Michael_Foot_%281981%29.jpg
NSA did spy on the British government. The Labor Leader of the Opposition in 1981 was Michael Foot, believed by Margaret Thatcher, GCHQ, and NSA to be a Communist sympathizer. Leader of the Opposition in Britain is an official position.

Rusbridger said the surveillance of Labour MPs by NSA was carried out by the NSA's "Special Projects Division." Rusbridger said his job w at MI6 was to smuggle large amounts of cash overseas through front companies like "J. A. Goldschmidt" of London. Rusbridger wrote a number of books on espionage, including his 1989 book, The Intelligence Game: The Illusions and Delusions of International Espionage."In February 1994, Rusbridger's body was found hanging from a ceiling beam in his Cornwall home. His death was ruled as a case of auto-asphyxiation. Rusbridger was wearing a black raincoat and a gas mask and pornographic photos of black women in bondage scenes were strewn on the floor. A pulley connected his neck and ankle to a rope. Such "accidental" deaths with pornographic and bizarre sexual practices are a favorite method of MI6 to silence critics and whistleblowers. The embarrassment of the scenes of death are so great, family members decide not to investigate the deaths of their loved ones any further. James Rusbridger should not be confused with Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian who had the final call on pulling the June 30, 2013 Guardian web article quoting the WMR editor on NSA surveillance and Europe's hypocrisy over the NSA revelations.