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Home Front: Politix
US snooping on Israel also caught talks with lawmakers
2015-12-30
Barack Hussein Obama is this generation's Haman.
The U.S. captured communications from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides and swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers, giving the Obama administration insight into Israel's lobbying efforts against the international nuclear deal with Iran, according to a new report.
Close call as to who Champ's bigger enemy is: Bibi or House Pubs...
At least Bibi is putting up a fight...
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the National Security Agency (NSA) swept up information that White House officials considered valuable as it sought to counter Netanyahu's vocal opposition to the nuclear deal between Iran, the U.S. and other world leaders.

Netanyahu reportedly remained a top priority for the snooping, according to the report, despite President Obama saying two years ago he would curb eavesdropping on allies.

The Journal also reported that White House officials were worried about the politics of asking for swept-up communications between Israeli officials and members of Congress, allowing the NSA to decide what to share.

"We didn't say, 'Do it,' " a senior U.S. official told the Journal. "We didn't say, 'Don't do it.' "
And everyone understood what was wanted...
NSA snooping allegedly found Netanyahu and his aides leaked details of the negotiations gained through Israeli spying, coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal and asked those lawmakers who were undecided on the deal how it could get their vote, according to the report.

The Obama administration decided to shield leaders including French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other North Atlantic Treat Organization (NATO) heads from NSA snooping, according to the report, while it omitted some including Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama maintained the monitoring of Netanyahu as it served a "compelling national security purpose," the newspaper reported, citing unnamed current and former U.S. officials.

Netanyahu spoke out against a potentially unsatisfactory nuclear deal during a speech to a joint session of Congress in March. The U.S. and five other world powers reached a deal in July.

The Israeli leader has previously criticized U.S. spying on Israel, which was revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.
The Times of Israel adds:
Despite promising to curb eavesdropping on foreign leaders, White House had NSA listen in on conversations between Israeli leaders and US politicians, according to Wall Street Journal.

The White House instructed US spies to eavesdrop on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials earlier this year in an effort to counter campaigning against the Iran nuclear deal, despite promising to curtail listening in on foreign leaders, according to a Wall Street Journal report late Tuesday.

The National Security Agency's spying dragnet was cast so wide it caught conversations Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders had with US officials and Jewish American leaders, leading to what one source called an "oh shit moment," when the extent became clear according to the report, which cites several current and former US officials.
Not quite the same as "We didn't say do it, we didn't say don't do it."
Though Obama promised in 2013 to curb American spying on foreign leaders, following revelations of NSA spying on allies leaked by whisteblower Edward Snowden, an official said the idea of stopping tracking Netanyahu was barely entertained.

"Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn't do that," the paper quoted as senior US administration official saying, using a nickname for the prime minister.

According to the report, spying on Jerusalem included "a cyber implant in Israeli networks," giving the NSA access to information in Netanyahu's office.

After concerns were raised that the NSA was spying on conversations between US politicians and Netanyahu or other Israeli officials, the White House told the NSA to decide what info to give out, allowing them to mask the names of US citizens being spied on.

In October, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US spied on the Israeli air bases and secret communications in 2012, fearing an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was in the works.

According to the report, "[n]erves frayed at the White House" when the US discovered Israeli air activity over Iran, and Washington dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Mideast and also prepared attack aircraft, in case, as one senior American official told the Journal, "all hell broke loose."

At the same time, US intelligence was monitoring Israeli communications to ensure that Jerusalem was unaware of secret backchannel meeting between the US and Iran taking place in Oman, the paper reported.
Update at 8:00 a.m. ET from the original Wall Street Journal report, which is worth going to the link to read:
Convinced Mr. Netanyahu would attack Iran without warning the White House, U.S. spy agencies ramped up their surveillance, with the assent of Democratic and Republican politicians serving on congressional intelligence committees.

By 2013, U.S. intelligence agencies determined Mr. Netanyahu wasn't going to strike Iran. But they had another reason to keep watch. The White House wanted to know if Israel had learned of the secret negotiations. U.S. officials feared Iran would bolt the talks and pursue an atomic bomb if news leaked.

The NSA had, in some cases, spent decades placing electronic implants in networks around the world to collect phone calls, text messages and emails. Removing them or turning them off in the wake of the Snowden revelations would make it difficult, if not impossible, to re-establish access in the future, U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House.

Instead of removing the implants, Mr. Obama decided to shut off the NSA's monitoring of phone numbers and email addresses of certain allied leaders--a move that could be reversed by the president or his successor.
Posted by:Steve White

#9  That comment was pure Judenhass. This was an attempt to tip off a sworn enemy that an ally was going to act against them.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2015-12-30 15:41  

#8  Considering Pollard (a walk-in spy) got busted selling military information, I'm not sure where that last comment was supposed to go.

I'm not sure the commenter did either.
Posted by: Pappy   2015-12-30 14:47  

#7  So, it was OK when Johnathan Pollard did it, but not OK when we do it. Yup.
Posted by: Thraling Hupoluns2819   2015-12-30 13:49  

#6  Likely part of the recent Iranian deal; alerting out Iranian partners to potential threats of hostile attack.

Posted by: Besoeker   2015-12-30 12:36  

#5  How bad is this? As of 10 minutes ago it wasn't on the front page of the NYT or WAPO. They're standing by for orders. I haven't checked the sports pages.

It did make the front page of the Guardian, which has amended its position from "American spying evil" to "American spying evil except on Juices."
Posted by: Matt   2015-12-30 12:27  

#4  Keeping a vengeful eye on the meddlesome Jew are we ?
Posted by: Besoeker   2015-12-30 11:51  

#3  Our national security is at grave risk whenever anyone plots against our close allies the Iranians, Cubans or Saudi Arabians.
Posted by: Super Hose   2015-12-30 11:46  

#2  When the NSA captured conversations between people including retired Prez Jimmy Carter and his buddy Andrew Young with officials of Pakistan's corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, by orders of the White House the material was excised rather than shame the individuals involved. A sense of propriety then existed where, at least with regard to Israel, none exists today.
Posted by: Clyde Bucket1605   2015-12-30 08:27  

#1  So, they get treated like any American citizen.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2015-12-30 08:22  

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