Who Else Is the NSA Unmasking?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the unmasking of American citizens. Last month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had read his emails, “unmasked” him, and leaked his information to the media. The NSA publicly denied the accusation and said that Carlson “has never been an intelligence target.”

            Tucker said that he had been in the process of trying to arrange an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Carlson said that he had learned the previous day that “sources in the so-called intelligence community told at least one reporter in Washington what was in those emails, my emails.” Later, the NSA admitted quietly that they had “unmasked” the Carlson’s identity and leaked information just as he alleged earlier. Mary Kay Linge wrote the following about the situation for The New York Post. 

“For the NSA to unmask Tucker Carlson or any journalist attempting to secure a newsworthy interview is entirely unacceptable and raises serious questions about their activities as well as their original denial, which was wildly misleading,” a Fox News spokesperson told The Record, a cybersecurity news site.

Two sources told The Record Friday that, according to an internal NSA investigation, Carlson’s name was revealed after it was mentioned in “communications between two parties” that were under surveillance.

But the host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” was neither a direct nor an incidental target of the agency, the sources said.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s claims about being “unmasked” were confirmed by an NSA investigation, according to reports.

            According to Linge, “unmasking” takes place when the intelligence community “allows national security officials to see the identities of American citizens who correspond with foreigners under surveillance.” This term became familiar to Americans when Michael Flynn was unmasked by the Obama administration as part of the FBI’s Russia investigation. According to the law, Americans are supposed to be protected from the view of the spy agencies. Plus, the revealing to the public of any “unmasked” names is strictly prohibited.

            Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal noted that mainstream media seems to have a different attitude about the Carlson unmasking than they had when the phone records of their own reporters became part of an investigation. 

The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN strongly objected and protested when the Trump administration obtained reporters’ phone records as part of an investigation into the leak of classified information.

Yet those same news organizations aren’t willing to stand with popular Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson, who the National Security Agency “unmasked” during the early moths of the Biden administration.

            It appears from Lucas’s article that each news agency is willing to stand up and scream about governmental abuse when its own reporters are surveilled, but they do not seem to care that much when the reporters of another agency are “unmasked” or otherwise watched. Therefore, the governmental misuse of power will most likely continue simply because news agencies will not stand together against the government.