President Barack Obama’s top aides routinely reviewed intelligence reports from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad, taking advantage of relaxed rules aimed to help fight terrorism, spying and hackers, Circa reported Wednesday.
According to Circa, "dozens of times" last year, the intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted talking to foreign sources or were the subject of conversations between two or more monitored foreign figures.
Circa reported sometimes the Americans’ names were officially unmasked; "other times they were so specifically described in the reports that their identities were readily discernible."
Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, his CIA Director John Brennan and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the outlet reported.
Circa reported that some of the intercepted communications from last November to January involved Trump transition figures or foreign figures' perceptions of the incoming president and his administration.
Intercepts involving congressional figures also have been unmasked occasionally for some time, Circa reported.
The NSA is expected to turn over logs to congressional committees detailing who consumed reports with unmasked Americans' identities from their intercepts since the summer of 2016, Circa reported.
And the data is likely to become a primary focus of the Russia election meddling probe of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Circa reported.
The outlet noted that Trump is seeking some sort of vindication for alleging that Obama ordered that he be wiretapped at Trump Tower during the campaign -- a claim that the FBI and NSA have refuted.
But Circa writes, "Any proof Obama aides were using NSA-enriched intelligence reports to monitor his transition on the world stage could embolden the new president."
"But perhaps the most consequential outcome of the new revelations is that it may impact the NSA’s primary authority to intercept foreigners: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is up for renewal at the end of the year," the outlet reported.
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