Samuel Case, FISM News
Several weeks ago, Fox opinion host Tucker Carlson claimed that a whistleblower warned him that the NSA is monitoring his electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take his show off the air.
In response the The NSA has released a statement which read in part, “Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air,” adding, the “NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States.”
A statement from NSA regarding recent allegations: pic.twitter.com/vduE6l6YWg
— NSA/CSS (@NSAGov) June 30, 2021
Now, sources familiar with an internal NSA review on the matter told the news outlet The Record that Carlson’s name was unmasked and leaked. The sources denied, however, that Carlson was a target of the NSA.
Unmasking is when the intelligence community allows national security officials to see the names of Americans who are communicating with surveilled foreign individuals. Usually this is done to provide context to a surveilled conversation. Unmasked identities are only supposed to be shared with the specific inquirer and never to become public. It’s possible Carlson was surveilled when attempting to set up an interview with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The NSA now admits that it "unmasked" Tucker's identity after an intelligence intercept. Plus: the tyrants at Facebook confirm that they have been censoring this show. pic.twitter.com/AeYbQzNWLI
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) July 24, 2021
A Fox News spokesperson condemned the unmasking saying, “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.”