Attorney General William Barr recently took the unprecedented step of requiring any future investigation of a presidential campaign to get approval from him and the director of the FBI. But recent statements from the intelligence agencies suggest that political spying - on members of Congress as well as presidential candidates - may be more widespread than Barr himself realizes.
Political surveillance hit a high point with the FBI and CIA in the Nixon era, when both agencies were deployed to conduct domestic, political spying.
To determine whether such spying has recently occurred, our nonpartisan civil liberties group filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the prominent agencies in Washington's intelligence community.
We first asked about surveillance of members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in both parties.
As often happens with FOIA requests, we received a boilerplate non-answer called a "Glomar response." The agency said it "Can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to of [sic] your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of the requested records ... could reveal intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure."
Where possible political spying is concerned, even a Glomar response is revealing: If the agency is not engaged in political spying, no "Sources and methods" could possibly be exposed from a straightforward answer to the question - are you now or have you been spying on presidential candidates or members of Congress? The agencies' Glomar responses thus imply that at least some "Sources and methods" for spying on presidential candidates and members of Congress have, at some point, been developed and deployed.
Far worse would be for our own intelligence agencies to think and act like Russian intelligence agencies.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/27/how_widespread_is_domestic_political_spying.html
Political surveillance hit a high point with the FBI and CIA in the Nixon era, when both agencies were deployed to conduct domestic, political spying.
To determine whether such spying has recently occurred, our nonpartisan civil liberties group filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the prominent agencies in Washington's intelligence community.
We first asked about surveillance of members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in both parties.
As often happens with FOIA requests, we received a boilerplate non-answer called a "Glomar response." The agency said it "Can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to of [sic] your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of the requested records ... could reveal intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure."
Where possible political spying is concerned, even a Glomar response is revealing: If the agency is not engaged in political spying, no "Sources and methods" could possibly be exposed from a straightforward answer to the question - are you now or have you been spying on presidential candidates or members of Congress? The agencies' Glomar responses thus imply that at least some "Sources and methods" for spying on presidential candidates and members of Congress have, at some point, been developed and deployed.
Far worse would be for our own intelligence agencies to think and act like Russian intelligence agencies.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/27/how_widespread_is_domestic_political_spying.html
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