The Great America Show - NSA WAS TARGETING THE SUPREME COURT, CONGRESS, THE FISA COURT, BIGWIG INDUSTRIALS, LAW FIRMS AND MEDIA 20 YEARS AGO SAYS RUSS TICE

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and this is The Great America Show. Welcome.

00:00:04.980 The Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg, is despised, of course, in MAGA world, and his efforts to

00:00:12.280 prosecute Donald Trump may have just blown up in a New York courtroom. One honest man,

00:00:19.200 attorney Robert Costello, testifying against Michael Cohen, who is the star witness in

00:00:25.820 Bragg's persecution of President Trump. Costello revealed that Bragg had, in effect,

00:00:32.600 hidden evidence that undercut Michael Cohen's testimony against the former president.

00:00:38.480 And Bragg himself, according to some legal experts now, may be in legal jeopardy. At any rate,

00:00:45.860 Cohen made no appearance to rebut Costello's testimony, and Bragg halted further proceedings

00:00:51.760 of the grand jury. For what reason, we don't really know. Some say Bragg has a mutiny among

00:00:58.020 the assistant district attorneys in his office, and they think that he has too weak of a case to

00:01:05.100 proceed. Bragg could be retreating in his reckless decision to go after a former president, or perhaps

00:01:11.780 he's simply assessing next steps as he pursues yet another attack on Trump in what has been seven

00:01:18.540 years of unrelenting and baseless Marxist-dim political persecution of the former president.

00:01:26.700 Also, the Daily Mail in possession of a letter that seems to show Michael Cohen admitting that

00:01:33.260 President Trump never gave him any money for the money Cohen gave Stormy Daniels, a porno star.

00:01:41.540 Meanwhile, DeSantis sinks further in the polls, Trump with a commanding lead,

00:01:46.620 despite the Marxist-dims legal assault from three cases they brought in New York alone. One case as

00:01:53.700 well in Florida, another in Georgia. You'd think there'd be enough honest attorneys and judges and 0.84

00:02:00.460 lawyers in this country to stop the Marxist attacks on President Trump after seven long years. But folks,

00:02:08.780 to this point, there aren't. Not in the American Bar Association, not in the prosecutor's office or the

00:02:16.260 major law firms. And in Moscow, President Xi Jinping wrapping up his visit with Vladimir Putin,

00:02:23.620 the two totalitarian rulers renewing their strategic partnership, Xi vowing to preside over an anti-American,

00:02:30.900 anti-European world order, and to be, at the same time, a peace broker between Russia and Ukraine.

00:02:37.700 As would be expected, Putin agreed. And unexpectedly, President Biden immediately welcomed Xi's efforts

00:02:45.520 to broker an end to the more than year-long war that Russia began with its invasion of Ukraine on

00:02:52.760 February 24 of last year. Xi is expanding his influence and China's power all around the globe.

00:03:00.440 A month ago, surprising the world by bringing Saudi Arabia and Iran together in an alliance.

00:03:07.420 What's next? Our guest today is Russ Theis. Russ was a National Security Agency intelligence analyst

00:03:14.140 for almost 20 years, a Sino-Russia expert as well, and a whistleblower once he found out that the NSA

00:03:21.100 was spying on American citizens. Russ, great to have you back with us. This is our third discussion now

00:03:27.720 as we explore and survey the surveillance state that America has become. Let's start with your

00:03:34.100 reaction to what seems to be another successful extension of Chinese power that's challenging the

00:03:40.560 United States and Europe all around the world. It sort of looks like that in the past where the

00:03:46.600 United States has been sort of the premier arbiter of disagreements around the world and that everyone

00:03:54.560 looked to us for leadership, if you look at the Arab accords with President Trump, that now our leadership

00:04:02.160 is no longer deemed to be credible or viable or competent, and that now the world is looking elsewhere.

00:04:11.580 And unfortunately, that elsewhere may be communist China.

00:04:16.060 And it looks as though communist China is set to continue on this path to domination.

00:04:25.340 Xi Jinping is to be at the latest into Moscow to talk with Vladimir Putin, as I understand it, next week.

00:04:37.760 And at the top of those discussions will be their strategic partnership and, of course, the war, Russia's war on Ukraine.

00:04:48.360 Your thoughts about what would happen in terms of superpower dominance here if Xi Jinping were to roll off

00:04:59.120 another major diplomatic victory, such as resolving at least a truce between Ukraine and Russia?

00:05:11.720 So far, the warmongers amongst us in Congress have been saying that there cannot be an arbiter, a peace.

00:05:22.860 That there has to be victory at all costs, yet they're not willing to define what victory is.

00:05:30.740 Is victory another 100,000 Ukrainians dead, or 200,000 or 300,000 more?

00:05:39.500 What is the definition of victory? 0.96

00:05:42.720 To me, it's just plain silly.

00:05:44.360 And apparently, the world sees that we're giving them over $100 billion of munitions,

00:05:56.420 and Lord knows how much money and how much of that is ending up in Zelensky's bank account in Zurich, Switzerland,

00:06:04.740 because of the corruption that they're well known for. 1.00

00:06:07.340 The world is turning to China, and China is showing that they're willing to step up and make us look foolish in our stupidity. 0.99

00:06:18.840 And this administration has been enormously helpful in that effort, including, as you alluded to, what we're doing with Ukraine. 0.97

00:06:29.540 And we have heard now just the announcement that the White House will not send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

00:06:38.560 And it's curious what that might portend.

00:06:42.440 We know the battle is going, is intense in eastern Ukraine and the Donetsk region and Donbass.

00:06:49.780 This is a moment where it looks like there is a possibility of a roll-up on the part of the Russians of the Ukrainian forces,

00:06:57.960 at least in the eastern part of the country.

00:07:01.860 What happens, we will see, but this does not look good right now for the Ukrainians.

00:07:09.640 And yet, we don't hear anything from President Biden.

00:07:13.560 We don't hear anything from Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor.

00:07:17.140 Suddenly, Tony Blinken is not available for photo ops.

00:07:21.620 And again, the foreign policy team and national security team of the Biden regime has gone radio silent and also invisible.

00:07:34.480 We'll see what this all means.

00:07:36.300 But certainly, the question has to be asked, to what degree, right now, our intelligence agencies have failed either the national security team

00:07:47.420 and the diplomatic team represented by the Secretary of State, the national security advisor, and the president himself?

00:07:55.660 Is this a failure of leadership and policy on their part, singularly?

00:08:00.840 Or is there also some relationship to the national security intelligence services and agencies?

00:08:09.600 Your thoughts?

00:08:10.160 I would certainly hope that NSA and RCA are still doing their job overseas, aside from their new job to spy domestically on Americans,

00:08:21.420 that they're providing intelligence on what's happening in the Ukraine, the Crimea, and the Donbass, and the surrounding area.

00:08:33.520 And I know if I was still in the business, I'd be spending probably an awful lot of time with my satellites right now, looking at all these things.

00:08:43.460 I believe this is probably a failure in leadership.

00:08:47.500 They're probably being told of what's going on, the massing of troops by the Russians.

00:08:53.160 And up until now, the Russians have been fighting this with one hand tied behind their back. 0.50

00:08:57.580 And I think they're getting ready to unleash their full force in a Klausowitz sort of manner because they're tired of dealing with having their troops sniped on

00:09:15.020 and some of the issues that have happened so far with their losses.

00:09:18.880 And I think they want this to be over in a grand way.

00:09:23.000 And they have resources.

00:09:24.420 They can bring in their troops from Siberia.

00:09:26.760 They have the ability to put masks.

00:09:29.620 And at this point, and I think there's a lot of the losses that the Ukrainians are suffering are being hidden by our press and by the State Department and the military and the intelligence community.

00:09:42.880 So in that respect, our intelligence community is keeping their mouth shut.

00:09:48.020 They're probably telling the leadership what's going on, but the leadership is still full-fledged nads to the wall on what's going on here.

00:10:02.940 And you've got to wonder if it's not the war profiteers that are driving the show on this particular thing because they're probably making billions of dollars and supplying these.

00:10:16.080 One of the sad consequences of war always is that the profiteers are both motivated toward war and certainly it is the only group of people who benefit generally from these conflicts.

00:10:35.540 Let's turn now to you mentioned the domestic operations of the NSA, the other intelligence agencies.

00:10:44.220 And it's striking because one doesn't, until of late, think of the domestic operations of the NSA or the CIA or any number of agencies.

00:10:58.680 But suddenly we see their footprints and their tracks almost everywhere, and certainly in politics.

00:11:07.440 The suggestion that Leon Panetta made last week that Donald Trump would be a national security disaster, let's hear his reasoning as he talks about Trump and his prospects in 2024.

00:11:25.840 I believe that his whole first America first approach to foreign policy, his desire to essentially withdraw from the world in terms of a leadership position for the United States would be devastating to our foreign policy at this point in time in the 21st century. 0.82

00:11:47.860 Look, in the end, I really believe that he's a loser and that even if he gets the nomination, he will lose.

00:12:00.300 But the mere fact that he would be nominated by the Republican Party would be a scary step in the 21st century. 0.79

00:12:09.680 A scary step in the 21st century.

00:12:14.260 I don't know that Leon Panetta has considered whether or not 2016 through 2020 was in the 21st century.

00:12:23.080 This president turned out to be the best in modern history, including the 20th century.

00:12:29.460 Your reaction to the idea of national security, presidential politics, and a clear statement by a former national security official himself, Leon Panetta, talking about a president who would be a disaster.

00:12:48.100 That is a very provocative statement coming from him.

00:12:53.160 Do you suppose there's an implicit threat in that?

00:12:55.280 It sounds like fear-mongering to me.

00:13:00.740 They're trying to scare people into thinking that President Trump would be some kind of loose cannon with the nuclear football in his hand.

00:13:09.620 I wonder if he realizes that Mr. Trump has already been president of the United States for four years.

00:13:16.640 We did not enter a war.

00:13:18.920 As a matter of fact, he started reducing the war, and he took down the ISIS in Syria.

00:13:27.180 And the peace accords that happened between Israel and the Arab states, I just don't understand.

00:13:36.300 Does he do – I think he must think that people don't understand – they've forgotten everything that Trump has done when he was in office.

00:13:45.220 And they're going to put this label on him that he's basically some warmonger that wants to bring us all to our ruin when his side of the fence are marching towards a nuclear conflict with Russia.

00:14:05.560 But it makes no sense to me how anyone could buy this nonsense.

00:14:12.600 Except this is part of what look like and sound like and feel like psychological operations on the part of the Democratic Party and their president, who with the Senate right now are in control of the federal government.

00:14:32.540 But this is bizarre because, as you say, here was a president who was withdrawing our troops from abroad, who was refusing to get into police wars, who absolutely insisted on America-first policies and foreign policy as well as economic policy.

00:14:50.920 And it was – and it succeeded for four years and a bit beyond until Biden could take control.

00:14:59.740 This is a remarkable statement to me, and frankly, it concerns me that here he is talking about national security, Leon Panetta, one of the deans of the Democrat Party, talking in absolute opposition to the reality,

00:15:18.860 as you pointed out, a history that shows what a terrific – what a great president Mr. Trump was.

00:15:27.020 So is there a role here for intelligence agencies?

00:15:31.260 Why is this under discussion, do you suppose?

00:15:34.260 Well, obviously, these nihilists are gaslighting the American people.

00:15:43.860 A role domestically for our intelligence services, especially NSA and CIA, is to keep our hands off of domestic politics.

00:15:52.260 They should have nothing to say in this.

00:15:55.100 We shouldn't be affording one party or another access to the communications of their adversaries.

00:16:01.240 It's all hands off.

00:16:03.020 Our job is to let the American people decide who they want as president of the United States and ultimately provide that president with the best intelligence so that the president can make the best choices for foreign policy and for ultimately the national security of the country.

00:16:20.300 So in that respect, this whole thing is basically a psychological operation on the part of Mr. Panetta and his ilk to throw the wool over our eyes.

00:16:32.540 As far as Mr. Trump having no possibility of winning, like I think I mentioned in the past, I haven't been to one of Mr. Trump's rallies.

00:16:43.260 I kind of like to go to one.

00:16:45.580 My wife certainly wants to go to one. 0.97

00:16:47.320 But I seem to think that even in PODOC nowhere, out in the middle of a flyover country, about 30,000 people will show up to see the president, President Trump. 0.81

00:16:59.640 So, you know, this is just silly nonsense that these people are trying to throw out there.

00:17:04.660 So this silly nonsense in this case from from Leon Panetta, just to remind everyone, when I talked about his role in the national security apparatus, it includes being the secretary of defense as well as the director of the CIA.

00:17:21.000 You would think that there would be specific constraints that he would follow, at least so as to avoid any confusion.

00:17:29.400 But we now know that, you know, 51 CIA, well, five former CIA directors participated in the famous letter of 51 intelligence veterans who dismissed the Hunter laptop as Russian disinformation.

00:17:49.560 Intervention in an election by the intelligence services, straightforwardly.

00:17:56.680 Your thoughts?

00:17:59.140 Well, of course, that was done to influence the election and to make sure that the American people believed that the Hunter laptop issue was something that was a Russian plot or Russian plant to have President Trump elected.

00:18:16.920 Interestingly, the one fellow on that list that was both the former director of NSA and became the director of CIA was the guy that I tangled with and ultimately got fired by at NSA was Michael Hayden.

00:18:34.200 Ultimately, you know, and he and he matter of fact, he was made a director of CIA when he was still in uniform, when normally the director of CIA is a civilian, not a military officer.

00:18:43.200 So, you know, his his his reward for for his domestic spying under the Bush administration was to be promoted to a four star general and to be made head of CIA.

00:18:56.420 And back in those days, the head of CIA was basically considered the head of the entire intelligence community.

00:19:01.800 So, um, the devil pays well.

00:19:05.600 The devil does pay well.

00:19:07.640 And in this case, the devil was very active in the 2020 election.

00:19:13.800 The intervention that I was talking about, we've seen that from the FBI National Security Division.

00:19:20.100 We have watched this, the attorneys general, uh, the Biden administration, as well as the attorney general under Donald Trump.

00:19:31.100 Uh, uh, they have had significant influence, uh, over, uh, elections bar more than, uh, certainly, uh, Merrick Garland, but still, uh, involvement.

00:19:41.880 And to think that, uh, you as a whistleblower, uh, were retaliated against by the NSA, you were actually, if we, I think this is accurate, the first NSA whistleblower.

00:19:56.060 And you're, you're, you stepped forward in 2005 to make certain that the American people knew that our intelligence agencies and specifically the NSA were, uh, wiretapping, surveilling American citizens.

00:20:15.020 Tell us, tell us about, uh, what motivated you at that moment, uh, to, to bring that to the, to the public's attention.

00:20:24.720 Uh, and by the way, again, thank you for doing so.

00:20:29.140 Well, thank you for that.

00:20:30.840 Um, ultimately I'd found out what was going on in, uh, late to 2002 and early 2003.

00:20:41.880 We were fighting the war.

00:20:43.280 I spent a lot of time with the agency and I found out by accident that, that this was going on.

00:20:48.360 Basically, I was working a black operation, a black op, and I needed, uh, support, um, intelligence support. 0.60

00:20:55.840 And I contacted, uh, an NSA, um, element and found out that, uh, domestic spying was going on, uh, via our satellite capabilities.

00:21:06.900 Then ultimately from there, I contacted some of my friends at the, uh, at the, uh, at the fort or NSA.

00:21:13.980 And they told me, Russ, this is far worse than just, just your, your, your, your angle of this.

00:21:20.000 And then he, they brought in the, uh, the domestic side as far as the, uh, the, uh, RF communications that are done via a microwave and ultimate, and as well as our fiber optics communications that basically run our entire communications for domestically.

00:21:37.220 And then we realized this thing was all-inclusive, and that's when I was like, oh, my goodness.

00:21:42.380 Um, I ultimately made a call to that same unit that I talked to to try to pin this down after things were, were winding down with the war.

00:21:51.300 And I believe NSA security office listened in on that phone conversation immediately after that.

00:21:58.420 I was, uh, called in for an emergency psychological evaluation.

00:22:02.960 And ultimately, this was them telling me that we know what you've done.

00:22:07.060 We know, we, we know, you know.

00:22:08.900 What had you done at that point?

00:22:10.300 What had I done?

00:22:12.440 I'd found out what, I'd found out that they were violating the law in the Constitution.

00:22:16.960 Had you also talked to, to news outlets?

00:22:20.480 Not at that point, no.

00:22:22.080 Right.

00:22:22.300 Not at that point.

00:22:23.560 So, so then they, um, they suspended my security clearance, and they sent me to the motor pool driving NSA vehicles to, to be repaired or what have you, which was my punishment.

00:22:35.980 This is what they, this is what they did.

00:22:37.580 They, they, the top officials of the National Security Agency to one of their most outstanding senior, uh, intelligence analysts.

00:22:48.760 Sent you to the motor pool?

00:22:50.800 To the motor pool.

00:22:51.760 Now, so I, this is basically them telling me, we expect you to pay your penance and to grovel to get your job back and keep your mouth shut and never mention a word of what you've learned, and we'll let you keep your big time job and your big salary and everything will be fine.

00:23:09.940 Just keep your mouth shut and, and go along.

00:23:12.980 So as long as, and basically pay my penance and, and keep my mouth shut, and it, uh, I, I'll tell you, Lou, and there was a period of time where I'm, you know, I, you gotta wake up and look at yourself in the mirror.

00:23:26.040 Um, and at some point you don't like what you see when your mouth is still shut.

00:23:30.980 Um, ultimately the trigger, the catalyst for my coming out was one February day when we got a bunch of snow and at the motor pool, they said, they gave me a, uh, a sweeper and said, go, go, go wipe the snow off of like 200 vehicles.

00:23:44.260 Um, I kind of blew up and I said, no.

00:23:48.240 And I said, oh, by the way, I'm going to the press.

00:23:50.420 I told him right up front.

00:23:51.900 Um, and that, that's what the trigger, and that was in February of 2004.

00:23:56.020 So I'd like to say it was some altruistic, you know, thing that, you know, that ultimately sparked my going to the press, but, but in truth, it was my being just plain pissed off.

00:24:07.120 Well, they, they insulted you.

00:24:10.320 Um, they, they, they did everything they could to anger you, uh, and they succeeded.

00:24:16.740 Uh, and to see that kind of pettiness and, uh, arrogance on the part of senior leadership and the national security agency or any other agency of this government, I can't imagine any, anyone, uh, uh, you know, worth their salt putting up with it.

00:24:36.460 Uh, and the idea that they were doing that to you, this sort of, this interests me a lot because that means they didn't think very highly of their people.

00:24:47.440 If they thought you were the kind of people as patriots serving the United States government, who would put up with that kind of, uh, of an insult.

00:24:55.220 It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's extraordinary.

00:24:58.900 But then again, these are people who had decided that irrespective of the constitution and the laws of the United States, they could spy on American citizens.

00:25:07.580 Aren't they?

00:25:09.840 They are.

00:25:11.320 Ironically, a lot of folks at NSA are, or some of them are just plain geniuses.

00:25:15.860 They are, their heads are, I mean, Einstein in the clouds.

00:25:19.940 Uh, but, uh, one of the jokes at NSA is that how do you tell an introvert at NSA?

00:25:25.620 An introvert is someone, when he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own shoes.

00:25:30.360 Um, so it's.

00:25:33.000 That's great.

00:25:34.260 Yeah.

00:25:34.480 And it's, it's kind of true that, uh, these very bright people, but, but they're not, they're not the hard charging, you know, um, you know, tiger type folks.

00:25:45.380 As a matter of fact, in one of my very early, uh, psyche vows, they, one of the, one of the cautionary, uh, almost asterisks that they put under my psychological evaluation, and this is before they did their, their, their, their, you know, Russ has got to be crazy nonsense, was they put in there that he's a, he's a black and white thinker, um, uh, and he has, uh, an aggressive, uh, personality.

00:26:08.460 Uh, uh, true, um, you know, that's one thing that made me a good intelligence analyst, because I would start digging into, into something.

00:26:17.260 And intelligence analysis is sort of something where, where you get, you get pieces to a puzzle.

00:26:22.460 And sometimes the, the opposition is throwing you little pieces of the puzzle that are wrong or of the wrong shape to throw you off.

00:26:29.020 And you've got to look at this, this mosaic of, of pieces of puzzle where you only maybe have 10% or less of the puzzle, and you have pieces that are there to throw you off, and you have to put the picture together and do your analysis.

00:26:42.700 So, so, so you have to be aggressive in, in getting the information you need to put, to do a right, uh, you know, to come up with the information that you need to support your, your president.

00:26:52.620 So, ultimately, um, yeah, they, and all the money that they spent on my education and all the Intel courses that I took, I think I sent you a copy of my resume, which, and those are just some of the, and remember, all those government courses that I took were paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

00:27:10.480 So, so, so they're creating a very, and I was a very good analyst, so, so the American people invested in me to do my job, and I thought I was doing a good, you know, a good job for the American people.

00:27:21.940 And they could have cared less by, by, by saying, okay, uh, for a period of time, you're not going to do your job.

00:27:28.020 You're going to be, you're going to be gassing up cars at the, uh, at the, um, you know, at the motor pool, um, while you pay your pens.

00:27:35.420 And during that whole time, someone's not doing my job.

00:27:38.300 That's, that's just, uh, it's just absurd that they would behave in such a way managerially, uh, uh, and, uh, human level.

00:27:49.400 Let's turn to this business of the NSA.

00:27:53.740 Effectively, the NSA is the foundation of all the other intelligence agencies when it comes to signals intelligence, correct?

00:28:01.940 That's correct. So when all these other agencies are going for, to get their information on, on, you know, if it's Carter Page or whoever, whoever they're going after, they, they immediately will search NSA's database for the, for the communications of said person.

00:28:18.880 And then they'll go, you know, two or three levels down to see who that person, who Carter Page has talked to and ultimately go after them.

00:28:26.680 Now, I, I bet you once or twice, Mr. Page has talked to the president, former president, President Trump.

00:28:31.120 That means President Trump is now put on the list of targeted individuals.

00:28:36.120 So, so, so, and, and that's how insidious this becomes.

00:28:40.460 And not only that, but they use that same information to, to go after anybody else.

00:28:44.880 Like the January 6th situation a couple years ago, I bet all those people, they've gone to the NSA's database and gone back for each one of those citizens to find out what their communications were word for word over the past so many years to be able to throw against them.

00:29:01.780 Then ultimately, now they can't bring that up in court, but what they do is what's called parallel construction, where that's the base information.

00:29:09.440 Then they try to bring something from that information and they, and, and they, they put up a veil of, of how they ultimately found the information.

00:29:17.880 Basically, they lie in court when they come up with this information because it was done unconstitutionally.

00:29:24.040 Well, the FBI was lying through the FISA court process itself, which they were set up to prevent precisely this, that is spying on American citizens without a court warrant.

00:29:38.740 Eventually, it turns out that was an absolute artifice that didn't work and was abused throughout by both the court system itself and the FBI.

00:29:50.340 When I say the court system itself, I'm talking about the judges who simply accepted by rote what was put in front of them, rubber stamped it, which meant there was really no, no protection whatsoever for the, the rights of our citizens.

00:30:06.360 And that goes on, you think, today, despite all that has happened?

00:30:11.980 Absolutely.

00:30:12.460 The abuse, there have been abuses of, and over and over again abuses, and the FISA court, ultimately, at first, they wouldn't even, they wouldn't even, they wouldn't even, oh, everything that, you know, their decisions were secret.

00:30:23.540 So we would, at first, we didn't even know until some of the stuff after, after Edward Snowden came out that they leaked a little bit out.

00:30:31.000 But the FISA court, you have to understand how the, there's no pushback for the FISA court.

00:30:37.840 They can't, they don't have their own investigators to go into the different agencies to find out whether they're being lied to.

00:30:43.240 But the FISA court ultimately has become, I like using the analogy, of a monkey in a black robe with a, you know, with a rubber stamp.

00:30:56.180 And ultimately, a piece of paper flops in front of the monkey.

00:30:59.060 And it used to be, the only thing the monkey could do was decide to see a name and a body of text.

00:31:05.580 They couldn't read the body of text.

00:31:07.140 And then ultimately, they'd stamp approved.

00:31:09.120 And once the, a little bell would go off, a banana chip would roll down, the monkey pops the banana chip in his mouth, and everyone claps, and then the next piece of paper plops in.

00:31:19.180 Now, the FISA court is a blind monkey with the papers flopping in.

00:31:25.320 Now, he doesn't even see the name, doesn't see a body, just stamps it and gets his banana chip.

00:31:29.880 That's the FISA court today.

00:31:31.480 Ultimately, you know, the archetype for all this goes back even beyond W. Bush with the FBI's national security letters, where they would, we would, they just come up to some business and say, we want all the information on this, this person.

00:31:45.560 And here's a national security letter.

00:31:47.120 And in the national security letter, it would say, you cannot say a word to anyone that we've given you this order to give all your information that you know on this targeted individual.

00:31:56.320 So, so that, that happened even before 9-11.

00:32:00.840 So it, you know, they, once the Patriot Act happened, it was just sort of, you know, a jump up from what they were doing in the past.

00:32:09.160 Well, obviously, we're looking at a renewal of the surveillance sections, 702, already, you know, that is already underway.

00:32:21.440 The preparations for it, the, the likelihood is it will be rubber stamped by this Congress.

00:32:27.920 I hope that is not the case, Section 215.

00:32:31.460 Give us your judgment about those two sections, their impact on the rights of American citizens, and the ability of the NSA to, to surveil and to disseminate the intelligence that they gather.

00:32:47.800 Well, I think the first one was Section 215 under the Patriot Act, where they, where they brought up this, that they were allowed to go after, quote, tangible things.

00:32:59.400 Well, a tangible thing could be anything, ultimately.

00:33:03.400 And, and only, and their, the provocation to go after tangible things was, was relevance.

00:33:10.080 Well, the Fourth Amendment says it's not relevance.

00:33:12.400 It's probable cause, and ultimately, if you have probable cause, you need to get a warrant before you get any information on people.

00:33:20.700 So the Patriot Act from the very beginning was just, just an affront to our Constitution.

00:33:26.660 Then comes, you know, 702, which now means that they can, they can do internal collections, what's called upstream and downstream collections.

00:33:36.320 So in the upstream, you get the to and the from, and from the downstream, you get the to, from, and about, so, of, of, of, whoever you target.

00:33:47.660 So they're, they're covering basically everything.

00:33:50.920 And then, like I said the last time, it doesn't matter, you know, whether, whether 702 is basically sunsetted or not.

00:33:59.080 NSA is going to, to spy and, and collect everything word for word on every American citizen because they've never been held accountable.

00:34:09.960 And 215, what do you think should be the disposition of the, of the Congress?

00:34:17.860 Well, I think the entire Patriot Act needs to be revoked.

00:34:21.420 It's, it's, it's an affront.

00:34:24.740 I mean, I understand it was done in, in fear after the attacks of 9-11.

00:34:31.520 As far as I know, it hasn't been taken out of the Patriot Act.

00:34:35.760 So that, that tangible things, designators still exist, which means everything.

00:34:41.800 And we're not talking about just, we're talking about literally they could sneak into your house and, and, and look through it when you were on vacation and look through everything in your house.

00:34:51.420 And you wouldn't have a clue, just as if you were, you know, a, you know, a spy from the, from the People's Republic of China.

00:35:01.720 So, and, and take pictures or whatever of anything you have.

00:35:06.320 They can look into your bank account, your credit card purchases, you know, who you date, um, every, everything you do, how, how much gasoline you use in your car, your odometer, um, you know, ultimately turn on your, your, um, what do you, the thing in your, the emergency thing in your car that, um, even when you don't have, you know, you haven't paid to have that thing on.

00:35:30.980 You know, so the question arises, Russ, all of that of the citizen, but why is there any question then if the NSA and our intelligence agencies and our national security agencies, our law enforcement agencies have this capacity?

00:35:50.120 Why is there any discussion about what has happened?

00:35:53.680 Uh, why could the NSA not give us a, a, uh, an accounting, for example, on, uh, how the vote went in Pennsylvania?

00:36:01.780 Or, uh, what is going on, uh, that, uh, that we didn't have advanced notice of the invasion, uh, of Ukraine?

00:36:12.860 Or if we did, what was the reasoning and communication amongst the relevant, uh, agencies, departments, and, uh, individuals in our national intelligence and national security teams to have permitted that war to begin, to begin with?

00:36:29.180 Uh, uh, why is it that there would not be certain knowledge of what was happening?

00:36:34.680 Because if we can get everything, including tangible intelligence, why could we not have almost a, an immediate, a forensic investigation of elections to verify them?

00:36:47.900 Uh, why could this not be turned to positive use?

00:36:50.820 And, uh, uh, or should we just simply assume that the intelligence agencies themselves were used to intervene in elections?

00:37:02.420 Well, I think you already know the answer to that, Lou.

00:37:04.900 Of course, they were.

00:37:06.180 They apparently were turned against, uh, you know, a certain element that they decided, um, was not to their advantage to have in power.

00:37:14.660 Um, you know, it's, and they, and NSA does have that information.

00:37:20.260 NSA has all those 30,000 emails that were deleted by Hillary Clinton.

00:37:24.660 They have all this information that, you know, on, on these different people.

00:37:30.160 And they're going to use it to their advantage, I believe, to blackmail people to make sure that the deep state cabal that they run is going to stay in power.

00:37:40.680 You know, one of the things, uh, one of the papers that I ran across where, where NSA, where I realized NSA was, uh, was targeting all these important information, people, they were, they were, they targeted the Supreme Court, the, um, the Congress, the, uh, the, uh, the FISA Court, uh, all kinds of, uh, uh, bigwig industrials, law firms, lawyers, the press.

00:38:07.100 NSA was targeting all these individuals way back in 2002, 2003, 2004 timeframe.

00:38:14.620 Like I mentioned previously, when, when Barack Obama was running for Senate, NSA started, uh, wiretapping, you know, tapping into all his communications in 2004 before he became president.

00:38:25.900 Another, uh, a list of, of, of, of numbers associated with, uh, uh, an individual was, uh, Samuel Alito before he became a justice in the Supreme Court.

00:38:37.160 So they knew that he was being considered, and then they wiretapped everything that Samuel Alito was doing.

00:38:42.960 Well, why would they do that?

00:38:44.240 The obvious answer is to, for blackmail.

00:38:46.980 Uh, and obviously what they're doing with all this information is to, just like J. Edgar Hoover did, is to use it to their own advantage and to make sure that the dollars keep pumping into the intelligence community and ultimately the lifeblood of what we now know as the deep state.

00:39:05.260 You know, we're going to, we're going to bear down on, on, on much of this and drill down on much of this as we continue our conversation over the, the coming weeks, uh, Russ.

00:39:16.700 But I, I just, I, I think most people don't understand the, as you said, as we began this conversation in the previous episode, that the NSA has a record of every electronic transaction and communication, uh, ever made by any citizen.

00:39:36.160 Is that a fair statement, summation of what you said?

00:39:38.780 At first, at the beginning, uh, they could only get metadata for everybody and, and then they would target people like they were targeting Barack Obama, the, the, the, the Congress, Supreme Court.

00:39:51.900 All then, then, then, and those, and when they would target someone, they could get everything and they were, but they couldn't do every communication, you know, like a little Jenny talking to, to Julie about how cute Johnny is in, in middle school.

00:40:04.420 You know, um, um, most people, you know, don't care about that communication, but today NSA is even getting that little conversation about how cute Johnny is.

00:40:14.940 So it's everything that's being done right now.

00:40:18.580 And that started happening when they opened up that facility and this was all, all done quietly.

00:40:23.940 And that was December of 2012 is when that facility, uh, in, in, uh, in Bluffdale, Utah was opened up to be able to store huge storage of facility.

00:40:34.420 Over, over, over a million square feet of storage of computer storage space.

00:40:39.100 Um, when that was opened up, uh, the, uh, it meant everything is going to be stored every word for word, every communication in perpetuity.

00:40:49.060 Well, that is sobering as well as alarming.

00:40:52.040 And it is fascinating.

00:40:54.320 And that's going to be the subject of our next, next discussion.

00:40:57.880 Uh, Russ, we appreciate everything that you've done for the country.

00:41:01.600 Uh, as you worked, uh, for the NSA, we appreciate everything you did as a whistleblower, uh, and your perspectives, uh, on, on life since then.

00:41:11.660 Uh, and what we are looking at now and witnessing in this country, uh, as we are coming to terms in many cases, uh, with the American people being the enemies, uh, designated by the agencies of our federal government, uh, as enemies of the government.

00:41:27.660 Uh, we're going to look into that, uh, the weaponization of our government against American citizens as we continue the conversation.

00:41:35.800 Uh, Russ Tice is always, God bless you.

00:41:39.700 And thanks so much.

00:41:41.500 Well, thanks for having me on, Lou.

00:41:43.640 Russ Tice.

00:41:44.420 We'll be talking with Russ each week to assess national security issues around the world and their influence on America.

00:41:52.340 Here tomorrow, please be with us, the Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoff.

00:41:56.040 Please join us.

00:41:56.920 Till then, God bless you, and God bless America.

The Great America Show - March 23, 2023

NSA WAS TARGETING THE SUPREME COURT, CONGRESS, THE FISA COURT, BIGWIG INDUSTRIALS, LAW FIRMS AND MEDIA 20 YEARS AGO SAYS RUSS TICE

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