Written by Amanda Angulo
On Tuesday, the National Security Agency’s internal watchdog had stated that they will investigate the allegations that the agency has “targeted the communications of a member of the U.S. news media”.
For weeks, the GOP has been calling for a demanded investigation into the show host’s claims that a major U.S. spy agency was targeting his show, without any proof of evidence.
Inspector General Robert Storch claimed in a statement that he will be reviewing the agency’s policies on collecting and sharing information they collect and if any actions taken by the NSA were based on “improper considerations.”
Late June was when Carlson began to claim that the NSA was “monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to lead them in an attempt to take this show off the air.” This claim caused the NSA to respond and deny his claims and made a statement declaring that Carlson has never been a target to the NSA nor does the agency have any plans to remove his show off the air.
Then, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Marco Rubio stated on Tuesday that this review to be conducted “is an important step towards ensuring public confidence. It is important that this review is as transparent as possible so it doesn’t fuel further public suspicion and distrust.”
The NSA’s purpose is to collect information via emails, text messages, and other sorts of communication in order to prevent any acts of terrorism and help America’s cybersecurity systems. Most of the time, they target foreigners but only U.S. citizens on rare occurrences.
Those Americans that do happen to be mentioned by the collected intelligence must keep their names withheld. Unless there are officials who use proper clearance and a good reason to be revealing their name, which is known as “unmasking”.
Last month, the NSA notified the intelligence committees in both the House and Senate that Carlson’s name was mentioned by unknown third parties and that a U.S. official had requested to unmask his name. This could be due to Carlson’s alleged attempts to contact President Vladimir Putin for an interview.
