06 April 2017

Who Was That Masked Man?

In a NYT interview published yesterday, Kim Jong-Don had this to say about Susan Rice:
I think the Susan Rice thing is a massive story. I think it's a massive, massive story. All over the world. It's a bigger story than you know in terms of what other people have done also. The Russia story is a total hoax. There has been absolutely nothing coming out of that.

She's been on various "news" chat shows, and didn't say what needed to be said. I offer up this example of how to do it.
Trump is either an idiot or a pathological liar; likely both. His assertion amounts to saying that the National Security Advisor receives these reports with names of US citizens covered by a piece of tape with "US Person" printed on it, and then the Advisor peels off some of those tapes to see who is named. The further assertion that the Advisor was using these reports to "spy" on Trump and associates requires that the Advisor know, beforehand, that a Trump or associate name is under the piece of tape. That's nonsense, of course. If a report, during the campaign, mentioned Russians and election fiddling, then it would be my job to determine which US citizens were colluding with Russians. That these US citizens just happened to be Trump and his associates is just tough luck for them. Caught red handed. Boo hoo.

In order "unmask" a US citizen name (which is the text "US person number X" and such), the Advisor can only request the name of the US citizen from the originating agency, which may or may not oblige. The Advisor cannot "unmask" unilaterally.

That's what she should have said.

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