(TRUNEWS) When the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper designated the computer systems and networks used by the top three presidential camps Wednesday as ”national security interests”, he failed to mention the government “man-in-the-middle” spy software which may accompany the designation.
While describing the security threat which prompted his re-designation, Clapper noted that Trump, Sanders, and Clinton’s computer systems may be under direct threat from unnamed “foreign hackers.” Investigative journalist and former intelligence officer Wayne Madsen speculated that Clapper’s vague language was actually a rouse by the DNI, DHS, and FBI to insert their own security software which would then report back previously legally unattainable information to the US intelligence community.
To be enacted under an unprecedented interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, this would include all the emails and web transactions conducted by the candidates and their staffs.
Clapper cited the 2012 intrusions of Mitt Romney’s campaign by the Chinese government as an example of the need for this move, which changes the jurisdiction of campaign information technology assets from state to federal without new congressional legislation. Madsen pointed out a major flaw in the use of this example, primarily that China’s interest in Romney was not necessarily espionage, but part of their investigation into illegal cash donations he received from the Hong Kong chapter of Republicans Abroad.
“The Hong Kong group was laundering millions of dollars ‘won’ by Republicans Abroad expatriates at casinos in Macao owned by Sheldon Adelson, the dodgy Jewish casino mogul who supported the Romney campaign,” Madsen wrote in his latest newsletter. “China, aware of Romney’s anti-China campaign rhetoric, wanted to know how much money he was receiving from Macao, a Special Administrative Region of China that enjoys a wide degree of self-government.”
The irony in Clapper’s Romney example, and the reasoning provided for further extending domestic spying, lies in the fact that the intelligence community neither then nor now has any interest in prosecuting or investigating illegality, especially establishment corruption, exposed in Romney’s illegal foreign cash infusions from Adelson’s Macao gambling empire.
Madsen pointedly summarizes this hypocritical paradigm, “When it comes to foreign connections to U.S. presidential campaigns, Clapper, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, and FBI director James Comey are willfully clueless.”
In addition to his comments about federalizing campaign cybersecurity, Clapper also referred to the United States as a “Commonwealth nation” during his farewell speech at the GEOINT 2016 Symposium in Orlando, FL.
“When it comes to our Commonwealth nations, it’s my belief we are just going to give up on the whole NOFORN thing and extend dual citizenship and privileges, responsibilities to our Five Eyes partners, wherever we find ourselves in each other’s intelligence footprints,” Clapper said to the audience of intelligence experts as he made the argument for further integration with Britain and its colonies.
As Clapper enters his final chapter as the Director of National Intelligence, he may follow in the steps of other Washington career bureaucrats, such as Leon Pancetta, who made eye-opening insider disclosures leading up to and following his retirement.
Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York March 2, 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The post Could Clapper’s cyber protection expose candidates to government spying? appeared first on TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles.
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