New from Sharyl Attkisson…

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/399448-whatever-happened-to-the-unmaskings-probe

Whatever happened to the 'unmaskings' probe?

>But several years ago, intel insiders tell me, the process was corrupted. Here's how:

>An official who is a bad actor may want to monitor a U.S. citizen - say, a political enemy or a journalist - but knows he could never get wiretap approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). So he develops a pretext to wiretap a foreigner or a target in contact with that citizen. He then "incidentally" captures the citizen's information, too. Later, he builds a case for "unmasking" the U.S. citizen's name, supposedly for national security or other crucial reasons.

>Here's the best part - for the bad actors. The U.S. citizens are usually none the wiser. The surveillance isn't intended to build a criminal case; it's to collect dirt or political intel or blackmail material. So the corrupt process is never scrutinized in a U.S. court.

>Think of it as reverse engineering of intel.