The Trump administration is on high alert when it comes to surveillance.
After the release of WikiLeaks latest data dump which said the CIA was listening in on conversations via smart TVs, various spokespeople from the White House have made reference to how it believes the administration is being surveyed.
Go deeper with GlobalData
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Here are some of the ways the Obama administration had been listening in on what Trump is doing.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataIn Trump Tower
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
The day before Trump posted the tweets, on March 3, Breitbart News published a story which said Obama encouraged a “deep state” coup against Trump, to get information that could damage the new administration.
This was said to have taken place in Trump Tower before the new president’s inauguration, as a way of listening in on what was going on. Interesting methods were supposedly used to monitor Trump and his team.
Through microwaves (and cameras)
Kellyanne Conway, adviser to the president, made comments earlier this week saying that microwaves and cameras could be used to listen in on activities as a way to back up Trump’s claims about surveillance.
In an interview with New Jersey’s the Record newspaper, Conway said:
What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately, including microwaves that turn into cameras, etc. So we know that that is just a fact of modern life.”
Using phones
This is another method that Obama was supposedly listening in on Trump’s conversations, with Trump’s phones allegedly wiretapped to provide information to the Democrat president. This is a rather old-school method of surveillance compared to the more modern methods of listening in through microwaves.
Spicer backed up this claim saying: “There is no question that there were surveillance techniques used throughout this.”
A spokesperson for Obama has refuted this saying it was “simply false”.
The British are coming / listening
Obama allegedly asked UK intelligence agency GCHQ to wiretap the president-elect, in order to side-step US restrictions on monitoring its own citizens. A Fox News analyst, Andrew Napolitano, claimed that three intelligence sources confirmed to him that Obama’s administration used GCHQ to spy on Trump.
A GCHQ spokesperson dismissed the claims saying it was “utterly ridiculous”.
Recent allegations made by media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
So is this actually happening?
The speaker of the House, Republican Paul Ryan, the Senate intelligence committee chairman and a Democrat on the committee have all said that they’ve seen no evidence of these accusations that Trump was wiretapped by Obama.
In an interview with CNN, Ryan said:
We have not seen any evidence that there was a wiretap or a (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court order against Trump Tower or somebody in Trump Tower.”
Senate intelligence committee chair Richard Burr and ranking member Mark Warner issued a statement, saying:
Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”
However, the White House press secretary Sean Spicer has said the committees have “yet to go through all the information” and so the president stands by the idea that he was under surveillance.
Really, this about the recent leaks that have been come out of the White House since Trump gained office. For instance, the leak of then-national security adviser Michael Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador that led to him being fired, which Trump was not very happy about it.
It has been suggested that Trump is using the wiretapping claims to distract the press from bad news, such as the administration’s supposed links to Russia. This is also distracting the news cycle from what is going on with the repealing of Obamacare and tax cuts.
