As part of its daily wrap of the Susan Rice newsflow, which focused on her first media appearance since she was "outed" as the persona responsible for "unmasking" members of team Trump, the WSJ provides two new pieces of incremental information: i) in addition to Michael Flynn, at least one more member of the Trump transition team was "unmasked" in intelligence reports due to multiple foreign conversations that weren't related to Russia; and ii) Rice wasn't the administration official who instigated Mr. Flynn’s unmasking, confirming there is at least one more high-level official giving "unmasking" orders.
But first, a brief detour.
"Unmasking" is a term used when the identity of a U.S. citizen or lawful resident is revealed in classified intelligence reports. Normally, when government officials receive intelligence reports, the names of American citizens are redacted to protect their privacy. But officials can request that names, listed as “U.S. Person 1,” for example, be unmasked internally in order to give context about the potential value of the intelligence. Unmasking is justified for national security reasons but is governed by strict rules across the U.S. intelligence apparatus that make it illegal to pursue for political reasons or to leak classified information generated by the process.
More @ Zero Hedge
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