Obama administration surveillance of Americans during his last four years

Sharyl Attkisson compiled timelines cross-referencing Obama-era surveillance of whistleblowers, journalists and other U.S. citizens with Russia surveillance allegations. This post includes the last four years of Obama's presidency.

2013:

Obama administration brings court-martial against Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who has changed his name to Chelsea, for a 2010 leak of classified information to WikiLeaks that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world. Manning is sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest punishment ever given in a U.S. leak case.

January 2013:

Two forensics examinations confirm unauthorized remote intrusions and monitoring of Attkisson’s work and personal computers. The information is not publicly reported at this time.

January 23, 2013:

The Obama administration prosecutes CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou for leaks to a reporter as he blew the whistle on the CIA’s secret torture program. He’s the first CIA officer convicted of providing classified information to a reporter.

March 12, 2013:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies to Congress, falsely stating that intelligence officials are not collecting mass data on tens of millions of Americans.


April 12, 2013:

The government Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Agency (FISA) court secretly approves the latest FBI request to continue obtaining daily telephone records of millions of U.S. Verizon customers. The judge orders Verizon to turn over the information to the National Security Agency (NSA). This directly contradicts Clapper’s March 12 testimony to Congress.

April 2013:

A secret government memo later exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses how the U.S. is collecting information “directly from the servers of …Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

May 10, 2013:

After longstanding denials, the IRS admits to and apologizes for targeting Republican Tea Party groups for mischief, which included discussing developing pretenses for prosecution, leading up to the 2012 election.

May 13, 2013:

The Associated Press (AP) publicly announces that it has learned of the Justice Department’s secret subpoena of phone records for 20 AP reporters, in a leak investigation. Attorney General Holder personally approved the subpoenas, which were issued to Verizon rather than AP. AP calls it a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.

May 17, 2013:

Fox News learns that the Justice Department secretly labeled reporter James Rosen a possible “criminal co-conspirator” and “flight-risk” in obtaining warrants to monitor Rosen’s State Department movements, phone records and emails in a leak investigation starting in 2011.

June 2013:

The FBI secretly opens a case on Attkisson’s computer intrusions under the auspices of a national security issue. The FBI contacts CBS without Attkisson’s knowledge, but fails to contact or interview Attkisson. (The FBI later withholds Attkisson’s FBI file in its entirety without explanation, and other documents, despite multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.)

News of the FBI case involving Attkisson’s computer intrusions is circulated internally to the Justice Department’s national cyber security group, and grouped with a set of cases opened in November 2012.

Former National Security Agency NSA contractor Snowden begins releasing documents showing extensive efforts by the government to surveil and collect information on U.S. citizens.

Snowden is charged with three felonies in his absence from the U.S.

June 6, 2013:

At a hearing, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, asks Attorney General Eric Holder if the NSA spies on members of Congress. Holder answers that the NSA has no “intent” to spy on Congress, but that the issue is better addressed in private.

July 2, 2013:

Director of National Intelligence Clapper apologizes to Congress for his false testimony in March regarding widespread collection of data on Americans.

August 6, 2013:

Armed Coast Guard agents under the Department of Homeland Security raid the home of reporter Audrey Hudson at 4:30am with a search warrant for her husband’s firearms. As they searched the house, they read Hudson her Miranda rights and confiscated documents that contained “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials” belonging to Hudson including the identities of whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security. (Hudson sues and later receives a settlement from the government.)

August 7, 2013:

CBS News publicly announces confirmation of Attkisson’s computer intrusions.

“Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012…This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.—CBS News

September 19, 2013

The Obama Justice Department charges FBI agent and contractor Donald Sachtleben with leaking to an AP reporter details of disrupted terrorist bomb plot. He’s sentenced to 43 months in prison.

January 23, 2014:

Sen. Bernie Sanders asks the NSA if it spies on members of Congress. The NSA does not provide a direct answer and states that Congress is afforded “the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons.”

March 2014:

Congress accuses the CIA of improperly accessing Senate Intelligence committee computers. CIA Director Brennan denies it.

Director of National Intelligence Clapper bans intelligence community officials from unauthorized contact with reporters.

April 2, 2014:

Former state department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim is sentenced to prison for disclosing classified information to Fox News reporter James Rosen.

July 31, 2014:

CIA Inspector General reveals that five CIA officials improperly accessed Senate Intelligence Committee computers and searched certain staff emails. The findings contradict denials made in March by CIA director Brennan. Brennan apologizes to Senate staff.

December 2014:

Attorney General Holder seeks to subpoena a 60 Minutes producer in connection with a terrorism trial, but pulls back the request after public criticism.

Spring 2015:

The Obama administration finishes secretive negotiations of an Iran nuclear deal that will return billions of dollars in frozen funds to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism in return for assurances from that country. It’s later reported that Obama intel officials have been incidentally capturing communications of U.S. members of Congress and organizations in the U.S. while secretly recording Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s discussions about the Iran deal, which he opposes.

As of now, the New York Times reports “since 2009, six current or former government employees and two government contractors have been indicted or prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking information to the public. There were only three such prosecutions under all previous U.S. presidents combined since 1917.”

May 2015:

Former CIA employee Jeffrey Alexander Sterling is convicted on espionage charges for leaks to New York Times reporter James Risen. He’s sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.

December 2015:

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) passes. It requires private Internet companies to “transmit cyber-threat indicators” to the Department of Homeland Security and granting the companies immunity from prosecution for sharing customers’ personal data in those cases.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration incidentally collected private communications by members of Congress while it spied on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The NSA sweeping up “private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups… raised fears [of]—an ‘Oh-s— moment,’ one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.”–Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2015

July 2016:

Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for president.

According to later news reports, after Trump’s nomination, internal White House logs show Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice begins to show increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material that included “unmasked” Americans’ identities.

Summer 2016:

The FBI reportedly obtains a secret FISA court order to monitor communications of Trump adviser Carter Page, convincing a judge there’s probable cause to believe Page is acting as a Russian agent. Surveillance of Page theoretically allows government officials to “incidentally” collect communications of Trump associates (or Trump himself) if they communicate with Page.

2016:

It’s not yet known publicly, but CNN later reports that the Obama Justice Department wiretapped Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort before the 2016 election over Russia ties, closed the investigation, then began surveillance anew sometime in the fall and continued it through the early part of 2017.

Fall 2016:

Trump opponents “shop” to reporters a political opposition research “dossier” alleging Trump is guilty of various inappropriate acts regarding Russia. The information is unverified (and some of it is false) and the press doesn’t publish it, but a copy is provided to the FBI.

September 26, 2016:

It’s not publicly known at the time, but the government makes a proposal to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) court to allow the National Counter Terrorism Center to access “unmasked” intel on Americans acquired by the FBI and NSA. (The Court later approves as “appropriate”.)

October 7, 2016:

Former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright pleads guilty in a leak investigation to lying to the FBI about his discussions with reporters regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

October 26, 2016:

At closed-door hearing before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Obama administration disclosed that it had been violating surveillance safeguards, according to Circa.

November 8, 2016:

Donald Trump is elected President.

November 2016-January 2017:

News reports claim Rice’s interest in the NSA materials accelerates after President Trump’s election through his January inauguration. Surveillance reportedly included Trump transition figures and/or foreign officials discussing a Trump administration.

December 2016:

FBI secretly monitors and records communications between Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who later became President Trump’s national security adviser.


After Trump’s election, Obama officials take steps to ensure certain intelligence gathered regarding Trump associates is “spread across the government.” One Obama official would later say it’s because they were afraid once Trump officials “found out how we knew what we knew,” the intelligence would be destroyed. However, Obama critics later theorize Obama officials were working to mount opposition to Trump’s presidency.

January 10, 2017:

The media reports on the leaked anti-Trump “dossier” compiled by a political opposition research group containing unverified and at least partly untrue allegations of misconduct involving Trump and Russia.

January 12, 2017:

The Obama administration finalizes new rules allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to spread certain intelligence to 16 other U.S. intel agencies without the normal privacy protections.

President Obama commutes all but the last four months of Manning’s sentence for leaking intelligence information to WikiLeaks.