US spy chief orders changes in 'unmasking' policy

The top US intelligence official has ordered tighter restrictions on how the names of Americans kept secret in intelligence reports can be revealed during presidential transitions, according to documents seen by Reuters. The move follows unsubstantiated charges by President Donald Trump and his allies that his predecessor's administration spied on Trump and improperly "unmasked" the identities of his associates during the 2016 presidential campaign and transition.
Current and former senior US intelligence officials who have reviewed the documentation dispute those claims by the president. In September, the US Justice Department said in a court filing that it had no evidence to support the president's claim that President Barack Obama ordered surveillance of his Trump Tower campaign headquarters.
In a November 30 letter sent to Representative Devin Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other top lawmakers, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said the new unmasking policy is due by January 15. Nunes was among the first to charge that US intelligence agencies collected information on Americans involved in Trump's transition team. A Nunes spokesman declined comment.
Coats wrote that the new policy will reinforce existing procedures that "make clear that IC (intelligence community) elements may not engage in political activity, including dissemination of US person identities to the White House, for the purpose of affecting the political process of the United States." "In addition, this policy will require heightened levels of approval for requests made during a Presidential transition when those requests relate to known members of a President-elect's transition team," Coats wrote in the letter, which was sent to the top Republicans and Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees in both the House and Senate.
A spokesman for Coats had no comment. Reuters has also reviewed a draft presidential order that, if enacted, would make similar changes to unmasking procedures that relate to presidential transitions.