Carlson on NSA Spying Claims: ‘This Is a Huge Problem for the Country’

Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” FNC anchor Tucker Carlson addressed his claim that the National Security Agency (NSA) is spying on him.

Carlson warned of the “threat” posed by the NSA secretly spying on journalists and Americans.

“What’s so striking to me is — look, I am out of step with most people in journalism in Washington. Most of them are defenders of the Biden administration. They see themselves as Democratic Party operatives, etc. But we are still all journalists. I mean, our job is still roughly the same — to gather information and give it to our readers and viewers,” Carlson stated.

“And this is a massive threat not simply to me and my show you or you and your show, but to journalism itself, to the idea of free press,” he continued. “You can’t have free press if intel agencies are secretly spying on you and then using that information to threaten you and to control you. Like, this is a huge problem for the country. And yet, I don’t think there was, outside of say Glen Greenwald, I don’t think there was anybody who stood up said, ‘Wait a second. This is a huge problem for use all of us.’  Instead, they made excuses for the NSA — ‘Well, you must have been … emailing with threatening foreign actors.’ Well, I am allowed to email with anyone I want, for one thing. I’m a journalist, and I’m an American, more importantly. It is none of your business who I’m emailing with. If you think I am committing a crime, then charge me with it. And if I’m not committing a crime, then please leave me alone. I have a right to communicate in private with other people because I am … an American citizen and a human being. But journalists made excuses for this behavior — for the intel agency’s criminal behavior. It’s like mind-boggling to me.”

Carlson went on to say the NSA and CIA have spied on members of Congress in charge of overseeing intelligence agencies, which he described as “a totally dysfunctional, out-of-control third-world system.”

“I spoke to a member of the Intel Committee three years ago who told me to my face that he was being spied upon by the NSA and the CIA. … This is a sitting member of the Intel Committee who said the people he was supposed to be overseeing were spying on him, and there’s nothing he can do about it,” he said. “That’s a totally dysfunctional, out-of-control third-world system.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent