The NSA's watchdog is reviewing Tucker Carlson's allegation that the agency spied on him, report says

• The NSA's watchdog is reviewing Tucker Carlson's allegation that the agency spied on him, WSJ reported.
• The review comes after Carlson accused the NSA of improperly intercepting his communications.
• A previous review by the NSA found no evidence to support Carlson's claim.

The National Security Agency's internal watchdog is reviewing Fox News host Tucker Carlson's allegation that the agency illegally spied on him, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Carlson claimed, without providing evidence, that the NSA intercepted his communications and was planning to leak them as part of a politically motivated scheme to take his primetime show "off the air," saying, "The Biden administration is spying on us."

The allegation prompted the NSA to deliver a rare statement rebuking Carlson's allegation as "untrue."

The agency also tweeted out a longer statement, saying, "Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air."

"We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States," the statement continued. "With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting."

The agency also reviewed its intercepts after Carlson made the allegation and did not find any evidence that his communications were intercepted, though one source told CNN that Carlson's name was picked up incidentally in third-party communications and that his name was unmasked.

"Unmasking" is a term the intelligence community uses that refers to revealing the identity of someone on a monitored communication.

US intelligence agencies frequently monitor the communications of foreign nationals, like businessmen and ambassadors, who operate on US soil. If a foreign individual is communicating with a US person, that person's name is "masked" in the report or transcript to protect their identity.

However, if an intelligence agency or official believe they need more context about the surveillance they've gathered, they can request that the identity of US persons be "unmasked."

NSA inspector general Robert Storch said in a statement on Tuesday that his review "is examining NSA's compliance with applicable legal authorities and agency policies and procedures regarding collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination activities, including unmasking procedures, and whether any such actions were based upon improper considerations."

The announcement did not mention Carlson by name, but a person familiar with the matter told The Journal that the review centers around his allegations.

A Fox News spokesperson said the network was "gratified to learn the NSA's egregious surveillance of Tucker Carlson will now be independently investigated."

"As we have said, for the NSA to unmask Tucker Carlson or any journalist attempting to secure a newsworthy interview is entirely unacceptable and raises serious questions about their activities as well as their original denial, which was wildly misleading," the statement continued.