It is shocking that people outside of government readily admit to [[felon]]ious leaking of classified information. In January 2017 the ''[[New York Times]]'' reported, {{Quotebox|"In its final days, the [[Obama administration]] has expanded the power of the [[National Security Agency]] to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections."<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html ]</ref>}} The expansion of the order made it difficult to narrow in on leaks.<ref>http://circa.com/politics/some-us-intelligence-officials-want-trump-to-rescind-obamas-expansion-of-nsa-data</ref> Farkas' use of the term "people on the hill" refers to people outside the [[Executive Branch]] - Congressional staff which numbers into the tens of thousands. Many staffers have press contacts and are sources of leaks. Once the materials fell into their hands, many partisan staffers then became armchair counter-intelligence sleuths, combing through the leaked material, feeding their [[mainstream media|mainstream]] sources with their latest pet theories on Donald Trump being in the pay of the [[KGB]], and taking to [[Twitter]] threads with extended narratives full of speculation. | It is shocking that people outside of government readily admit to [[felon]]ious leaking of classified information. In January 2017 the ''[[New York Times]]'' reported, {{Quotebox|"In its final days, the [[Obama administration]] has expanded the power of the [[National Security Agency]] to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections."<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html ]</ref>}} The expansion of the order made it difficult to narrow in on leaks.<ref>http://circa.com/politics/some-us-intelligence-officials-want-trump-to-rescind-obamas-expansion-of-nsa-data</ref> Farkas' use of the term "people on the hill" refers to people outside the [[Executive Branch]] - Congressional staff which numbers into the tens of thousands. Many staffers have press contacts and are sources of leaks. Once the materials fell into their hands, many partisan staffers then became armchair counter-intelligence sleuths, combing through the leaked material, feeding their [[mainstream media|mainstream]] sources with their latest pet theories on Donald Trump being in the pay of the [[KGB]], and taking to [[Twitter]] threads with extended narratives full of speculation. |