According to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Israel is spying on American citizens.
During a May 7, 2026 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show, Massie suggested the U.S. government is surveilling Americans on Israel’s behalf and funneling the intelligence directly to the Israeli government. As evidence, he pointed to a viral claim that the official X account of the Department of Homeland Security had supposedly been created in Tel Aviv.
The story was fabricated.
The rumor first exploded across X in November 2025 after the platform rolled out a feature displaying where accounts were created. Viral posts circulated screenshots claiming that the Department of Homeland Security’s official account, @DHSgov, was based in “Tel Aviv, Israel” and linked to the Israeli App Store. The conspiracy spread like wildfire, racking up more than 40 million views and hundreds of thousands of likes. Some users even claimed X hurriedly disabled the feature minutes after the account’s “location” was exposed.
But the screenshot was fake from the start.
For starters, the image lacked the gray verification badge used to identify official government agencies and officials. More damaging still, the very account that helped spread the claim later appeared to reveal how the image had been fabricated — effectively admitting the screenshot was manufactured.
Soon afterward, X Head of Product Nikita Bier publicly dismissed the claim as “fake news,” explaining that @DHSgov never displayed a creation location at all because government accounts are exempt from that feature for security reasons.
Independent fact-checking reached the same conclusion. When reporters reviewed the DHS account during the brief period the feature was live, it displayed its location as being based in the United States.
Yet months later, Massie is repeating the debunked claim anyway.
Claiming that a foreign ally secretly controls or directs American surveillance operations is an explosive charge, and it should be supported by evidence, not recycled internet hoaxes.
The broader allegation that Israel uniquely spies on Americans through intelligence-sharing agreements is equally misleading.
The United States routinely shares intelligence with allied nations. Israel is one of many countries included in those arrangements. Washington also exchanges intelligence with the “Five Eyes” alliance — Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand — as well as broader partnerships such as the Nine Eyes and Fourteen Eyes groups, which include several European allies.
In some cases, intelligence shared with allies can involve suspected terrorists or foreign threats that touch American communications. That is not unique to Israel, nor is it evidence of some secret Israeli control over the U.S. government.
Takeaway
The truly disturbing part is not that anonymous accounts on X fabricated a conspiracy theory. The internet produces hoaxes every hour of every day. The disturbing part is that a sitting member of Congress and one of the most influential media figures in America took a thoroughly debunked social media forgery and used it to accuse a U.S. ally of secretly manipulating American surveillance operations.
Thomas Massie and Tucker Carlson are known for their fixation on Israel. Increasingly, their worldview seems to reduce every American policy they oppose — from foreign wars to surveillance programs to domestic political decisions — to the same accusation: Israel must somehow be behind it.
Even for them, reviving a thoroughly debunked claim based on a fake screenshot is a new low.
Sources
Tucker Carlson, X, X, X, Snopes, Times of Israel, Privacy Affairs, Privacy International
