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Octafish

(55,745 posts)
27. They certainly don't like leaving anything to chance.
Fri Oct 24, 2014, 12:11 PM
Oct 2014

Their problem is they don't know what they don't need to know, and they don't know what they do need to know. And I certainly don't mean to call all of them "Gestapo," just the NAZI ones.

People who pointed this out include Sen. Frank Church. The great Democrat from Idaho was a liberal patriot, a war hero and a statesman, truly an extraordinary American.

Standing up for the United States Constitution and We the People, Frank Church also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he warned if it were turned on the American people, it's "Goodnight, Democracy." So, the NSA spied on him:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.


And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1


From GWU's National Security Archives:



"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations


National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/



I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-CT) also got the treatment from NSA? Sort of anti-buy partisanship, that Integrity.

“I think that the report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the [investigation of the] John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

It's more than the CIA Politicalboi Oct 2014 #1
Poppy and his secret government pals often declare specific people threats. Take Australia. Octafish Oct 2014 #2
I have long maintained that the real Politburo malaise Oct 2014 #22
Yes billhicks76 Oct 2014 #31
Nah, it was just a lone gunman. It's always just a lone gunman. Scuba Oct 2014 #3
Lone "NUT" gunman Omaha Steve Oct 2014 #4
Lone "Nut" gunman with a "magic" bullet. Tommymac Oct 2014 #5
Lone "Nut" gunman with a "magic" bullet dflprincess Oct 2014 #38
Bombers work in teams. Octafish Oct 2014 #9
After reading that I feel like I need a shower. Scuba Oct 2014 #14
One can get an idea of where the phrase ''collateral damage'' came from. Octafish Oct 2014 #21
Ask Old Man Bush! santamargarita Oct 2014 #6
Details from the great Russ Baker via the great DUer Mc_Mike... Octafish Oct 2014 #10
! Mc Mike Oct 2014 #23
Thanks... santamargarita Oct 2014 #25
You are most welcome, santamargarita. I forgot to post the Poppy Bush FBI memos... Octafish Oct 2014 #29
You sure do your homework, Octafish. Thanks again! santamargarita Oct 2014 #36
LBJ tiptonic Oct 2014 #7
I think maybe i should get that book Robbins Oct 2014 #12
Thanks for the heads-up. Not crazy about Roger, as he's a GOP operator... Octafish Oct 2014 #20
It seems the CIA doesn't change their playbook much hootinholler Oct 2014 #8
They certainly don't like leaving anything to chance. Octafish Oct 2014 #27
9/11 Commission co-chairmen: The CIA and White House "obstructed our investigation." johnnyreb Oct 2014 #11
CIA and White House also obstructed the Warren Commission. Octafish Oct 2014 #35
The Warren Commission answered all pressing questions and brought us desperately needed closure RufusTFirefly Oct 2014 #13
''It's heavy.'' Octafish Oct 2014 #37
Interesting! Didn't realize DiEugenio was a DUer. n/t RufusTFirefly Oct 2014 #40
Welcomed and interrogated. Octafish Oct 2014 #41
Fascinating. Thanks! Somehow I missed that whole exchange. RufusTFirefly Oct 2014 #42
Octafish, you are one of the best. 7wo7rees Oct 2014 #15
What 7wo7rees said. Karmadillo Oct 2014 #16
Poppy Bush tells Ed Koch 'nothing I can do' to stop your assassin, yet he ran CIA & Op CONDOR Octafish Oct 2014 #47
Yes we are very privileged. johnnyreb Oct 2014 #17
Nice anthrm. Thanks for sharing. n/t 7wo7rees Oct 2014 #19
CIA Director Bush helped destroy HSCA investigation. Octafish Oct 2014 #48
here here....nt Jesus Malverde Oct 2014 #18
New NSA docs contradict Bush Administration 9-11 claims Octafish Oct 2014 #49
Agreed. Octafish is one of the main reason I keep coming back here (n/t) CrawlingChaos Oct 2014 #33
You are most welcome, 7wo7rees! Octafish Oct 2014 #39
k&r and as always, thanks for posting. rhett o rick Oct 2014 #24
Amen! K and R. nt PCIntern Oct 2014 #26
The longer I live, the more convinced I am that the CIA is simply silvershadow Oct 2014 #28
Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich Octafish Oct 2014 #46
Old News? For Freddie Oct 2014 #30
Nixon, Mobsters, the CIA, Cuba and Kennedy... Octafish Oct 2014 #45
K & R !!! WillyT Oct 2014 #32
Ex-CIA Agent Said Castro Knew About JFK Assassination Ahead Of Time Octafish Oct 2014 #44
The CIA interfering in other organizations? That is like saying water is wet. Rex Oct 2014 #34
How the CIA Enlisted the Chicago Mob to Put a Hit on Castro (in 1960 -- Ike, Nixon, Dulles) Octafish Oct 2014 #43
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