I have the strange and nerdy habit of spending rainy weekend days reading transcripts of Church Committee hearings. I know, I know…but I can’t help it. This morning I have taken a particular interest in reading James Angleton’s testimony about the Huston Plan, the opening of U.S. mail by the CIA, and the infiltration of anti-war groups. If you are interested in the history of domestic surveillance, you can’t do better than to read Angleton’s testimony (beginning here). If you replace each instance of ‘communist’ with ‘terrorist’ and each instance of ‘mail’ with ’email’ or ‘electronic communications’, I think you will find that the only thing that has changed from the 1970’s until now is the party in control of Congress. The Democrats controlled the Church hearings and they did not buy Angleton’s justifications for domestic surveillance. Today, the Republicans control the hearings and they use the exact same arguments to explain away Bush’s abuse of power as Angleton used to justify the abuse of power of Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, and especially Nixon.
This is an open thread.