I think I’ve said this a couple of dozen times over the last fifteen months:
Thirty years ago, a Senate committee headed by the late Sen. Frank Church exposed widespread abuses by law enforcement and intelligence agencies dating to the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. In the name of “national security,” the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency spied on politicians, protest groups and civil rights activists; illegally opened mail; and sponsored scores of covert operations abroad, many of which imperiled democracy in foreign countries.
The sheer magnitude of the abuses unearthed by the committee shocked the nation, led to broad reforms and embarrassed Congress, whose feckless oversight over decades was plain for all to see. As a result, Congress required presidents to report covert operations to permanent new intelligence committees and created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which squarely repudiated the idea of inherent executive power to spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. New guidelines were issued for FBI investigations.
For those of us involved in that effort to bring accountability and sunshine back to government, it is discouraging to read daily accounts of a new era of intelligence power abuses, growing out of a “war” on terrorism that is invoked to justify almost any secret measure.
It is indeed discouraging. Actually, it’s demoralizing. And a disgrace. It’s good to see the Washington Post discussing it. Read the whole thing.
