Sunday, December 25, 2005

Listening to the world since 1952

Sounds like a pretty catchy slogan, doesn't it? In fact it is what the NSA has been doing all these years. Until Our Dear Embattled Leader came along with his Evil Vizier Big Dick, it was looking outward, listening to the rest of the world. Now with the Republicans keen urge for Big Government, it is looking inward, directing its vast resources at Americans, you and me. James Bamford, in the NY TIMES, gives us a good look at the NSA, what it can do and what it means to all of us. Read the whole piece carefully, then consider this item from 30 years ago.
Thirty years ago, Senator Frank Church, the Idaho Democrat who was then chairman of the select committee on intelligence, investigated the agency and came away stunned.

"That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people," he said in 1975, "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."

He added that if a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. "could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back."

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