International Law

?Wiretapping?s true danger?

By Rob Hyndman

No, I can’t imagine why civil libertarians in the US are so concerned about surveillance by their government. I really just can’t imagine why:

The original FISA law was passed in 1978 after a thorough congressional investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that for decades, intelligence analysts — and the presidents they served — had spied on the letters and phone conversations of union chiefs, civil rights leaders, journalists, antiwar activists, lobbyists, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices — even Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Church Committee reports painstakingly documented how the information obtained was often “collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action.”

Full post as published by Rob Hyndman .com on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).