[Vision2020] NSA Spied On Idaho Senator During Vietnam War

[Kenneth Marcy]

NSA Spied On Idaho Senator During Vietnam War

http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-report-nsa-spied-on-idaho-senator-during-vietnam-war/ 


(Link leads to link with audio by Frank Church)

A U.S. Senator from Idaho who once warned about misuse of government 
surveillance was himself the subject of Vietnam Era domestic wiretapping.

That's one of the revelations in a newly de-classified NSA document. The 
security agency itself described the program as “disreputable … if not 
outright illegal.”

In 1975, Senator Frank Church cautioned the government's growing 
capability to monitor communication could be turned around on citizens.

“And no American would have privacy left, such is the capability to 
monitor everything – telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't 
matter,” he said then.

What Church didn't know when he spoke those words was that he had 
already been the subject of surveillance. An internal NSA history – now 
released in full – reveals that Church's overseas phone calls and cable 
traffic were monitored under the NSA's Minaret program.

“The notion that you would follow and surveil sitting United States 
senators was totally over the top,” says Democratic strategist Peter 
Fenn, a former staffer to Senator Frank Church. He says the Democrat 
from Idaho knew about the watchlist targeting Vietnam War critics, but 
Church had no idea his own opposition to the war had put him on the list 
too.

The newly declassified surveillance list also included Martin Luther 
King, Muhammad Ali, and Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald.



Ken