Really? Got some examples? I sure don't remember all that fuss.
Really? Got some examples? I sure don't remember all that fuss.
Excerpts from 1975 Senate Hearings re: NSA Activity
That page is excerpts. The source links there (lengthy) have a good deal of history and law. Some examples are warrantless surveillance of MLK & Commies. Hoover's FBI ran warrantless surveillance programs that he ordered be kept from Congress.
See also House Report 106-130, jumping to Porter Goss's comments at the end. Most of his commentary is aimed to justify Congress sticking its nose in, but opens with the following ...
ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF CHAIRMAN PORTER J. GOSSRecently, and perhaps for the first time in the committee's history, an Intelligence Community element of the United States Government asserted a claim of attorney-client privilege as a basis for withholding documents from the committee's review. Similarly, various agencies within the Intelligence Community have asserted, with disturbing frequency, a `deliberative process' or `pre-decisional' argument as a basis for attempting to keep requested documents from the committee's scrutiny. These claims are unpersuasive and dubious.
As part of its regular oversight responsibilities and preparatory to the committee's legislative action on this bill, the committee was questioning the National Security Agency's (NSA) application of current operational guidelines in light of the enormous technological advances that have been made in the past several years. The committee was seeking to ensure that the NSA was carrying out its signals intelligence mission in consonance with the law, relevant executive orders, guidelines, and policy directives. At bottom, the committee sought to assure itself that the NSA General Counsel's Office was interpreting NSA's legal authorities correctly and that NSA was not being arbitrary and capricious in its execution of its mission. ^1
[Footnote 1: In the 1970s it was learned that the NSA, as well as other elements of the United States intelligence community, engaged in serious abuses of the privacy interests of U.S. persons. The congressional hearings on these and other matters led directly to the establishment of the Senate Select committee on Intelligence; see S. Res. 400, 94th Congress; and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI); see H. Res. 658, 95th Congress. Additionally, as a result of those inquiries, executive orders were issued and guidelines and policy statements were promulgated defining the mission of the NSA and its legal obligations and responsibilities pursuant to the Constitution and other laws of the United States. See Legislative Oversight of Intelligence Activities: The U.S. Experience, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 103rd Cong., 2d Sess., at 2-6 (Comm. Print)(October 1994).]
See #152.