Posted on 03/06/2006 6:55:46 AM PST by Sweetjustusnow
Jimmy’s Carter’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was the culmination of a very successful campaign by the Washington-based Marxist-Leninist Institute of Policies Studies and the KGB to permanently cripple America’s intelligence services. To understand how this came about it is necessary to take a brief look at the institute’s America-hating founders.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
In 1970 he revealed his intention to subvert America’s ability to defend herself when he publicly stated that “government agencies such as the FBI, Secret Services, intelligence services of other government agencies, and the military should be done away with in that order”.
(Is it any wonder that the Bush Administration would forgo the FISA court?) Read more at Frontpage Mag.
Dang,... didn't Kerry also believe the Intelligence sercies should be shut down back in the 70's?
Presidents used to have very broad authority when it came to national defense and international relations.
But then Nixon severely abused his powers, and FISA was in large part created to prevent further abuses of presidential power.
The executive branch can cry about FISA all it wants, but it's the executive branch's own actions that brought it about.
Oh yeah, forgot, COINTELPRO and others hit around the same time. I can see passing FISA in after mass scandal over executive abuses.
bump to read later
This is quite eye-opening!
Are you sure? Or is this more MSM "tell the lie until it becomes the truth". What actions do you mean when you say "severely abused"?
America paid a heavy price for the IPS’s treason — and yet the full bill has yet to be paid. In the meantime, the damage these traitors did, and are still doing through their fellow travellers in the media, academia and the Democratic Party, is severely sabotaging the war on terror.
Fully understanding the vital importance of intelligence to his country’s survival, General George Washington said in 1777:
The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged — all that remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as Secret as possible. For upon secrecy, success depends in Most Enterprises of the Kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned and promising a favorable issue.
If Washington were alive today what would he would make of the Democrats, their media allies and the America-haters at the IPS? Or is that a stupid question?
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Scott Steven Powell wrote a book, "Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute of Policy Studies" in 1988. A review of the book in the National Review stated:
Powell discusses IPS's leading role in the on-going campaign to undermine U S intelligence agencies, in which it has concentrated on persuading Congress to enact legislation to restrict intelligence gathering. The 1975 Hughes-Ryan Amendment, for example, which subjects CIA covert operations to congressional oversight -- in effect creating a permanent "leak mechanism" --grew out of a recommendation by Richard Barnet, in his book "The Economy of Death." In 1978 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act became law, placing additional restrictions on the ability of U S intelligence agencies to monitor the activities of potentially subversive froeign nationals. The Center for National Security Studies, an IPS spinoff, helped draft the new guidelines. All of this has had a "chilling effect" on our ability to gather intelligence overseas, while at the same time compromising our counterintelligence capabilities at home.
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This review was written in 1988 in the National Review, but I never read the book. The review, by itself, was sickening. The tentacles of the IPS have only strengthened since that time, -"probably the major center of left-wing activism in the US. It has extensions into the media, political campaigns, the Congress, and federal policy-making institutions."
"IPS and its overseas arm, the Transnational Institute, maintain regular contact with Eastern European and Latin American Communists."
This line is in the Church Committee report: "-- President Nixon authorized a program of wiretaps which produced for the White House purely political or personal information unrelated to national security, including information about a Supreme Court justice."
Aside from Nixon's actual involvement in such matters, the general post-Watergate atmosphere was one of distrust of executive power due to highly public Nixon abuses. The tapes didn't help.
Bump for later read. Our local talk show host, Jim Quinn, has been talking about this article for several days, but it doesn't look like it's gotten enough exposure yet.
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Oct2005/frank1005.html
(An anti-PATRIOT ACT website)
Background
To understand the effective destruction of our Fourth Amendment rights, it is necessary to go back to the mid-1970s. At that time, Congress was concerned about overreach by the executive branch and excessive spying (and worse) on the U.S. population. The report of the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by then Idaho Senator Frank Church (the “Church Committee Report”), was scathing in its condemnation of the massive civil rights abuses of the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), launched in the 1960s and continued through the early 1970s—and resurrected post 9-11 by Ash- croft. Under COINTELPRO, the FBI conducted disinformation campaigns; wiretapped and infiltrated the civil rights, anti-war, Black, Latino, and women’s liberation movements; smeared prominent leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr.; and, with the deaths of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969, ostensibly engaged in assassination. When Congress failed to enact legislation overseeing FBI activities as recommended by the Church Committee, the FBI adopted guidelines (known as the Levi Guidelines after then Attorney General Edward Levi), restricting spying and disruptive activities against groups and individuals engaging in protected First Amendment activities.
Additionally, prior to the Church Committee hearings, the Supreme Court had unanimously rejected President Nixon’s claim that the president could authorize warrantless wiretaps against domestic groups unconnected to a foreign government when national security was at issue (United States v. United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan).
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Note: the Church committee did not convene until after Nixon was out of office, and the complaints against the FBI went back to the '60s. Remember, only conservatives get into the "history" books for bad deeds. Remember, what the Clintons got away with, and how the media pound GWB daily with accusations of improper/illegal behavior.
COINTELPRO officially ended years before Nixon resigned, are you saying that means the Church Committee had nothing to do with COINTELPRO?
Remember, only conservatives get into the "history" books for bad deeds.
MSM misreporting does not excuse improper action by conservatives. Just because the crimes of Crook A aren't reported doesn't mean Crook B is innocent.
I was pointing out that domestic surveillance of possible agents of the Soviet Union inside the US did not start or end with NIxon.
From your source is this ...
Additionally, prior to the Church Committee hearings, the Supreme Court had unanimously rejected President Nixon's claim that the president could authorize warrantless wiretaps against domestic groups unconnected to a foreign government when national security was at issue (United States v. United States District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan).
That's a reference to The "Keith" case, 407 US 297 (1972). The fact pattern certainly doesn't ring of nefarious wiretapping such as political dirty tricks.
The case doesn't either implicate Nixon directly, and I'm too lazy to check the dates of the cases listed by Douglas. If your point is only that Nixon is tarred too much, I tend to agree. But if your contention is that the people should trust the government, well, I take Mulder's approach, "trust no one."
This case arises from a criminal proceeding in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, in which the United States charged three defendants with conspiracy to destroy Government property in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371. One of the defendants, Plamondon, was charged with the dynamite bombing of an office of the Central Intelligence Agency in Ann Arbor, Michigan.The evidence obtained in the warrantless wiretap was EXCLUDED.
As the surveillance of Plamondon's conversations was unlawful, because conducted without prior judicial approval, the courts below correctly held that Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165 (1969), is controlling and that it requires disclosure to the accused of his own impermissibly intercepted conversations. As stated in Alderman, "the trial court can and should, where appropriate, place a defendant and his counsel under enforceable orders against unwarranted disclosure of the materials which they may be entitled to inspect."
The concurring opinion of Justice Douglas noted the following cases:
We are told that one national security wiretap lasted for 14 months and monitored over 900 conversations. Senator Edward Kennedy found recently that "warrantless devices accounted for an average of 78 to 209 days of listening per device, as compared with a 13-day per device average for those devices installed under court order." 3 He concluded that the Government's [407 U.S. 297, 326] revelations posed "the frightening possibility that the conversations of untold thousands of citizens of this country are being monitored on secret devices which no judge has authorized and which may remain in operation for months and perhaps years at a time." 4 Even the most innocent and random caller who uses or telephones into a tapped line can become a flagged number in the Government's data bank. See Laird v. Tatum, 1971 Term, No. 71-288.Such gross invasions of privacy epitomize the very evil to which the Warrant Clause was directed. This Court has been the unfortunate witness to the hazards of police intrusions which did not receive prior sanction by independent magistrates. For example, in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 ; Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 ; and Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 , entire homes were ransacked pursuant to warrantless searches. Indeed, in Kremen v. United States, 353 U.S. 346 , the entire contents of a cabin, totaling more than 800 items (such as "1 Dish Rag") 5 were seized incident to an arrest of its occupant and were taken to San Francisco for study by FBI agents. In a similar case, Von Cleef v. New [407 U.S. 297, 327] Jersey, 395 U.S. 814 , police, without a warrant, searched an arrestee's house for three hours, eventually seizing "several thousand articles, including books, magazines, catalogues, mailing lists, private correspondence (both open and unopened), photographs, drawings, and film." Id., at 815. In Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385 , federal agents "without a shadow of authority" raided the offices of one of the petitioners (the proprietors of which had earlier been jailed) and "made a clean sweep of all the books, papers and documents found there." Justice Holmes, for the Court, termed this tactic an "outrage." Id., at 390, 391. In Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476 , state police seized more than 2,000 items of literature, including the writings of Mr. Justice Black, pursuant to a general search warrant issued to inspect an alleged subversive's home. ...
As illustrated by a flood of cases before us this Term, e. g., Laird v. Tatum, No. 71-288; Gelbard v. United States, No. 71-110; United States v. Egan, No. 71-263; United States v. Caldwell, No. 70-57; United States v. Gravel, No. 71-1026; Kleindienst v. Mandel, No. 71-16; we are currently in the throes of another national seizure of paranoia, resembling the hysteria which surrounded the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Palmer Raids, and the McCarthy era. Those who register dissent or who petition their governments for redress are subjected to scrutiny by grand juries, 7 by the FBI, 8 or even by the military. 9 Their associates are interrogated. [407 U.S. 297, 330] Their homes are bugged and their telephones are wiretapped. They are befriended by secret government informers. 10 Their patriotism and loyalty are questioned. 11 [407 U.S. 297, 331] Senator Sam Ervin, who has chaired hearings on military surveillance of civilian dissidents, warns that "it is not an exaggeration to talk in terms of hundreds of thousands of . . . dossiers." 12 Senator Kennedy, as mentioned supra, found "the frightening possibility that the conversations of untold thousands are being monitored on secret devices." More than our privacy is implicated. Also at stake is the reach of the Government's power to intimidate its critics.
When the Executive attempts to excuse these tactics as essential to its defense against internal subversion, we are obliged to remind it, without apology, of this Court's long commitment to the preservation of the Bill of Rights from the corrosive environment of precisely such expedients.
COINTELPRO was busted under Nixon's watch, even though it didn't start with him. One of the reasons COINTELPRO received such scrutiny is that it went beyond trying to catch Soviet agents, and into spying on suspected troublemakers, people exercising their 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech and to petition for a redress of grievances.
Nixon deserved to go down, no doubt about it (that Clinton didn't get caught is irrelevant). His actions were part of the Church Committee report, which was mostly responsible for FISA. The executive complaining about FISA restricting its powers is like a criminal complaining that the government keeps him behind bars. They're both at fault for their own situations.
From Book II, "Nevertheless, the political misuse of the FBI under the Johnson and Nixon administrations appears to have been more extensive than in previous years."
The administration had the FBI check out a reporter and lied to cover it up.
Oh, warrantless surveillance is okay as long as it's overseas? That can be just a loophole to spy on Americans for political reasons:
"Apparently on the instructions of President Nixon's aide John Ehrlichman and Director Hoover, FBI Assistant Director William C. Sullivan arranged for the microphone surveillance of the hotel, room of columnist Joseph Kraft while be was visiting a foreign country. 30 Kraft was also the target of physical surveillance by the FBI. 31 There is no record of any specific "national security" rationale for the surveillance."FISA is there for a reason. It may need to be streamlined for the modern age, but it serves as an important check against the executive's proven record of abuse of power.
If your point is only that Nixon is tarred too much, I tend to agree.
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That was my point. This thread is about the power of the IPS. I have checked two library systems near my home and only one copy of the book that exposed the IPS as an instigator of many of the curbs on administration power is listed. I bet, if I go to the library, I will be told that it is "still on the catalog, but, tant pis, it is lost."
The poster was quick to include that Nixon was corrupt, but not Johnson, JFK, Carter, etc. The next event that "everyone" "knows" is Iran-Contra. But I bet few know that Reagan was instrumental in stopping Communism taking serious hold in the Caribbean and Central America.
My point is that "facts" are spun by leftmedia constantly, and we must be alert to not be swayed by one-sided "facts".
There is no such thing as a balanced presentation, by either side in an argument, and certainly not by the media. It takes hard work and critical thinking to get to the bottom of anything.
bumpity
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