The revelations of this week reminded me of this story I wrote about
back in the Bush years --- when most liberals were united in their
opposition to these programs even as the congress did its usual rubber
stamping in a "time-o-war." Then, as now,
it was all about "balance."
SENATOR SAM ERVIN AND THE ARMY SPY SCANDAL OF 1970-1971: BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN A FREE SOCIETY
Karl E. Campbell
"For the past four years, the U.S. Army has been closely watching
civilian political activity within the United States." So charged
Christopher H. Pyle, a former intelligence officer, in the January 1970
edition of Washington Monthly. Pyle's account of military spies
snooping on law‑abiding citizens and recording their actions in secret
government computers sent a shudder through the nation's press. Images
from George Orwell's novel 1984 of Big Brother and the thought police
filled the newspapers. Public alarm prompted the Senate Subcommittee on
Constitutional Rights, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina,
to investigate. For more than a year, Ervin struggled against a
cover‑up to get to the bottom of the surveillance system. Frustrated by
the Nixon Administration's misleading statements, claims of inherent
executive powers, and refusals to disclose information on the basis of
national security, the Senator called for public hearings in 1971 to
examine "the dangers the Army's program presents to the principles of
the Constitution."
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