Art Buchwald was a humorist, a very funny humorist.
“Hunting Down the Secular Humanists" "...What makes them so dangerous is that Secular Humanists look just like you and me. Some of them could be your best friends without you knowing that they are Humanists. They could come into your house, play with your children, eat your food and even watch football with you on television, and you'd never know they have read Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, and Huckleberry Finn....
No one is safe until Congress sets up an Anti-Secular Humanism Committee to get at the rot. Witnesses have to be called, and they have to name names.”
― Art Buchwald
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61997.Art_Buchwald
Frank Church? Frank Church of the Church committee?
In 1975 and 1976, the Church Committee published fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, their operations, and the alleged abuses of law and of power that they had committed, together with recommendations for reform, some of which were put in place.
Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles's plan, approved by the President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to use the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Under recommendations and pressure by this committee, President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905 (ultimately replaced in 1981 by President Reagan's Executive Order 12333) to ban U.S. sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders.
Together, the Church Committee's reports have been said to constitute the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but more than 50,000 pages have since been declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
The NSA was investigating one of its critics. Probably not the only critic it investigated out of sheer spite.
Here is what Frank Church said, warned about the NSA:
“ In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.[17][18][19]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Church
The NSA needs to release ALL of its documentation and research on Frank Church because that file would show the extent to which the NSA has already established a totalitarian state.
Howard Baker?
Hard to understand. He was popular among both Republicans and Democrats.
But then there is this:
In 1973 and 1974, Baker was also the influential ranking minority member of the Senate committee, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, that investigated the Watergate scandal. Baker is famous for having asked aloud, "What did the President know and when did he know it?", a question given him by his counsel and former campaign manager, future U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.
. . .
Baker did not seek re-election in 1984. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom the same year. However, as a testament to Baker's skill as a negotiator and honest and amiable broker, Reagan tapped him to serve as Chief of Staff during part of Reagan's second term (1987–1988). Many saw this as a move by Reagan to mend relations with the Senate, which had deteriorated somewhat under the previous chief of staff, Donald Regan. (Baker had complained that Regan had become a too-powerful "Prime Minister" inside an increasingly complex imperial presidency.) In accepting this appointment, Baker chose to skip another bid for the White House in 1988.[12]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Baker
Why was the NSA concerned about Baker?
Hard to say, but what these revelations make me ask is whether the NSA has used its surveillance capacity to protect itself and its leadership. Because should it turn out that is the case, then the NSA is an even greater danger to our country than any of us could have imagined.
So the question is "Is the NSA capable of using its technological capacity to protect itself, to protect its privacy, to protect its political power, to insure its continuation, to protect its existence?" Because if the answer any part of that question is "yes," then the NSA has the capacity to take over the country and to destroy anyone who challenges it and wants to preserve the Constitution or our traditional form of democratic government.
Frank Church was right:
I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.
That's a tough challenge. I do not know whether we as a nation can continue to enjoy the political freedom that we have enjoyed through most of our history if we harbor the NSA within our government, within our country. It's hard to say which threat is greater: the NSA or the terrorists/Communists/threat of the era.
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