Art Buchwald; humorist, subversive threat?!?!
By Richard Leiby
Amid raging anti-Vietnam War protests that bedeviled two presidential administrations, snoops at the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of war critics including Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), and even Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald, according to newly declassified NSA documents released Wednesday.
Oddly, another senator, Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) — an ardent supporter of the war — also was put on the NSA “watch list” that authorized the interception of the surveillance targets’ overseas phone calls, telexes and cable traffic. The list, which grew to more than 1,600 names, was active from 1967 to 1973, covering the terms of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, the documents say.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/declassified-documents-show-nsa-listened-in-on-mlk-muhammad-ali-and-art-buchwald/2013/09/25/1a018178-262b-11e3-b3e9-d97fb087acd6_story.html
I'm sure this is all just a relic from a bygone era of excesses and that nothing like that could possibly happen today because we've all been assured on numerous occasions that the NSA is a pillar of civil libertarian rectitude that requires no forceful oversight and merits our unquestioning trust.
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I remember going to Ethel Kennedy's house in McLean, VA each year when she held her annual public event there. Buchwald would dress up as a ringmaster to host some kind of Best Pet competition. Obviously, he was VERY subversive. 
We found out about a lot of the spying on citizens long ago, but it always touches a nerve with me. A friend who was a leader in Vietnam Veterans Against the War told me that a majority of the antiwar group reps in any meeting would be undercover cops.
Way back in HS for Boys' Day in Business and Government I was 'Captain-Commander of the Intelligence Division' of the LAPD for the day. I spent the day with the man who held that position, who drove me around in his souped-up, unmarked surveillance car with its hidden police radio and shotgun, and took me to the Police Academy for lunch.
That guy was Daryl Gates, before he rose to Chief. He was very involved in the spying, and in creating the first SWAT team in the country. We didn't stay buddies, though. 
