The NSA Used to Spy on MLK — and the Senator Who Forced It to Reform

[Jesus Malverde]

For those inclined to be sympathetic toward the public appeal made by NSA chief Keith Alexander on Wednesday — that the NSA stops terror attacks like the one in Nairobi — there's a declassified document that outlines the agency's unsympathetic past, which includes spying on politicians, reporters, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

That spying took place more than four decades ago, years before the Church Committee reforms of the late 1970s that revised the agency's role, and before the clear delineation that the National Security Agency was prohibited from surveilling people in the United States. At that time, the NSA apparently had few qualms about keeping an eye on those the government considered "domestic terrorist and foreign radical" threats. George Washington University's National Security Archive obtained the documents and provides an overview.



http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/nsa-used-spy-mlk-and-senator-forced-it-reform/69876/

[bunnies]

1. Pretty sure they spied on John Lennon too.

This is not new news though.

[Wilms]

2. ^