Reply #12: Sen.Church reported America's Spy Technology Should Never Be Turned on America

[Octafish]

Otherwise, organized opposition to the government would be impossible.

"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 tyranny, 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."

- During 1975 investigation of ECHELON / Project Shamrock, as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman

There were no Internet, email, cell phone and most other forms of communication we have today. These also can be, and are, monitored.

PS: Sorry to be repetetively redundant kick, but some things bear repeating.