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Intelligence abuse déjà vu
By Gary Hart
12/21/05 "Los
Angeles Times" -- -- THREE WEEKS after I took the
oath of office in the Senate in 1975, then-Majority Leader Mike
Mansfield appointed me to a newly created committee — the Select
Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to
Intelligence Activities, which soon came to be known as the "Church
Committee," after its chairman, the late Sen. Frank Church of Idaho.
Out of 11 members, I was by far the youngest.
The Senate had impaneled the committee because of increasing reports
of abuse of authority by the country's myriad intelligence agencies
under the Nixon administration as well as previous administrations.
For two years, the committee investigated broadly — the CIA, FBI,
DIA and NSA were all within its purview — and finally, in 1976, it
issued a series of recommendations designed to prevent future
abuses.
Today, one has only to consider the behavior of the Bush
administration during the Iraq war to appreciate how soon we forget,
how little we learn and how pervasive is the tendency to violate
civil and constitutional liberties in the name of war. Virtually all
of the reforms recommended by the Church Committee — many of which
were passed into law — have been evaded, ignored or violated in the
name of the "war on terrorism."
It is often said that the first victim of war is the truth. In fact,
the first victim of American war is the liberty of Americans.
During our investigations of intelligence abuse, we discovered that
the government had engaged in widespread surveillance of a very
large number of American citizens. Civil rights leaders were
monitored. Antiwar groups were under surveillance. Domestic phones
were tapped. Mail was opened. The FBI conducted warrantless "black
bag" break-ins of private residences and offices. We wrote an entire
report on warrantless electronic surveillance by the FBI — exactly
what the NSA has now been authorized to do by the president.
One particularly egregious program, code-named COINTELPRO, went
beyond the mere collection of intelligence on domestic groups to
actually trying to "disrupt" or "neutralize" target groups. The
excuse given by the FBI and others was, "We are at war, and we need
to do everything we can to defeat our enemy." Sound familiar?
In some cases, the intelligence services even turned violent. The
CIA, for instance, conducted the infamous Phoenix program that
resulted in the systematic assassination of thousands of Vietnamese
villagers accused of collaborating with the Viet Cong. This was the
1970s version of Abu Ghraib. During the Eisenhower and Kennedy
administrations we tried (with obsessive insistence in the case of
Fidel Castro) to assassinate at least six foreign leaders. Too bad
we didn't have the Predator then. It would have been much simpler.
Our committee's work resulted in many reforms. The Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 required special intelligence
courts to approve national security wiretaps. The Bush
administration, however, has found that statute inconvenient and,
predictably, has ignored it.
Our committee also recommended presidential "findings" before
extraordinary covert operations were undertaken. This was not
designed to undermine the CIA but to protect it; until then it had
been left dangling in the wind when misused by presidents who wished
to claim "plausible deniability."
That reform surfaced during another period of political abuse — the
infamous Iran-Contra affair, involving Bible-shaped cakes, trading
with the enemy, lying to Congress and avoidance of accountability.
It turns out that President Reagan, contrary to his own memory, had
signed a "finding" authorizing the whole bizarre episode.
Again to support the CIA, our panel laid the groundwork for the 1982
Intelligence Identities Protection Act that prevented identification
of CIA operatives. This was the act that now appears to have been
violated by at least half of the Bush White House in its demented
efforts to punish Ambassador Joe Wilson by "outing" his undercover
wife.
So what goes around, comes around. Here we are again, 30 years
later, in yet another unwise war, no wiser and once again willing to
sacrifice constitutional liberties for security expediency. If there
was one lesson all of us who served on the Church Committee learned,
it was that there are no secrets, that everything comes out and that
the sacrifice of liberty is almost never justified by improved
security.
If the U.S. is to prevail, it must grow up. It must learn from its
mistakes, and not repeat them. It must finally understand that our
security cannot be ensured by sacrifice of our own liberties.
Former Sen. GARY HART (D-Colo.) is the author of "The Shield and the
Cloak," to be published in February by Oxford University Press.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at
latimes.com/archives.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
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