

Church Committee Report on NSA Surveillance Affecting Americans (1975) [pdf] - cinquemb
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_10_NSA.pdf

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ferdo
Thank you for posting this, OP. I've run across references to it but never
took the time to read it.

This part blows my mind. The NSA has no legal oversight and it claims that the
4th Amendment doesn't apply to it:

NSA does not have a statutory charter; its operational responsibilities are
set forth exclusively in executive directives first issued in the 1950s. One
of the questions which the Senate asked the Committee to consider was the
"need for specific legislative authority to govern the operations of...the
National Security Agency."

According to NSA's General Counsel, no existing statutes control, limit, or
define the signals intelligence activities of NSA. Further, the General
Counsel asserts that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to NSA's interception
of Americans' international communications for foreign intelligence purposes.

~~~
snarfy
>...international communications for foreign intelligence purposes.

It's because it's international communications. You fourth amendment rights
only extend within the borders of the entity that protects those rights.

~~~
ferdo
"Next in importance to personal freedom is immunity from suspicions, and
jealous observation. Men may be without restraints upon their liberty: they
may pass to and fro at pleasure: but if their steps are tracked by spies and
informers, their words noted down for crimination, their associates watched as
conspirators, who shall say that they are free?

Nothing is more revolting to Englishmen than the espionage which forms part of
the administrative system of continental despotisms. It haunts men like an
evil genius, chills their gaiety, restrains their wit, casts a shadow over
their friendships, and blights their domestic hearth.

The freedom of a country may be measured by its immunity from this baleful
agency. Rulers who distrust their own people, must govern in a spirit of
absolutism; and suspected subjects will be ever sensible of their bondage."

The Constitutional History Of England Vol II (1863), pg. 288

by T. E. May

~~~
cinquemb
It really saddens me as someone born in the US, that the ideals that are
embodied by our constitution are never abstracted (at least by our supposed
leaders) to possibly being able to be applied to people outside of the lines
drawn by men in our maps.

And while it may be true that under current legal statutes x amendment does
not apply to y citizens of z countries, hearing it used in arguments to
justify the treatment of fellow human beings contrary to the ideals we seek to
reinforce throughout the world and of ourselves is pretty repulsive.

~~~
codex
Another perspective is that the rules of war are different from the rules of
Main Street, USA. The NSA is on a continual war footing. Its job is to help
defend the United States from its enemies. Until war (and terrorism) is
abolished, there will always be behaviors which are allowed in war but not in
peacetime. For example, warrants are not needed to kill a soldier on the
battlefield, nor to search them.

~~~
ferdo
> The NSA is on a continual war footing. Its job is to help defend the United
> States from its enemies.

The NSA appears to perceive the people it's tasked with the defending -
American citizens - as an enemy. It's the natural result of all centralized
surveillance states.

~~~
cinquemb
That's why they outsource it in part to wonderful p̶r̶o̶f̶i̶t̶e̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶
patriotic corporations like Booz Allen Hamilton and their private equity
owners :D

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skwirl
Keep in mind that 1975 was before FISA, which wouldn't be passed until 1978.
Believe it or not, despite its current reputation (thanks to modifications
made in the last 12 years), the original FISA was actually a huge step forward
as it actually created judicial and congressional oversight of intelligence
operations where there was none before. It was passed in response to the
abuses of the Watergate era.

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josephjrobison
Not really sure what the Church committee is. Am I missing something from
history? Or is it an actual Church committee.

~~~
ejdyksen
Special committees or commissions in the US Congress are often named after the
congressman chairing that committee.

The Church Committee was chaired by Senator Frank Church.

