If it is true that history repeats itself, and I believe it is we are at a very dangerous moment in our history.  I believe we must go back and examine the Church Committee in light of what is happening today. We can not allow ourselves to be manipulated and divided into partisan camps. The Church Committee uncovered government abuse that many believe continue to this day.   They investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The committee’s efforts then led to the establishment of the permanent U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Reading the history of the committee report and following up on links is mind blowing. It certainly foreshadowed the 2013 global surveillance disclosures by Edward Snowden, it also unearthed Project SHAMROCK in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA. A story by Carl Bernstein from 1977 lays out the relationship between the CIA and news organizations that the Church Committee covered up. 

At the time Senator Frank Church (D-ID) stated that we had to understand that the monitoring capability that was uncovered could be turned around on Americans who would then have no privacy left.

That makes me wonder what the Senate (and House) intelligences committee’s have been doing since then because that monitoring ability has been turned loose on the American people.