Frank Church
 Frank Church    | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 25, 1924 |
| Died | April 7, 1984 (Age 59) |
| Member of | Church Committee, Phi Beta Kappa, Senate Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations |
Leader of the Church Committee, which probably did more than any other organisation to expose the activities of the US intelligence agencies. | |
Church was a key figure in American foreign policy during the 1970s, and served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1981. Church was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the Vietnam War in the 1960s, although he had initially supported the conflict[citation needed]. He argued that the opponents of the Vietnam War needed to prevent the corruption of the nation and its institutions.
Contents
Church Committee
- Full article: Church Committee
- Full article: Church Committee
Church gained national prominence during his service in the Senate through his chairmanship of the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities from 1975 through 1976, more commonly known as the Church Committee, which conducted extensive hearings investigating extra-legal FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering and covert operations. The committee investigated CIA drug smuggling activities in the Golden Triangle and secret U.S.-backed wars in Third World countries.[1][2][3][4]
Warning about the NSA
Church was stunned by what the committee learned about the mass surveillance capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA), an agency whose existence was unknown to most Americans at the time. Church stated in 1975: "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."[5] He is widely quoted as also stating regarding the NSA: "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."[5]
Commentators such as U.S. constitutional lawyer and columnist Glenn Greenwald have praised Church for his prescient warning regarding this turning around by the NSA to monitor the American people, arguing that the NSA undertook such a turning in the years after the September 11 Attacks.[6]
Death
Three years after leaving the Senate, Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor on January 12, 1984. Less than three months later, he died at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, aged 59.
A Quote by Frank Church
| Page | Quote | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| The American Deep State | “I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National Security 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.” | 1975 | The American Deep State |
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:The Hammarskjöld Commission – Witness Statement of Lisa Pease | Statement | 9 December 2012 | Lisa Pease | Bud Culligan claims that he intercepted and shot down Hammarskjöld’s plane on orders from his CIA case officer. From my own study of the Hammarskjöld case, I believed then and continue to believe, especially in the light of the new evidence reported by Susan Williams in her excellent volume "Who Killed Hammarskjöld?", that the best evidence indicates Hammarskjöld’s plane was indeed shot out of the sky. |
References
- ↑ Knott, Stephen F (November 4, 2001). "Congressional Oversight and the Crippling of the CIA". History News Network.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ Mooney, Chris (November 5, 2001). "Back to Church". The American Prospect. Archived from the original on 2006-12-05.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ Burbach, Roger (October 2003). "State Terrorism and September 11, 1973 & 2001" (—Scholar search). ZMag. 16 (10).Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").[dead link]
- ↑ "Debate: Bush's handling of terror clues". CNN. May 19, 2002. Retrieved May 2, 2010.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
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