Support our non-partisan non-profit newsroom 💜 Donate now

A letter to the President warns of history repeating itself

Molly Wood Mar 20, 2014
HTML EMBED:
COPY

A letter to the President warns of history repeating itself

Molly Wood Mar 20, 2014
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Formed in 1975 to examine the possible overreach of national security investigation and intelligence, the Church Committee – named after the chairman of the committee, Frank Church – was responsible for the creation of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act. At the time, the committee investigated when and how the NSA had overstepped its bounds, including the opening of people’s mail without notification.

Former members of the group sent President Obama a letter this week sighting similarities between their findings during the original investigation and the current situation with NSA surveillance. In fact, they pointed out that this time around, the technology available has made the offenses much worse and larger in scope. Cyrus Farivar, senior business editor at Ars Technica, points to the increase in personal technology that the average American carries on their person.

“Typically in those days people had one phone at a fixed location: their office, their home. Nowadays, nearly all of us carry around mobile phones in our pockets which act as a really good proxy for showing where we are [and] when we are in time…I think that that’s really incredible to see these veterans of looking at some of these abuses from 40 years ago saying now that what’s going on today is far worse than what they saw previously.”

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.