Christopher Pyle Church Committee WhistleBlower-- On Spying on members of Congress

Broadcast 12/9/2013 at 1:24 PM EST (27 Listens, 37 Downloads, 1229 Itunes)
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Christopher H. Pyle is a Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He is the author of several books and Congressional reports, and has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress on issues of deportation and extradition.

In 1970, Christopher Pyle disclosed the U.S. military's surveillance of the civil rights and anti-war movements and worked as a consultant to three Congressional committees, including the Church Committee, which investigated such abuses. He now teaches constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College and is author of Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics and Getting Away with Torture and other books. 

from wikipedia;

• His Extradition, Politics and Human Rights (2001) won "Outstanding Academic Title," Choice, in 2002.
• He won the Constitution Prize for
• In 2004 he received the Luther Knight Mcnair Award from the ACLU of Massachusetts for his contributions to civil liberties as a "teacher, scholar, and model citizen activist."
• 2004, he was elected chair of the Petra Foundation, a national organization that recognizes and assists "unsung heroes" who make extraordinary contributions to social justice.

    He said today:

"We knew the NSA targeted Rev. King and Dr. Benjamin Spock and could infer that they targeted Ali as well. I didn't know that they targeted Sen. Frank Church and Sen. Howard Baker. It could mean they were trying to get information or dirt on senators involved in the Church committee and Watergate committee investigations respectively -- either to learn something about their investigations or to discredit them. 

    "The National Security Archives news release indicates that the surveillance at least began earlier than the Watergate and Church committee hearings. But that would imply that they were conducting surveillance on quite a wide net of people even back then. 

    "We still need more information about what happened then. But more critically, we need more information about what's happening now. These revelations raise the obvious question: If the NSA was targeting people like Sen. Frank Church, who were in a position to oversee the NSA -- is that happening now? That is, are people like intelligence committee chairs Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and other congressional leaders -- who are supposed to be providing oversight themselves -- compromised in some way by the NSA? If so, as seems quite certain from the recent Edward Snowden revelations, then how can they conduct genuine oversight of the NSA with their committees?"

Rough Interview Notes: meant to persuade you to listen to the interview, not as complete notes of the interview

Can you tell me about your whistleblower experience. 

What did the president, the congress, the military say about you, and try to do to you?

So you testified before the Church Committee?

What's your take on what Manning and Snowden and the government response to it. 

      "This is the most serious attack on civil liberties in our history."

      "Secrecy is the great corruption in politics, along with money in politics."

Church was surveilled by NSA. 

     "if it can be done, it will be done and people will find ways to use the capability."

     Private corporations share the power and can use the power for private ends. 70% of budget is for private corporations. 

How are private companies using their access to NSA outside of the law?

How would the NSA shut people down?

   If I were a member of congress, I would be terrified that NSA would do to them what J. Edgar Hoover did to members back during his time.

What do you think about how congress is acting in response to Snowden's revelations?

    "Political influence today is to prevent votes from happening""

Are there any good guys in congress today, in terms of these issues?

              Ron Wyden, Udall, Pat Lahey

How do you compare the current congress to the congress at the time of the Church Committee?

What's your take on Ed Snowden?

        "Ed Snowden's going to have a very unhappy outcome to all of this but he's certainly a man of great courage."  Snowden and Greenwald have been very responsible"

How about Manning? 

    "he didn't expose top secret documents. They weren't classified at all.."

     The govt could never prove that Manning never did anything of harm. The system of classification has corrupted our government. We have 90 million documents a year being classified. " primary function is to protect govt. officials from embarrassment. 

If you could advise members of congress or president Obama what would you tell them?

     "I really worry about future presidents being captives of their own security system."

Obama has been using the espionage act, going after whistleblowers. What's your take on that?

        it's so poorly written it shouldn't be used at all. 

        "We need a newsman's shield law. The press has been far more responsible than the government."

Anything you want to wrap

Opednews-- I find opednews to be enormously helpful. I can't read". 

Congratulate your staff for me because I think they're doing a great job. 

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