The Perennial Pondering of Patriotism vs. Paranoia
Senator Slotkin's inquiry, as reported by Bloomberg, seeks assurances from intelligence chiefs that they're 'not targeting American citizens for domestic political purposes.' One might wonder why such an assurance is even necessary, given constitutional protections. But then, one would be forgetting history. This isn't a new concern; it's a recurring nightmare for anyone paying attention to the
expanding gaze of the surveillance state. FIRST INSTANCE: COINTELPRO, 1956 The playbook of domestic targeting got its notorious update with the FBI's COINTELPRO operations, launched in 1956 (FBI, 1971). Initially aimed at the Communist Party USA, it quickly expanded to 'disrupt, discredit, or otherwise neutralize' a host of domestic political organizations, including civil rights groups, anti-war
activists, and the Black Panther Party. The specific aim was to undermine movements, not just to gather intelligence on foreign threats. Innocent Americans were very much in the crosshairs, and often, without legal basis. REPETITIONS: NSC-5412 Special Group, 1970s Church Committee The pattern solidified. By the early 1970s, the Senate's Church Committee, tasked with investigating intelligence
abuses, uncovered widespread illegal surveillance of American citizens, including figures like Martin Luther King Jr. (Church Committee, 1975). This was not about espionage; it was about political control. The agencies swore up and down they were changing, that such 'excesses' would never happen again. Curious, isn't it? REPETITIONS: PATRIOT Act & PRISM, Post-9/11 Post-9/11, the PATRIOT Act was