In 1975, the late senator Frank Church said that “the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. . . . 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. . . . There would be no place to hide.”
These words came as Senator Church led the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee. The Church Committee’s 1976 final report exposed numerous secret federal-government programs that violated the constitutional rights of American citizens it deemed to be threats to existing social and political order. These programs surveilled and targeted individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr. and domestic organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as well as infiltrated movements to incite rivalries and discredit the leaders associated with them.
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