Flashback: Church Committee Chair Warned 48 Years Ago About CIA, FBI Controlling Information

Frank Church, head of the Church Committee, warns in 1975 that the intelligence community could surveil Americans using technology, which could lead to "total tyranny."
Screenshot: NBC Universal Archives YouTube Channel

A new ‘Church Committee’ with libertarian Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) on board is in the works, leading to questions about what that might mean.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested that in order for Kevin McCarthy to become House Speaker, he must concede to two actions – releasing ALL of the January 6th files and appointing Massie to head a “Frank Church committee” to study the FBI.

The committee was announced shortly thereafter, with Massie telling Carlson the news and suggesting he may have been “clairvoyant.”

The original Church committee was formed in 1975 to study abuses in various intelligence departments, including the FBI, CIA, and IRS. The revelations, mostly unknown to Americans today, revealed some of the worst crimes in our nation’s history.

“I don’t know if you are clairvoyant or just made the future happen, but it’s happening,” Massie revealed.

He vowed this new version of the committee will pursue any “three-letter agency” its members believed had violated the Constitutional rights of Americans and that they have “secured a guarantee that can go wherever the evidence leads us.”

RELATED: Tucker Carlson on House Speaker Chaos: It’s ‘Refreshing’ to See GOP Establishment Struggle

Church Committee Ponders ‘Total Tyranny’

It wasn’t long before a clip of the late Senator Frank Church, in a discussion of the committee on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 1975, resurfaced.

A clip that should send shivers down the spines of every American.

Senator Church was discussing the capacity of the intelligence community to harness certain technological advancements to monitor messages and use such tech against the American people.

And bear in mind, this was in 1975, long before social media and Big Tech companies like Twitter and Facebook, ubiquitous internet, or cell phones.

“The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back,” he warned.

Senator Church would later add that there would be “no place to hide.”

Ironically, No Place to Hide is the title of Glenn Greenwald’s book about Edward Snowden and the unprecedented revelations about the U.S. government’s power, ability, and willingness to spy on innocent Americans.

Snowden’s revelations came in 2013 – 38 years after Senator Church’s warnings.

CIA Members Embedded in Media

In another clip posted by Tyler Cardon, CEO of Blaze Media, Church asks then-CIA Director William Colby whether the agency has any paid actors working in the media.

“Do you have any people paid by the CIA who are working for television networks?” asks Church.

Investigative journalist Carl Bernstein wrote in 1977 that “the use of journalists has been among the most productive means of intelligence gathering employed by the CIA.”

“The CIA’s use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress,” he added, noting links between the agency and the New York Times, CBS, and Time.

Readers may know this program under the umbrella of Operation MOCKINGBIRD, which was revealed by the Church Committee. (Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon, people!)

If the CIA had the potential to use technology in 1975 to spy on Americans and had individuals embedded in corporate media then, is it any surprise that the ‘Twitter Files’ have shown their influence hasn’t waned by any significant amount?

With Twitter being exposed as having censored Americans at the behest of the CIA and the FBI regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story and COVID information, Church’s comments have become more prophetic than alarmist.

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Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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