Welcome to class, everybody. Today we will talk about history of government surveillance. The focal question we want to think about today is can intelligence agencies operate in a Democratic Society and be successful protecting the government and the citizens while also upholding the seams and Citizens Rights we mark in other words, our liberty and security compatible . No doubt there is a need for intelligence communities to operate from foreign and domestic sources. They have been real throughout u. S. History. For over a century in addition to taking action against real threats bureaus and agencies within the u. S. Government have surveilled those who have expressed what the institute describes as a Strong Political views that run encounters that are surveilling political paradigm this challenges the notion often expressed by those whose appraiser in the state of some sort that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear and i will want to come back to that later on in our class discussion. You really want to look at the history of surveillance in the United States. Go back probably about a century to 1908. Teddy roosevelts attorney general creates a special squad of investigators to work on behalf of the department of justice becomes known as the bureau of investigation and by the 1930s the federal bureau of investigation. The fpas own history if you go to their website. They have a pretty long narrative description of the history and they link the creation of an fbi to the Progressive Movement that is really active in that period of time. The Progressive Movement is sort of the belief that the federal government must intervene to Foster Justice and industrial society. Response to the sort of label unrest those talked about in previous classes and everything that went on that inspired that terrible working conditions and so forth. The Progressive Movement inspires things like the fda to ensure the food you are getting has labels and what youre eating is what you are eating. In will eventually 2 things are child labor laws, but it will also create this sort of nationwide Law Enforcement body that is able to keep tabs throughout the country. It did not exist prior to this. The history explains this creation based on the need for professional unforced agency in the face of labor conflict. Errors in Violent Crime and corruption. Both in politics and big business. All of the accompanying urbanization and industrialization at the turn of the century. As well as National Security concerns appear particularly regarding the fbi on their own description describing is the 1st modernday terrorist as well as threats of espionage, which we talked about the other week when we talked about free speech. In 1909 the fbi makes the 1st efforts to infiltrate political organizations beginning with the socialist party of america by the mid 1910s there investigating antimilitarist and in the state groups. Over the years the fbi will spot a variety of organizations including the American Civil Liberties union and the evangelical American Council of churches the American Jewish congress. The womens Peace Movement led by jane addams. Prolabor antifolk singers. Sometimes these people and organizations are investigated for decades. These are not revolutionary threats. Rather political would oppose certain aspects of the Us Government policy and perhaps even the particular form of government we have. They do so through specific means essentially prediction of the constitution as we have noted our class on free speech. Not so much at the turn of the century when they left. Political spine will begin right around 1908 or 1909 and will run until about 1924 and then it will stop for about a decade be the impetus to stop it is known as the 1st rescue. Immunity after the 1st world war comes to an end the following year you see the number of actions that will raise a lot of concerns about government surveillance. Center general strike johnstone that industry. The bureau of investigation creates a radical division to sort of deal with this resurgence of anarchism headed by a young agents name j edgar hoover. It compiles files on these individuals. They then use the files and to round up several thousand suspected radicals and a series of raids in 1919 in 1920 that occur in at least 40 cities across the United States. Some of the people are well known prominent radicals. Emma goldman and other people arrested simply because they appeared for. They were members of a labor union and so forth. Those arrested were held in their 4 month. No access to lawyers or their families and 249 resident aliens are put on a boat and deported to russia at the end of 1919 because of their alleged anarchist and syndicalist beliefs. There is a tremendous political backlash against this in particular because a lot of them were not engaged in radical violent behavior. Things that are political distant. Maybe they are very radical views, but none the less they have not engaged in anything and some of them are immigrants from russia. The bulova backlash against this brief the fbis political spine to a temporary halt to this has made those in power we have been inclined to support this kind of roundup at 1st in part because the new immigration quotas put in place in 1924. They restrict immigrants from southern and Central Europe until the shutdown immigration from east asia, which we will talk about next week. . 1929 was the end of a 10 year long intelligence Gathering Program run by an organization known as the black chamber because they picked a more nefarious name. This would made up of people from the state Department Army intelligence essentially for tenure starting in 1919 and running until 1929. These companies have provided the black chamber with incoming and outgoing cable traffic. This is shutdown by president hoovers incoming secretary of state. He specifically opposed the spying. Not necessary spying in general, but spying on the u. S. And diplomatic allies. Same very famously gentlemen do not read each others mail here there is also a Supreme Court case at the end of the 20 that deals with wiretapping. Weighing whether or not tapping into someones conversation you have to imagine this is early on in the period. Does that violate the 4th amendment . The right of the people to be secure in their persons houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. William howard taft during the Supreme Court and he speaks for the courts decision to basically rule against a the notion that wiretapping violates the 4th amendment. This is in favor of ruling in favor of wiretaps. Congress may of course protect the secrecy of telephone messages by making them when intercepted inadmissible in evidence and federal, trust by directly legislation. If they want to roll on this they can. And the support from the, was evidence. The courts may not adopt such a policy by attributing an enlarged and unusual meaning of the 4th amendment. The reasonable view is that one who installs in his house a telephone instrument with connect wires intends to project his voice to those quite outside. And that the wires beyond his house in messages while passing over them are not within the protection of the 4th amendment. Those who intercepted the projected voices were not in the house of either party to the conversation you the cases we have cited or any of the decisions brought to our attention hold the 4th amendment to have been violated against the defendant almost there has been an official search and seizure of his person or such a seizure of his papers or tangible material things or an actual physical invasion of his house for the purpose of making a seizure. Is standard which would forbid the perception of evidence obtained by other than less ethical conduct by government officials would make society suffering give criminals . Again, what they are saying here is that if you are using a telephone machine it is connected to wires that go outside of the house and about someone tapping into the wire is not actually going into your house and searching your belongings. That is outside of your home and it does not fall under the 4th amendment. This is how the court ruled in 1920. You want to hit again on the last thing he says. Let me say it again. Is standard that would forbid the perception of evidence obtained by other than is ethical conduct by government officials would make society suffering and give criminals greater immunity that has been known here. He said the standard for free speech in the 20s and ultimately became the courts a very ruling years down the road. Here is what he said in particular regarding william taft laster, which were essentially in some way saying the ends justify the means. Fallout of that the belated came down on the heads of a few people higher up than him and the bureau had rebounded in that decade. Hoover had really tried to emphasize the rows of cripe fighting organization, particularly in the 1930s when during the depression you had famous criminals arrived, john didinger. Hoover emphasizes this, knows how to kind of work the media in his favor. Fdr, is concerned, though, concerned about soviet spies and concerned about fascists. It is the mid 1930s. It is on the rise in europe. There are groups that rise after hitlers rise to power, by large enough that the american mazzi party can hold a rally in Madison Square garden. And the fbi is authorized to investigate ease espionage, treason and sabotage, all federal crimes, but hoover also adds to that list subversive activities. It is unclear how much franklin roosevelt, how much his attorney general, people high up in the government, knew about the extent of what hoover would do. There is no record of that particular meeting and what exactly was said in it. Roosevelt has bigger fish to fry in some sense by not knowing what is coming down the road. He has on economic depression that continues to grind along. He will ultimately have the war to deal with, but even prior to the United States century, is that is a loomer specter of a renewed war in europe. But there is no sense that fdr opposed hoovers work either. Hoover renews this. His renewal of investigative autobiographytivities authorized outside the investigative activities authorized outside of the courts. Congress actually is very suspicious of the bureau of investigation even being created in the first place, kenned about creating a secret state police force. Hoover warns fdr that haters will twist the truth and so fdr proves political spy approves political spying, resumption without congress approval. And they want to have every person fingerprinted in america that was the Newest Technology at the moment. When the aclu complains about groups that dont want to go to war in europe, theyre trying to make sure the United States does not become involved in anything that is about to happen over there. Fdr responds in writing that he sees nothing wrong with investigating groups that express and spread false information and teaching. Noting his house had been boomed in 1919 and that may have colored his views of political dissidents. And in particular, he has the fbi investigate several senators and several prominent public figures, including charles lindberg, all of whom oppose any intervention in europe. Hoover learns from this experience that he can curry favor and gain leverage by digging into any president s enemies, perceived enemies. For example, he never blackmails the kennedy brothers, but he does give Robert Kennedy, attorney general under his brothers presidency, mostly updates on all of the people that he knows, the accusations against him and family members, and on the one hand, right, perhaps this is some helpful personal knowledge that Robert Kennedy can use however he sees fit, but it also ensures that the kennedys know that hoover knows, knows everything. Knows everything that everybody is doing, so the kennedys have the inclination to shut down what he may be doing, they will know in the back of their mind that hoover has tabs on anything they have been doing. The emerging National Security state, and one were familiar with today, when the Second World War ends, the cold war begins shortly thereafter. The house on American Activities Committee which investigates suspected submersives and the federal governments massive Loyalty Program designed to enough out anyone that might have dissenting political reviews, all of those rely on fbi reports. In 1956, the fbi goes on the offensive with the creation of c. P. U. S. A. , a Counterintelligence Program specifically designed to target the communist party of the United States of america. And it is specifically counterintelligence rather than prosecutorial. Theyre not trying to dig up evidence to go before a court, but instead it is a counterintelligence operation to destroy a political enemy of the government. For a couple of reasons, one, Legal Proceedings against communist Party Leaders had been very successful in sending a number of them to prison. The laws are very favorable in doing that during this period of time, and it also exposed fbi informants. They had to go before a judge and reveal that information. Hoover is not real keen on that. And in 1956, 1957, the court begins to roll back the legal measures that were available to attack political dissidents. And the laws that had been put in place that had been given free reign to round up anyone who might overthrow the United States government, which in Court Rulings was put loosely to put the top leaders in jail, which, by the way, are operating for a foreign party, c. P. Outs u. S. A. , its top leaders are controlled from moscow, to be sure. And this sort of roll back in legal power leads to the creation of this Counterintelligence Program. Hoovers memo calls for actions to negate the communist partys, quote, influence over the masses ability to create controversy leading to confusion, penetration of specific channels in American Life or public where Public Opinion is molded and espionage and sabotage possible. Of those the last two are illegal, ease peen ogee and sabotage. But espionage and sabotage. You may find the others, the ideas of the communist party to be reprehensible, nonetheless, right, those are not specifically illegal things. The objective here is to destroy the communist party for its political activities. It is successful in doing that. It destroys what remains of the communist party. There are 1,388 different actions conducted against the party. Its member respect roughly around 80,000 drops to maybe 2,000 in the 1960s a large part of that is due to the legal measures that are used against the party. They also take a huge hit when in 1956 the soviet, he comes to power and reveals all of the rumors rumors of stall inns behavior is true and he conducted show trials of his political enemies and people he thought might be his political enemies. That has a huge effect in turning people away from the communist party. Nonetheless, hoovers obsession goes long past the point where it is relevant. There is actual dissent in the fbi because hoover will not let this go because it is well past the point where it poses any sort of remotely conceivable threat to the United States. Tactics for attacking include leaking smear tacks to the media, planting evidence to suggest the Party Leaders are informants, planting evidence and hope that someone else comes along and sees it and believes that their coleader is actually an fbi informant. Creating a fake communist party in order to further internal disputes. And you have are you a marksist, they , and my personal favorite of these, operation hoodwink. False documents to provoke a fight between the communist party and the Sicilian Mafia. The fbi is well aware how the mafia deals with threats. Here is the suggestion that they have for how they deal with this. Anoon mouse letter, xerox copies which will be mailed to the same Teamster Union in definitely deaf definitely, in pennsylvania. The leaders of the party had been in moscow and among the instructions they came back with was to try to get rid of the hoodlums and unions in this country. While i was talking with my brother in law a few nights ago and he asked me how things were going in my teamster local and i said okay. He told me he knew there were a lot of gangsters in my union and that things would be changing for the best shortly. He told me in february that some of the leaders were in hungary and came up about how they were going to crane up the gangsterl i donted unions in the United States. I told him he was all wet, but i didnt use these words. I am afraid these communists are get the word out. Here is the fake anonymous letter the fbi will send suggesting that they will be targeting the Sicilian Mafia which is involved in things like the teamsters union. This is a lie. This is what the fbi says especiallily. With respect to the above letter, it is a fact that the three leaders were in budapest hungary, and the accounts of their schedule and attendance appeared in newspaper articles. Two of these three leaders have since returned to the United States, however, the information in the letter that in hungary it came up again about how his party is going to clean up the gangsters, has no basis in fact. A few typing errors would also be inserted into this letter. Should the bureau approve this letter for anonymous, blah, blah, blah. And sent out. This is all a plot to create dissent. I mean, the fbi knows what the Sicilian Mafia does if someone is coming after then. The effort is to provoke the mafia to retaliate violently gips the members of the c. Against the members of the c. P. Usa. There is no evidence that this works, by the way, it is not for lack of trying. It is also used to attack non communist Party Political opponents, for example, a unitarian minister and members of his congregation circulated a petition on the house on American Activities Committee. The City Council Campaign of a lawyer who defended people prosecuted under the smith act. And the leaders of the communist party. When this lawyer runs for city council, the fbi attempts to smear him and sink his political campaign. This is not surveillance and violent threats. This is something different. And the fbi will also then target the Civil Rights Movement for africanamerican rights in the years leading up to a former pro, and black liberation movement, begun in 1967. The fbi began investigating the naacp for communist links as early as 1941, finds nothing. And nonetheless, attempts to get the naacp on to a list of subversive organizations in the 1950s. And Martin Luther king, jr. And the southern christian Leadership Conference investigated for communist party links beginning in the late 1950s. Here are the things that prompt that. Martin luther king gave a speech at the Highland School accused of being a communist training center. There is a billboard that was around the south. Martin luther king, a communist training school. There he is. It is not a communist training school. Spoiler. And this billboard accusation is rooted in inaccurate history of the communist party supporting civil rights for africanamericans. They did that, of course, to further tear partys interest and saw that as a great wedge issue, but this is hyping on this fear that will be spread by many segregationists that the Civil Rights Movement is a communist front being orchestrated by moscow to create social unrest in the United States. Martin luther king, jr. , sents a thank you let tore an excity Council Member who happened to be a member of the communist party because that person donated blood to king after he was stabbed in 195 1958. A member of the party offered to work at the office. I dont think he got the job. He tells congressmen and senators and kennedy that he is a communist party member taking orders from moscow. He had left the party in the 1950s. His membership, information is over five years old. And you all know that information over five years old is not very useful. The fbi had attempted to recruit him to be an informant, so how much of a threat can this person really be if the fbi thought they could turn him . There shall no evidence at all that the communist party of the United States is influences him or king, nonetheless, hoover insists for years that king was secretly a communist. And here is the head of the operations, william sullivan, shortly after the march on washington and writing martin litter kings famous i had a dream speech. We must mark king if we have not before as the most dangerous negro in communism and National Security. It may be unrealistic. And Robert Kennedy approves wiretaps of kings home and the offices in the fall of 1963 after the march on washington. And the fbi will also tap kings hotel rooms, which kennedy maybe did not know about. It is unclear. And in 1964, the fbi then goes after king by feeding tips to the press about his alleged communist ties and sexual proclivities, encourages the irs to harass him, and they find nothing untoward. Shortly after he is named the noble prize winner, the fbi compiles a composite tape of his hotel rooms of extramarital encounters. They send one tape to make it sound as though king is having an extramarital affair with several women in his hotel room. It is just a composite of several different incidents that happened. They send this tape to king anonymously with a letter. And we jump around a little bit in this. King, in view of this is from the f. B. I. King, in view of your low grade abnormal personal behavior, i will not dignify your name with either a mister or a reverend or a dock tor and your last name calls to mind only the type of king such as king henry the k whose countless acts are lower than that of a beast. King, look into your heart. You know you are a great liability to all of us kneeing grows. And negroes. And white people have enough frauds of their own, but i assure they dont have anyone at this time that is anywhere near your equal. You have a colossal fraud. You could not believe in god and about as you do. Lets go down. And, et cetera, et cetera. It is all there on your record. Listen to yourself, your filthy, abnormal record. You are on the record. You have been on the record. All of your adult trass acts. The american public, the Church Organizations that have been helping, protestantses, catholics and yews will know you for what you are, and so will overs. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do this this exact number, it has definite practical significance. You may take it before your filthy self is bare to the nation. The fbi encourages king to kill himself because he is such a threat to the nation, in their view. The fbi offer this is tape king does not obviously kill himself. The fbi then offers to turn this tape over to the press. The press turns them down. Imagine such an era. And the fbi backing off in the backs off in the face off of a looming congressional investigation into electronic surveillance. From 1965 to 1967, Lyndon Johnson takes over for the assassinated john f. Kennedy. He suggests wiretapping should be outlawed. There are a couple of cases, and katz versus the United States. They change the tune. They sigh wiretaps have to follow the they say wiretaps, they have to specify the crime think ear investigating, specify the place to be searched, specify the conversations to be seen. In 196, Congress Follows suit, sets specific standards for obtaining wiretaps. This will not stop them overall. They will go on to target other confrontational political groups, including the black panther party, which it helped to destroy with informants, misinformation and violence. The American Indian movement which ends with a violent 1971 seeing 1971 siege at wounded knee, south dakota. And well talk about others in our reading discussion. And then in 1975, watergate, revelations in the New York Times of government spying prompt the creation of a special Congressional Committee led by senator frank church. The democrats from idaho to investigate the intelligence community. Someone managed to break into abfbi headquarters somewhere, grab a whole bunch of documents. And when they got back to their hiding hole, they reallied they had all of this stuff which nobody had ever heard of and started leaking that to the press. This also comes out in an era that the pentagon papers are released and that the vietnam war is hopeless and have been lying to the public for years. And there there is no intelligence prior to this, had used information on members of congress to blackmail and the occasional public screw up like the bay of pigs invasion supported by the c. I. A. And they have clearly done nothing. And the Church Committee discovers it is a laundry list of awful things. It turns out the fbi had files on over one million americans and investigated 500,000 of them from 1960 to 1974, people were suspected of subversion that produced zero court convictions. The National Security agency had investigated every cable sent or received by americans overseas from 1947 to 1975. The irs alloyed Tax Information to be used for political purposes. Lyndon johnson had ordered the cia to spy on a antiwar protestors believe flag the soviets or chinese had to be behind it because he could not wrap his mind around the idea that American Students were on their own so deeply opposed to his policies, particularly right when he had thrown so much weight behind civil rights and the Great Society programs. It has to be the soviets. It has to be the chinese directing these students. This is a direct violation of the cias charter which prohibits it from conducting Domestic Intelligence operations. The name of the operation is named chaos. It is like theyre not trying to hide how nefarious this stuff is. 300,000 names of indepth files and over 700,000 people and no evidence of foreign direction found for any of them. And not entirely related to our class, but nonetheless, worth noting. The Church Committee also reveal things like the cia conducted drug experiments on unsuspects u. S. Citizens and participated in efforts to assassinate foreign political leaders. Sometimes successful and sometimes not. This is a gun that was supposed to look like it was going to give a heart attack. And the revelations are especially shocking to congress because it is not spying. It is proactive counterintelligence. And the historical lesson here if you want to draw one, anti fascist and anticommunist of the early cold war built this momentum that led to famously the second red square, the house on American Activities Committee investigations, right, later mccarthyism. It is all part of the same sort of spectrum. But it doesnt end with mccartys sort of downfall and the laws that allowed the prosecution of the communist Party Leaders, instead it carries through to the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and the 1970s. The end justifies the means in the governments view. Emblemmic exchange between senator walter monodaly and the director mondale and the Director Director regarding cable intelligence, mondale, were you concerned about its he gallity . Mondale, yes. And that particular aspect didnt enter into the discussion. Mondale, try to give him another chance. I was asking if you were concerned about whether that would be legal or proper. We didnt consider it at the time, no. The threat seemed so agrease gregous that in the egregious that in the minds of these folks, they just act to address the threat and deal with the legal consequences later. Even though it turns out there was no evidence there was any nefarious plot by the chinese and the soviets to inspire anti war protests, Civil Rights Movements, activities and so forth. Ron . I was curious when you were talking about the fbi counterfeiting letters to m. L. K. , what year was that . That was 1964. It was right after he received the noble peace prize. Thank you. Yeah. And the results of this, of the Church Committees investigations, on the legal side of it, this is probably the most important legacy the establishment of a better degree of legislative checks on domestic and foreign intelligence agencies. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an improvement over what existed. They have made it permanent in 1976. The house creates its own in 1977. This is opposed by the white house, by the intelligence community. By some Government Conservatives at the time, especially the hard core anti communist ones. They basically argued that this will cap the United States ability to protect itself against all of the threats that all of those operations never found. Church committee counters that where intelligence agencies had violated the law. There were legal routes which which security measures would have been met. The security and liberty are compatible. In 197, Congress Passes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which create as special court to secretly review wiretap requests against suspected foreign spies operating in the United States. This is meant to draw a line between foreign and domestic spying. And there is also a 10year term limit placed on the fbi director. Hoovers director from 1924 until he dies. And nonetheless, here we are because this doesnt entirely stop. In the 1980s the fbi investigates the committee in solidarity with the people of el salvador, the fbi spies on occupy wall street. The fbi spies on code pink. They spy on burning man. The terrorist attacks of september 2001, and surprisingly are a huge impetus to reboot this kind of program. Fear drives this, right. Fear drives this feeling there you must act with regardless of the legal propriety of it, deal with the consequences later. The nsa after september 11 begins collecting the data of every phone call made in the United States from major carriers. And which is just like who did you call, how long did you call them, what time, what date. And phone conversations, the actual transcripts so long as someone is outside of the United States or involved in International Terrorism as far as that court is concerned. Internet communications, now, ostensibly, youre on supposed to be allowed to do this so long as one person is outside of the United States, but nevertheless, Domestic Communications are corrected, too, because there is no automatic way to sort out foreign and domestic internet traffic. It is the word that we live in. It is all interconnected. What do you do when apple servers are in ireland, right . The nsa is fist reported in 2005, 2006, and confirmed years later with the revelation of the snowden documents. And there was a review of this broad Data Collection under george w. Bush with the revelations about the illegal wiretapping. The department of justice determined it was illegal and bush decided to reup it anyway and only the threatened resignation of Robert Mueller and acting attorney general james comey keeps them from doing so and now it is legal. You wouldnt to look at the cultural legacy of this, i mean, the the Church Committee comes at a time when peoples suspicious of the government is through the roof. American also never trust the government again. This comes at the same time as the pentagon papers and the same time as watergate and now it turns out the cia has been spying on american citizens and murdering foreigners and destroying political dissident groups, including peace activists. And within the Africanamerican Community specificsly, you can certainly point specifically, you can point to things, that the fbi set up king to be assassinated. Not that they did it, but they knew that an attempt was coming and chose to do nothing. And that the cia introduced heroin and crack into the black community to destroy it from within, whatever the evidence suggests the reason there is so much suspicious in part is because the fbi did, in fact, infiltrate Civil Rights Organization organizations in an attempt to destroy them through nefarious and violent means, so, of course, that suspicion is there. How uncomfortable are we that we carry tracking devices everywhere we go that awe knows where we go. Soon this will be scanning our face. We want the police to wear body cameras. Those cameras can be used to film our private companies. The company, taser, like kleenex, it is actually a company, it is developing software that the Police Body Camera will soon have facial Recognition Software and scan your face and the police see you and they will know who you are. We use these. This tracks everywhere you have gone. Every purchase you have made. If you use a metro card, that tracks everywhere you have gone in the city. And the software that tracks how many steps you took know where is all of those steps were. Now, on the one hand, some of this is necessary. You want the police to be able to effectively police. Of course. It would be this is loaded very much this lecture is loaded very much in a direction that like no surveillance, but, of course, there is a necessity. Violent actors do exist in the word and crimes very much take place. Some of this is eye knock use. It eye knock use. It eye knock yous. It is a little weird to know the Grocery Store knows what bagels i like or creamer i use and most often because it is cheaper. By someone is tracking all of that stuff. The flip side is, on the other hand, yes, some of this is necessary. It is actually advantageous to Law Enforcement. It keeps us safe. On the other hand, though, this requires faith in the person who is at the switch. And that person who is at the switch now may not be the person who is at the switch the next administration around or 10 years down the road. I distinctly remember listening to bill moyers interview in 20072008 when the nsa stuff was really in the media and being kicked around. It was deeply opposed to what the nsa had been doing and made this point, and it was if you support what the George Bush Administration is doing as a necessary action to keep us safe from the threat of terrorism, and, again, i dont know how old you guys were, not very old, but i distinctly remember how frightening that period was, where we didnt just quite know what was going on. I was a sophomore in college on september 11. I definitely remember that period. His argument was that imagine, which didnt seem the likely outcome, Hillary Clinton at the hands of that switch. The clintons were the great bug aboo of the 1990s when bill clinton was president. Hillary clinton looked like she would be the presump ty nominee for the presumptive nominee, and you make the argument for good morning w. Bush, but what if Hillary Clinton has it . And you might support, for example, the obama administrations use of drones to target terrorists around the world, suspected terrorists around the world, right . You might think obama has good judgment. This prevents the u. S. Troops from going to go and risk their lives. It is quick and easy. Okay. If you supported the obama administrations use of that, and i imagine you may not have voted for the current president , but he has the use of the same tool. And if you do support the current president , the next president that comes down the line perhaps, right, a more left leaning democratic candidate, who the heck knows will happen, that person will have their hand on the switch. This is the thing to think about, right . Dont it is easy in the moment to get sucked into the kind of fear and the concerns that we have. They are not always unfounded. Theyre not always unreasonable. But keep in mind the longterm effects. Once the genie is out of the box, it is tough to get it back in no president is going to willingly surrender a tremendous amount of power. Government agencies dont do that either. They just dont that is not their nature. And do you subscribe to the notion that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear . Well talk about those issues in our class discussion the next time so thanks, everybody. American history tv products are now available at the new cspan online store go to cspanstore. Org to see what is new for American History tv and check out all of the cspan products. All week were featuring American History programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan 3. Lectures and history, american artifacts. Real america. The civil war. Oral history. The presidency. And special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan 3. On electric includes in history, State University of new york and buffalo professor Carol Emberton teach as class about andersonville, the con fid rat civil war military prison where 13,000 Union Soldiers died and the postwar trial of its commander. Well, welcome, everyone, today. Were going to be talking about the commandant of anderson prison camp. It was in the southwest of georgia and were going to be talking about hanging