In the 1960’s Senator McCarthy ruined lives of innocent people. The criticisms of McCarthyism, and of Senator McCarthy in particular, are threefold. First, he ruined the reputations and lives of many innocent people by accusing them without credible evidence. Second, he used accusations of Communist sympathies to counterattack anyone who criticized his methods. Third, he argued against freedom of speech because much of his rhetoric assumed that any discussion of the ideas underlying communism was dangerous and un-American.
Fast forward today , jailed Spanish Police Commissioner Jose Manuel Villarejo got his first taste of policing activity when he was recruited as a police officer during the dirty war between the Spanish state and the terrorist group ETA.