A Retrospective on the Church Committee

As the first session of a three-part discussion series, Surveillance and Foreign Intelligence Gathering in the United States: Past, Present, and Future, tomorrow Georgetown Law’s Center on National Security and the Law will be hosting a retrospective on the Church Committee.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, will deliver the keynote.  Panelists are Former Vice President Walter Mondale, Church Committee Member; Former U.S. Senator Gary Hart, Church Committee Member; Former U.S. Ambassador William Miller, Church Committee Staff Director; and Dr. Loch Johnson, Former Special Assistant to Senator Frank Church.  My colleague Laura K. Donohue, Professor of Law and Director of the Center on National Security and the Law, Georgetown University Law Center, will moderate.

The organizers explain:

This is a crucially important time for the United States—a number of foreign intelligence gathering programs using new technologies have recently been unveiled, and the public, the media, and scholars are just beginning to address their implications. Part one of this three-part discussion series will focus on the 1975-76 Church Committee (formally known as the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities), which exposed government surveillance abuses and played a key role in the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Following the keynote address by Senator Leahy, an esteemed panel of former Church Committee members and top staff will discuss this turning point in American history.

The keynote and panel will take place on Tuesday, September 24, 2013, from 9:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in the Hart Auditorium, McDonough Hall, Georgetown University Law Center, 600 New Jersey Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001.

Update

McCoy, "The Making of the U.S. Surveillance State"

Looking for a historian's perspective on the recent NSA surveillance disclosures? Head to the History News Network for Alfred W. McCoy's take on "The Making of the U.S. Surveillance State, 1898-2020." Here's the first paragraph:

Alfred W. McCoy (UW-Madison)

The American surveillance state is now an omnipresent reality, but its deep history is little known and its future little grasped. Edward Snowden’s leaked documents reveal that, in a post-9/11 state of war, the National Security Agency (NSA) was able to create a surveillance system that could secretly monitor the private communications of almost every American in the name of fighting foreign terrorists. The technology used is state of the art; the impulse, it turns out, is nothing new. For well over a century, what might be called “surveillance blowback” from America’s wars has ensured the creation of an ever more massive and omnipresent internal security and surveillance apparatus. Its future (though not ours) looks bright indeed.

Read on here.

Kahn's "Mrs. Shipley's Ghost"

This week, the University of Michigan Press publishes Mrs. Shipley's Ghost: The Right to Travel and Terrorist Watchlists, by Jeffrey Kahn, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.  The press explains:

Today, when a single person can turn an airplane into a guided missile, no one objects to rigorous security before flying. But can the state simply declare some people too dangerous to travel, ever and anywhere? Does the Constitution protect a fundamental right to travel? Should the mode of travel (car, plane, or boat) or itinerary (domestic or international) make a constitutional difference? This book explores the legal and policy questions raised by government travel restrictions, from passports and rubber stamps to computerized terrorist watchlists.

In tracing the history and scope of U.S. travel regulations, Jeffrey Kahn begins with the fascinating story of Mrs. Ruth Shipley, a federal employee who almost single-handedly controlled access to passports during the Cold War. Kahn questions how far national security policies should go and whether the government should be able to declare some individuals simply too dangerous to travel. An expert on constitutional law, Kahn argues that U.S. citizens’ freedom to leave the country and return is a fundamental right, protected by the Constitution.

A blurb that matters:

“Despite an avalanche of writing about post-9/11 security policies, far too little attention has been paid to the increasingly important world of watchlists and their impact on the ability to travel. Jeff Kahn has filled this gap with a definitive account that deftly blends historical, legal, and policy analysis. And he has done it with real narrative flair. Mrs. Shipley’s Ghost will be required—and thoroughly enjoyable—reading for anyone interested in the intersection of data, security, and liberties.”
 —Robert M. Chesney, University of Texas School of Law