If you're a fan of British espionage and spy thrillers then MI-5 is for you. I came across it over the holiday and it's just a dynamite series. It follows Britain's MI-5, their Secret Service which offers a rich drop of plots filled with twists and turns, global intrigue and excellent character development. It began its run in 2003 and it's fascinating to watch how UK writers broach the rest of the world's security problems that are so closely linked to all of Europe and the Middle East.

It really takes off after the first season and surprisingly never loses its edge even as actors come and go. They handle their protagonists quite differently than American TV. They don't always treat Americans favorably and there are episodes before Bush invaded Iraq that show how much the world changed after his preemptive doctrine speech. They are on their 8th season and it's just as interesting as its ever been.

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(Not too terribly far off the mark)

At the height of Cold War paranoia and subversives seemingly everywhere, the question over whether or not to make Wiretapping a legal procedure got a lot of attention in the 1950s.

So in 1956, part of its American Forum series, the question was posed to a Senator and Congressman - both Democrats, but one casually known as a Dixiecrat.

Emanual Celler (D-New York) favored Wiretapping but only in cases of National Security (the definition of National Security got a bit loose and fuzzy by 2002) while E.L. Forrester (D-Georgia) wanted everything wiretapped. Forrester, it should be noted was one of the early signers of the Southern Manifesto from the Alabama Council of Conservative Citizens . . .nuff said.

Emanual Celler: “I simply want to make wiretapping per se` a crime in the federal courts when it’s done across state lines. And in that sense, every wiretap would be illegal, except . . and the exception would be in the interests of national security. I would surrender some privacy and the right of privacy in the interests of preservation of our great nation and in the interests of national security. So that where the federal officials are running down malefactors against our espionage laws or sabotage laws or Atomic energy act or National security laws, I will say ‘alright, wiretap’ and use that evidence in the court, But anything beyond national security, I know I would say no, I would interdict that."

E.L. Forrest: “Now of course I wouldn’t agree with you. I would say that the states should have some laws on the subject. And that evidence of wiretapping should be admissible in courts. Now let me show you what you’re doing - Now I say to you that it is completely possible that a man could, in his own home here in the city of Washington, by using his telephone as his agent, that he could carry on all over the world a conspiracy dealing in narcotics. His agent in Atlanta could sit in his own home and he could talk to him on the phone, he could tell him to meet a plane and to go down and take the narcotics off of the plane – all right. Now that agent in Atlanta could call the messenger boy, over there in his own home and tell him to go down and meet that plane. What you’re doing, you are just giving the criminal a one way street and you’re not giving the police officer any opportunity to catch him.”

And so it went in 1956. The relentless dilemma.

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(The Communist Party USA in 1947 - Come Brother, let us go underground together!)

Most people have no idea there was a legitimate Communist Party of the USA from 1919 to the early 1950s. They had candidates for various offices, from President to City Council, had conventions and were rather visible. In fact, they were so visible, a lot of people joined up - and that's what got them in trouble from around 1939, when the Dies Committee started investigating Un-American activities until their official banning during the Cold War period in the late 1940s. At their peak they boasted some 200,000 members, which shrank considerably when the Soviet Union signed the non-aggression pact with Germany prior to the Invasion of Poland. The Communist promise, at least Soviet style, left a bad taste in many mouths.

But in 1947 the debate heated up as to whether such an organization could any longer be considered a legitimate political group, with the current state of frozen relations between the U.S. and the Communist bloc countries. The fear was the American Communists would seek to overthrow the government with direct orders from Moscow and reek havoc in the process of doing it. The argument against banning them was, forcing them underground would make them more difficult to locate, as the actual bomb-tossing, agitating fringe were routinely rounded up and arrested on espionage charges when the group was legal anyway.

It's the old human nature argument that when you tell someone they can't do something, it makes them want to do it more. But there was big fear in the country at the time and this episode of Town Meeting Of The Air from April 3, 1947 asked the question "Should The Communist Party Be Banned In The U.S.?" brought a panel that consisted of Joseph McCarthy, newly elected Senator from Wisconsin. Former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall, Edward Arthur Hayes of the American Legion and Leo Cherne of the Research Institute of America.

Continue reading »

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(Ted Sorensen - before boats became swift and innuendos became large)

One of the first appointments to the Carter White House was Theodore Sorensen to head the CIA. Sorensen seemed like a good choice. He was White House Chief of Staff under Kennedy and served in the LBJ White House and overall had a distinguished career in Washington.

At least it seemed so. But no sooner was the appointment announced than the rumor mill began working overtime to discredit and trash his chances of confirmation. Rumors spread of his unauthorized taking of secret documents connected with the Kennedy White House, his support of Daniel Ellsberg during the Pentagon papers trial and everything from his being "too liberal" to allegations of being a draft dodger during the Korean War. It was a grab bag of smears.

The rumors and the accusations were persistent as well as unfounded. But they were enough to force Sorenesen to abandon the appointment and notify the President-elect two minutes before he was scheduled to appear at the confirmation hearings of his decision not to pursue the appointment.

So rather than submit to questioning from the committee, Sorensen chose to read a prepared statement outlining his decision and answering the barrage of slurs.

Much speculation has been made over the years as to who was responsible for the rumor campaign. It was largely thought to be members of the CIA bent on eliminating Sorenesen's chances at the post, as well as right-wing extremist groups, fearing Sorensen as CIA chief was unthinkable, since he was perceived by them to be a liberal pacifist critic of covert espionage tactics.

In the end, the votes for his confirmation weren't there and, rather than stage an uphill fight, Sorensen chose to bow out gracefully.

The following recording begins with Sorensen reading his statement and follows through to the post-hearing press conference and a postmortem wrap-up with a discussion featuring former Deputy CIA Director Ray Cline and investigative reporter David Wise. Cline spends a lot of time tut-tuting that the CIA would never dream of spreading rumors and were mostly concerned with "shuffling papers" and nothing as clandestine as trashing someones career. Seriously.

I suppose the only comfort is knowing the ritual of trashing appointees isn't new and it has a long and somewhat dubious history.

Welcome to 1977.

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(Richard Helms - What Didn't He Know and When Didn't He Know It)

Ever since the latest fiasco regarding the CIA surfaced, I kept thinking how adept the CIA has always been, historically in telling half-truths, no truths and "who me?" prevarications.

Beginning in 1975, a series of hearings took place in an attempt to investigate certain "illegal goings on" within the CIA, It ran the full gamut from wiretapping, domestic espionage, assassinations and mail tampering. Heading up the Senate Select Committee was Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), and the hearings were dubbed The Church Committee. The hearings lasted several months and fortunately most all of them were recorded and broadcast by NPR, back when NPR actually stood for something in the way of integrity and solid reporting.

This particular clip, from the afternoon session of October 22, 1975, features former CIA Director Richard Helms (who would later serve as Ambassador to Iran) being questioned by Senator Church over his role in the matter of illegal mail tampering - a practice that had gone on since the days Allen Dulles ran the CIA in 1953.

Since there are numerous hours of testimony to sift through from many witnesses, I will try and offer as much as I can in small doses over the next few weeks. Bear with me - it'll be worth it.

Congress Matters: Bush Attorneys General Ashcroft and Gonzalez: Torture "may be necessary in the future"

The Brad Blog: Former FBI translator and whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, suggests blackmail may be at the heart of Congressional refusal to bring accountability and oversight to its own members - such as both Hastert and Harman - in matters of espionage and national security

TAPPED: ACORN charged in Nevada

The Reality-Based Community: Note to Republicans

AFL-CIO Now Blog: Millions lose health coverage since recession and job-based health care declines

Show Me Progress: Chillax, Y'all

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This is one of those stories where an individual's predicament has a direct effect on international relations, and at a time which could not be worse for Iran. Perhaps sensing the ramifications, Iran's President Ahmadinejad just released a statement calling for a full defense of Saberi. Hard-line clerics in Iran would like nothing more than to stall restoring a semblance of normal relations with the U.S. And since it is they, not the token leader Ahmadinejad who runs the show there it's hard to say where this will all end. There are also elections in June to consider when their current president could easily be replaced.

(Associated Press) Iran convicted an American journalist of spying for the United States and sentenced her to eight years in prison, her lawyer said Saturday, complicating the Obama administration's efforts to break a 30-year-old diplomatic deadlock with Tehran.

The White House said President Barack Obama was "deeply disappointed" by the conviction, while the journalist's father told a radio station his daughter was tricked into making incriminating statements by officials who told her they would free her if she did.

It was the first time Iran has found an American journalist guilty of espionage _ a crime that can carry the death penalty.

Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was arrested in late January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But earlier this month, an Iranian judge leveled a far more serious allegation, charging her with spying for the United States.

The Fargo, North Dakota native had been living in Iran for six years and had worked as a freelance reporter for several news organizations including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

(So infamous, they even wrote songs about him)

The name J.Edgar Hoover has been fading from Americas collective memory the past few decades. He died in 1972. But from 1924 up until his death he ran the FBI, taking it from a somewhat bumbling government agency into a monolith that was synonymous with eavesdropping, wiretaps, file keeping, political power plays, espionage and dirty tricks. He was the reason all subsequent FBI Directors had term limits. He made the FBI his life and his kingdom and was in charge right up to the last. He was the guy with all the secrets and he made a lot of innocent lives uncomfortable as the result.

Here he is from September 23, 1940 giving an address to the America Legion Convention in Boston, talking about one of his favorite subjects, The Communist Threat and "Foreignism".

With all that paranoia floating around, it's a wonder anybody slept at night.