By Trevor Loudon
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
Last week U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to the NSA asking, “Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?”
The NSA noted “procedures that protect the privacy of U.S. persons,” and said that “members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons.”
In other words “Yes”.
The powers the NSA should or not have to spy on American citizens is a highly controversial question.
An even more important question is this: Should Congress members be immune from investigation by security authorities?
Most, if not all Federal employees are checked out by the FBI before they may commence work. people in sensitive posts may be checked out several times in their careers. This is as it should be. The prospective employee may have a radical background, or connections to a hostile foreign power. He or she may have access to sensitive secrets one day. Or the ability to influence public policy. Or be guarding a nuclear facility, or even the POTUS herself.
Yet if a young radical, with ties to the pro – North Korean/Iranian Workers World Party, or the pro-Cuban Communist Party USA puts on a suit and tie, and manages to get elected to Congress, no security clearance is required.
If you were an enemy intelligence officer, with contacts in the US labor/communist movements who had the ability to elect sympathizers to Congress, would you not take advantage of this obvious weakness in the US’s national security?
Look at Bernie Sanders himself:
In October 1988, journalist I. F. Stone, a former secret Communist Party USA member and one time paid Soviet agent, wrote a letter endorsing Burlington mayor Bernie Sanders’ congressional run.
I’ve been politically active all my life. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party in New Jersey, before I was old enough to vote.
Now I’d like to ask you to join me in a historic step forward in American politics. My favorite Mayor — Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vermont — is running for Congress, and with our help he can win an unprecedented victory for us all.
Bernie is a unique figure in our political system. He’s an unapologetic socialist who has been elected Mayor of Vermont’s largest city four times.
Bernie has been a leader in the struggle for peace and justice . His activism was instrumental in Vermont’s strong support of the Nuclear Freeze in its town meetings in 1982. He has traveled to Nicaragua to speak out against the Reagan Administration’s war… More recently, he went to the Soviet Union to set up a Sister City program with Yaroslavl.
He’ll show that we need a pragmatic socialism to deal with the grave problems of our economic system.
In 1989 Sanders addressed the national conference of the Communist Party USA controlled and Soviet Aligned US Peace Council.
Fellow speakers included Michigan Rep. John Conyers, Workers Communist Party affiliate and scientist Michio Kaku, long time communist Jack O’Dell, Holly Sklar of Democratic Socialists of America, Dessima Williams, a former official of Grenada’s shortlived communist government, and Zehdi Terzi, of the Soviet founded terror group, the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In February 2000, Sandra Caron from the office of Congressman Bernie Sanders spent six days in Havana, Cuba, for the purpose of “fact-finding, study effects of U.S. embargo“. The trip cost $1,778.47 and was paid for by the far leftist Christopher Reynolds Foundation.
Sanders has been closely involved with the Gramsci communists of Democratic Socialists of America for more than 20 years. DSA has keynoted several DSA conferences, and used DSA funds and manpower to help win several elections.
DSA members work closely with other communist groups, and many members have ties to Cuba. One DSA leader Kurt Stand, was recently released from jail, after serving 17 years for spying for the former East Germany.
My new book, “The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the United States Congress” profiles Sanders, 13 other Senators, and 51 members of the House of Representaives, with documentable ties to hostile foreign regimes, or their allies in the US.
The US has many enemies in places like Moscow, Beijing, Havana, Caracas, Pyongyang and Tehran.
Some of the most dangerous however speak with American accents, and spent their days running your life from Capitol Hill.
To order Trevor Loudon’s The Enemies Within please visit The Pacific Freedom Foundation website.
Trevor says, “I’m a libertarian activist and political researcher from Christchurch New Zealand. I believe in freedom with responsibility, not freedom from responsibility. My ideal society is one in which government is confined to protecting its citizens from criminals and external enemies. I believe in working with all those who are moving in broadly the same direction. The views expressed in this column are strictly my own.” Trevor is also the founder and editor of KeyWiki.org, a rapidly growing website with the goal of unlocking the covert side of U.S. and Global politics.
