Controversy has never been far from the powerful intelligence services in USA. The scandal of Watergate not only did it cost the presidency Richard Nixon: opened the floodgates of the sewers and the Church commission unveiled the abuses of FBI programs such as COINTELPROwith which they spied on everything from the KKK to the Communist Party or the Black Panthers, and others from the National Security Agency (NSA) such as Operation Shamrock and the Minaret project, which targeted espionage, among others, to civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King.
After that catastrophe, Congress approved the creation of committees permanent supervision espionage in both chambers. The Foreign Service Intelligence Act (FISA) was also approved, which Jimmy Carter signed in 1978 and which also created a special court that reviews and decides on espionage requests from law enforcement agencies and agencies such as the FBI and the NSA. FISA has been amended several times.
The main expansion of the government’s espionage capabilities came with the 9/11 attacks and approval of the controversy Patriot Act, which also gave the green light to espionage of Americans. Despite judicial and legislative control, the revelations of Edward Snowden in 2013 they proved the excesses and abuses of the NSA.
Now, as organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation warn, there is a time when government surveillance is also fed by the surveillance of large technology corporations.
Regarding the controversial program pegasusin January New York Times revealed that the FBI tested it for years and bought it, as well as another NSO program called Phantomwith the aim of using it in national surveillance, although the FBI assures that last year it ruled out deploying the tools.
The CIA and NSA have their own surveillance technology, but according to the Timesother government agencies, including the Army and the Justice Department, have bought “spywarefrom private companies. IDOYA NOAIN