The CIA has released a huge document sometimes referred to as the "family jewels" detailing 25 years of violation of the CIA charter, in which they spied on journalists and anti-war protesters and plotted assassinations and experimented on humans.
From the article
Gen. Hayden called today's release "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency."
See you after the break:
Well, let's hope so anyway. This report was compiled in the seventies after it was discovered that the Watergate burglars, who were CIA operatives, had backing from the CIA in carrying out their illegal "duties" for Nixon. So Watergate was actually the first time they were caught in a long series of similar behavior going back to the fifties.
These activities also included a gitmo-like confinement of a Russian defector, who was believed to be a fake defector actually attempting to spy on us. He was held for two years, perhaps in violation of kidnapping laws.
Interestingly, the CIA had a habit of policing its own. In several cases mentioned in these documents, they spied on or broke into the offices and residences of their own employees, because they suspected counterintelligence activities. In no case were they justified in these break-ins.
Reporters were spied on, including Britt Hume and Jack Anderson. We can only assume that under the Nixon-redux administration, similar activities have occured. Perhaps these revelations are being declassified in some sort of "Nixon did it too" gambit by the current administration.
Perhaps the funniest gem amongst them all was the CIA's discovery, through spying on U.S. dissidents, that the Soviets had no use for these dissidents, considering them to be too "unruly." Heh. Here's to unruliness!