Art Buchwald; humorist, subversive threat?!?!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

Declassified documents show NSA listened in on MLK, Muhammad Ali and Art Buchwald

By Richard Leiby

Amid raging anti-Vietnam War protests that bedeviled two presidential administrations, snoops at the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of war critics including Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), and even Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald, according to newly declassified NSA documents released Wednesday.

Oddly, another senator, Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) — an ardent supporter of the war — also was put on the NSA “watch list” that authorized the interception of the surveillance targets’ overseas phone calls, telexes and cable traffic. The list, which grew to more than 1,600 names, was active from 1967 to 1973, covering the terms of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, the documents say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/declassified-documents-show-nsa-listened-in-on-mlk-muhammad-ali-and-art-buchwald/2013/09/25/1a018178-262b-11e3-b3e9-d97fb087acd6_story.html

I'm sure this is all just a relic from a bygone era of excesses and that nothing like that could possibly happen today because we've all been assured on numerous occasions that the NSA is a pillar of civil libertarian rectitude that requires no forceful oversight and merits our unquestioning trust.