Jimmy Carter believes the NSA monitors his e-mails

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. “invasion of human rights and American privacy”

Carter’s criticism of the NSA carries particular weight because he was the last president to date — and perhaps the only president of the entire modern era — who even tried to do something about the national security state. As investigative journalist Mark Ames recently wrote, President Carter attempted to clean up the CIA, firing almost 20 percent of its employees, focusing on the “clandestine operatives” whose cloak-and-dagger exploits were then fresh news.

He also dispersed the agency’s paramilitary arm, put legal restrictions on the agency’s power to spy within the United States, and passed an executive order banning assassinations.

All of this was entirely in keeping with Carter’s mandate, after Watergate and Vietnam and revelations of various CIA misdeeds, to restore the moral integrity and authority of the federal government.


But none of Carter’s reforms would last. President Reagan signed an executive order in December 1981 authorizing the CIA to collect “foreign intelligence” inside the United States



For President Carter started no wars, bombed no civilians, and committed no crimes against the Constitution. He did not sell weapons to terrorists or spy on his political opponents.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/19/jimmy_carters_forgotten_history_lesson/