4 chapters across the catalog
The Church Committee and Intelligence in Journalism
A look back at the 1975 Church Committee led by Senator Frank Church highlights the historical involvement of the CIA in American journalism. Church warned that the technological capabilities of intelligence agencies could lead to "total tyranny" if not strictly supervised by law.
Eleven-year-old Frank Giaccio of Falls Church, Virginia, was invited to mow the White House Rose Garden lawn after writing a letter to President Trump. While Trump praised the boy as the "future of the country," some critics on social media jokingly or seriously raised concerns about child labor laws and minimum wage violations.
A 1975 quote from Senator Frank Church warns that the technological capacity of the U.S. intelligence community could enable "total tyranny" if a dictator ever took charge. Church emphasized that the ability to monitor all communications leaves no place to hide, creating an abyss from which there is no return if the law is not strictly followed.
The hosts reinvigorate the term "Mockingbird" to describe CIA infiltration of the American media. They play a classic clip from the Church Commission hearings where CIA officials refuse to disclose the extent of their payroll within major television networks. The segment links media control to the broader influence of the Federal Reserve and global banking families.
