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In reply to the discussion: Digby: "When the Free Press Becomes Equivalent to an Enemy of the State..." [View all]boston bean
(36,235 posts)10. Thanks I hadn't seen this
Last edited Sun Jun 23, 2013, 09:42 AM - Edit history (1)
Why are some so intent upon repeating bad history!
Loyalty-security reviews
In the federal government, President Harry Truman's Executive Order 9835 initiated a program of loyalty reviews for federal employees in 1947. It called for dismissal if there were "reasonable grounds...for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States."[12] Truman, a Democrat, was probably reacting in part to the Republican sweep in the 1946 Congressional election and felt a need to counter growing criticism from conservatives and anti-communists.[13]
When President Dwight Eisenhower took office in 1953, he strengthened and extended Truman's loyalty review program, while decreasing the avenues of appeal available to dismissed employees. Hiram Bingham, Chairman of the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board, referred to the new rules he was obliged to enforce as "just not the American way of doing things."[14]
The following year, J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb, then working as a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission, was stripped of his security clearance after a four-week hearing. Oppenheimer had received a top-secret clearance in 1947, but was denied clearance in the harsher climate of 1954.
Similar loyalty reviews were established in many state and local government offices and some private industries across the nation. In 1958 it was estimated that roughly one out of every five employees in the United States was required to pass some sort of loyalty review.[15] Once a person lost a job due to an unfavorable loyalty review, it could be very difficult to find other employment. "A man is ruined everywhere and forever," in the words of the chairman of President Truman's Loyalty Review Board. "No responsible employer would be likely to take a chance in giving him a job."[16]
The Department of Justice started keeping a list of organizations that it deemed subversive beginning in 1942. This list was first made public in 1948, when it included 78 items. At its longest, it comprised 154 organizations, 110 of them identified as Communist. In the context of a loyalty review, membership in a listed organization was meant to raise a question, but not to be considered proof of disloyalty. One of the most common causes of suspicion was membership in the Washington Bookshop Association, a left-leaning organization that offered lectures on literature, classical music concerts and discounts on books.[17]
In the federal government, President Harry Truman's Executive Order 9835 initiated a program of loyalty reviews for federal employees in 1947. It called for dismissal if there were "reasonable grounds...for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States."[12] Truman, a Democrat, was probably reacting in part to the Republican sweep in the 1946 Congressional election and felt a need to counter growing criticism from conservatives and anti-communists.[13]
When President Dwight Eisenhower took office in 1953, he strengthened and extended Truman's loyalty review program, while decreasing the avenues of appeal available to dismissed employees. Hiram Bingham, Chairman of the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board, referred to the new rules he was obliged to enforce as "just not the American way of doing things."[14]
The following year, J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb, then working as a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission, was stripped of his security clearance after a four-week hearing. Oppenheimer had received a top-secret clearance in 1947, but was denied clearance in the harsher climate of 1954.
Similar loyalty reviews were established in many state and local government offices and some private industries across the nation. In 1958 it was estimated that roughly one out of every five employees in the United States was required to pass some sort of loyalty review.[15] Once a person lost a job due to an unfavorable loyalty review, it could be very difficult to find other employment. "A man is ruined everywhere and forever," in the words of the chairman of President Truman's Loyalty Review Board. "No responsible employer would be likely to take a chance in giving him a job."[16]
The Department of Justice started keeping a list of organizations that it deemed subversive beginning in 1942. This list was first made public in 1948, when it included 78 items. At its longest, it comprised 154 organizations, 110 of them identified as Communist. In the context of a loyalty review, membership in a listed organization was meant to raise a question, but not to be considered proof of disloyalty. One of the most common causes of suspicion was membership in the Washington Bookshop Association, a left-leaning organization that offered lectures on literature, classical music concerts and discounts on books.[17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
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Digby: "When the Free Press Becomes Equivalent to an Enemy of the State..." [View all]
Hissyspit
Jun 2013
OP
If we weren't learning about it in school, we heard about it on the evening news.
pacalo
Jun 2013
#50
The sugar coating of horrible things turns bitter when people learn they've been misled.
pacalo
Jun 2013
#51
But, But .... Obama Was Supposed To Be The Transparent President And Presidency - What Happened?
cantbeserious
Jun 2013
#15
Opposition becomes "anti-govt", then "inside threat", "aiding enemies", then a TERRORIST!
Civilization2
Jun 2013
#16
Can anyone cite the last time the U.S. "protect{ed anyone} who bl{e}w the whistle"???
snot
Jun 2013
#26
"stress, divorce, financial problems" -- if you SEE something SAY something
nashville_brook
Jun 2013
#28
I'd love to take an Occam's Razor approach to this and say, well, deep down,
HardTimes99
Jun 2013
#59
I think it's fair to say that no one who might know anything defintiive is talking yet and
HardTimes99
Jun 2013
#61
But everyone IS being spied on. That's just one way Congress is controlled. Obama surely hasn't
chimpymustgo
Jun 2013
#66
And it's not like we really have much of a free press left, that is willing to take
kenny blankenship
Jun 2013
#37
"When the Department of Education is searching for "insider threats" something's gone very wrong."
dkf
Jun 2013
#43
Agreed. Something is up that has been off everyones radar. Why the hell would they be on
GoneFishin
Jun 2013
#48
When you do something for any kind of benefit to one's self, that action is NOT free, it's paid and,
patrice
Jun 2013
#56