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I am only at the first part of Tim Weiner’s book ‘Legacy of Ashes’ but already it’s evident that with the setting up of the CIA and the way it was done, there is a direct link to the corruption and criminality that is so rampant in government today, especially in the executive branch. The following paragraph stuck a real cord in its connection to the thinking that goes on inside the current administration. The correlations the book provides makes it shockingly clear why this country is in the mess it is today.
‘The CIA Act was rammed through Congress on May 27, 1949. With its passage, Congress gave the agency the widest conceivable powers. It became fashionable a generation thereafter to condemn America’s spies for crimes against the Constitution. But in the twenty-five years between the passage of the CIA Act and the awakening watchdog spirit in Congress, was barred only from behaving like a secret police force inside the United States. The Act gave the agency the ability to do almost anything it wanted, as long as Congress provided the money in an annual package. Approval of the secret budget by a small armed services committee was understood by those in the know to constitute a legal authorization for all secret operations. One of the congressmen voting ‘aye’ summed up this tacit understanding many years later , when he was President of the United States. It it’s secret, it’s legal, said Richard M. Nixon.’
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