As the Senate scrambled to pass the USA Freedom Act this evening, reinstating the agency’s ability to spy on Americans, Ron Paul points out that US intelligence organizations have always – and will continue – to operate outside the law; with Daniel McAdams noting the CIA "is sort of the President’s own Praetorian Guard." As Sputnik News reports [6], before Americans applaud a minor step toward transparency, Paul warns that they should recognize the corrosive nature of the CIA, "They are a secret government," operating way above the law, and are "way out of control."
"[The CIA] is sort of the President’s own Praetorian Guard," Daniel McAdams, from the Institute of Peace and Prosperity, said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report. "We know…that he sent assassination squads, he sent people to monitor Martin Luther King, and all sorts of things like this."
"This is like his own personal army which is accountable to no one," McAdams adds.
As Sputnik News reports [6], according to Paul, the CIA could be an even bigger threat to liberty than McAdams suggests. A covert army that doesn’t answer to Congress, the Supreme Court, or even the president.
"That, to me, was the most frightening experience in Washington, is there were black budgets. We never knew exactly how much money was spent," Paul says.
Those secret budgets have allowed the CIA to carry out some pretty shady practices over the years. Chiefly, assassinations.
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"There are certainly a lot of theories about the CIA being involved in even domestic assassinations, and they certainly are now involved in presidential directed assassinations," Paul says.
"The US has covertly and overtly influenced elections overseas a number of times," McAdams says. "It’s a very open secret that the CIA infiltrates monitoring organizations like the OSCE with their personnel."
For some, the USA Freedom Act and similar legislation may be the best way to rein in renegade intelligence agencies. But as Paul notes, many laws already exist to implement limitations. These laws are routinely ignored.
"They are a secret government," Paul says of the CIA. "Way out of control."
Nevertheless, Paul ends on an optimistic note, pointing out that young Americans are tired of the status quo and fed up with broad government overreach.
"In a true republic, there is no place for an organization like the CIA," Dr. Paul says, quoting former FBI agent Dan Smoot. "I think he’s closer to the truth than a lot of what’s going on today."
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