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Comment by Feniks | Hacker News Reader

What little protection remains is a relic of the seventies. An interesting time in America. A time of strong resentment against the government after Vietnam and Nixon. There was a really powerful TRUE left wing in Washinton that had power.

Ofcourse even back then they never extended FISA to non US citizens. Nobody legislates the CIA.

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People rag on Nixon --he's not a likeable guy, deservedly, but he also passed title ix as well as the EPA. The true left were to some extent tools of the soviet information warfare effort, which has now transformed into a alt right effort. In both cases in an effort to destabilize (weaken) the US position --but people wanna believe.

> People rag on Nixon --he's not a likeable guy, deservedly, but he also passed title ix as well as the EPA.

It’s good to see this mentioned. I’m sometimes surprised by the good that Nixon did, despite my overall conclusion that he was unfit for office.

> The true left were to some extent tools of the soviet information warfare effort…

This deserves citation to back it up. Please provide links to credible sources.

You can follow down the rabbit hole here[1]. There is an anecdote of a Soviet spy working in post-war London. He frequented high society and people sometimes wondered what he did. On one occasion, someone muttered to him, something to the effect "what do you do, you never seem to be doing anything, are you a Soviet spy or something [laughter]" and he responds, "yes, of course I'm a soviet spy" and people laughed it off [what a funny bloke]. Point is, this interaction shows a sort of acceptance that one in their own circles could be a spy, they could joke about it, not caring it it were really true.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_influence_on_the_peace_...

Huh. My reading of the anecdote is they laugh it off because they consider it absurd (no real spy would tell us they were!), more than acceptance and uncaring. Could be your telling or my reading. Is there more to it, or perhaps how it was related, that leads you to your interpretation rather than mine? I'm not doubting it; it's just my read.

> People rag on Nixon --he's not a likeable guy, deservedly, but he also passed title ix as well as the EPA

That's fair for EPA, but Title IX wasn't an Administration proposal or, IIRC, heavily lobbied for by the Administration. Nixon signed it, but it's not really accurate to credit him with passing it. It was proposed and pushed by liberal Democrats in both houses of Congress.

And people don't rag on Nixon for his legislative agenda, but for pervasive abuse of power, including law enforcement and national security resources, for partisan and personal political purposes.

The true left in the US predated Lenin. And support for the final Russian Revolution among them was mixed. But yes, the Soviets did push their agendas via left wing and antiwar groups. However, some of those efforts, such as the Soviet-American Friendship Society, were in fact focused on peace.

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