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What was the Church Committee?

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The Church Committee, established in 1975, was headed by Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho. Created in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the bipartisan group investigated U.S. government intelligence practices, leading to the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to ensure legal and supervised operations. Church addressed the importance of the committee, saying, “Now, why is this investigation important? I’ll tell you why…I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”