Church Committee Exposes COINTELPRO and NSA Project SHAMROCK

The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, chaired by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, released findings in November 1975 exposing the FBI's COINTELPRO program, which surveilled and disrupted civil rights organizations including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the NSA's Project SHAMROCK, which intercepted bulk cable traffic from major telecoms without warrants. The committee documented over two decades of warrantless domestic surveillance conducted without congressional oversight or judicial approval. The revelations directly prompted Congress to draft the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to impose legal constraints on intelligence agency surveillance of Americans.