Church Committee

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

Below is a quotation from p 556 of a book by Howard Zinn titled "A
People's History of the United States 1492 - Present" ISBN 0-06-093731-9
published by Perennial Classics, Harper Collins Publishers Inc. New York
City, orderable via Amazon.

This is about CIA activities of the 60s, published by an investigative
committee of the senate called "Church Committee" (headed by senator Frank
Church, I guess).  This kind of activity must have increased rather than
decreased since the 80s:

<quote>

The CIA is now using several hundred American academics (administrators,
faculty members, graduate students engaged in teaching) who, in addition
to providing leads and, on occasion, making introductions for intelligence
purposes, write books and other material to be used for propaganda
purposes abroad..... these academics are located in over 100 American
colleges, universities and related institutions. At the majority of
institutions, no one other than the individual concerned is aware of the
operational use of academics on his campus...... The CIA considers these
operational relationships within the U.S. academic community as perhaps
its most sensitive domestic area and has strict controls governing these
operations ...

...

In 1961 the chief of the CIA's Covert Action Staff wrote that books were
"the most important weapon for strategic propaganda". The Church Committee
found that more than a thousand books were produced, subsidized, or
sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967.

</quote>

I wonder whether exporting patent inflation is among the strategic
priorities of the CIA or some of its departments.  I myself have been
suspected by Ronald Riley of working for mysterious japanese forces
(unfortunately these companies are at best uninterested in the patent
system but nobody is actively doing anything against its inflation).
This suspicion from Riley could of course be due to the fact that quite a
few active american opinion-makers have such backgrounds.  One may also
wonder whether a certain robot really finances himself by patent busting.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/