Documents: NSA spied on Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali
Secret papers revealed by researchers at George Washington University show NSA worked with other spy agencies to draw up 'watch lists' of anti-war critics
The US National Security Agency spied on civil rights leader Martin Luther King and boxer Muhammad Ali during the height of the Vietnam War protests, declassified documents reveal.
According to the BBC, the documents show the NSA also tracked journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post and two senators - Democrat Frank Church and Republican Howard Baker.
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Many of those targeted were considered to be critics of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
Some NSA officials later described the program as "disreputable if not outright illegal", the documents show.
The operation, dubbed "Minaret", was originally exposed in the 1970s.
However, the BBC reported Thursday, the names of those on the phone-tapping "watch list" had been kept secret until now.
'Disreputable if not outright illegal.' Muhammad Ali (Photo: Getty Images)
The secret papers were published after a government panel ruled in favor of researchers at George Washington University.
The university's National Security Archive - a research institute that seeks to check government secrecy - described the names on the NSA's watch-list as "eye-popping," the BBC report said.
According to BBC, in 1967 the strength of the anti-war campaign led President Lyndon Johnson to ask US intelligence agencies to find out if some protests were being stoked by foreign governments.
The NSA worked with other spy agencies to draw up the "watch lists" of anti-war critics, tapping their phone calls.
The program continued after Richard Nixon entered the White House in 1969. US Attorney General Elliot Richardson shut down the NSA program in 1973, just as the Nixon administration was engulfed in the Watergate scandal.
Researchers Matthew Aid and William Burr, who published the documents on Wednesday, said the spying abuses during the Vietnam War era far surpassed any excesses of the current program.
"As shocking as the recent revelations about the NSA's domestic eavesdropping have been, there has been no evidence so far of today's signal intelligence corps taking a step like this, to monitor the White House's political enemies," they wrote.
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