FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the attorney general, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt met to discuss expanding the FBI’s domestic surveillance in 1938. They agreed this should proceed “with the utmost degree of secrecy” to avoid public criticism or objections “by either ill-informed persons or individuals having some ulterior motive.” In fact, they decided against asking Congress for additional authority to spy on Americans because it would “draw attention to the fact of what is being done.”

In 1975, the Church Committee uncovered widespread abuses by intelligence agencies, revealing FBI programs aimed at disrupting and discrediting groups to prevent dissent by the public. Does this sound familiar? It should. In the last several years, government intervention has increased in a way that would likely appall the late Sen. Frank Church.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the FBI has targeted supporters of President-elect Donald Trump, labeled Catholics as possible domestic terrorists, and even

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