Background on Christopher H. Pyle
Born on November 24, 1939, Christopher Howland Pyle is a whistleblower, author, and political activist focused on civil liberties, as well as a professor emeritus of Politics at Mount Holyoke College, where he taught politics and civil liberties until 2020. Before Mount Holyoke, Pyle taught at the United States Army Intelligence Center, Columbia University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, University College Dublin, Complutense of Madrid, and Harvard Law School.
Pyle received his bachelor’s degree in History from Bowdoin College before attending Columbia Law School for his law and master’s degrees. Following school he enlisted in the United States Army. From August 1966 to July 1968 he was a captain of the Department of Counter‐Intelligence at the Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, MD where he taught officers about the CONUS (short for Continental U.S.) Intelligence program. The CONUS Intelligence program was a U.S. Army surveillance operation that discreetly monitored civil disturbances. – peaceful or otherwise. Pyle was not aware of the scale and scope of the program until a student approached him and showed him CONUS headquarters where he saw 13 teletype machines steadily receiving reports from protests and public gatherings of 20 or more people, and file cabinets filled with spot reports – five paragraph post-civil disturbance summaries – on individuals and incidents. He was also shown “the blacklist”, a book filled with mugshots of dissenters and demonstrators. He discovered that there were 1,500 plainclothes agents hired by the Army who were actively reporting on every gathering of more than twenty people in 300 locations across the U.S. Following these revelations, Pyle decided to write an exposé about the existence of what he believed to be a police state. Since the information was not classified at the time, he believed he was not committing a crime.
Pyle left the Army Intelligence School in 1970 and published an article exposing the program at Fort Holabird. The article, titled “CONUS Intelligence: The Army Watches Civilian Politics”, was published in the Washington Monthly in January 1970 and helped bring attention to the issue of government surveillance of civilian activities. Pyle’s article forced the Army to respond by denying Pyle’s claims and promising to dismantle the unit. However, in a follow-up Washington Monthly article in July 1970 titled “CONUS Revisited: The Army Covers Up”, Pyle debunked the Army’s response point by point and claimed that the program was continuing as it was.
As a result of the article, Nixon’s White House attacked Pyle. He earned a spot on the infamous “Enemies List”, he was audited by the IRS (which, ironically, showed that he had overpaid his taxes), and the Army attempted to discredit Pyle by spreading falsehoods about his life.
Following the publication of the articles, Pyle earned his PhD from Columbia University in Political Science. He was a consultant on the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights (where he helped to create the Privacy Act of 1974), the Committee on Government Operations, and the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. He appeared in several Congressional proceedings, providing statements and testimonies throughout the 1970s-80s.
In 1995, Pyle testified in court, in support of his two then-teenage sons against the South Hadley, MA School Board for violation of their first amendment rights. They had been sent home from school for wearing t-shirts that their high school deemed inappropriate. While enforcing the dress code was ultimately decided to be within the school’s rights, this case illustrates Pyle's continued commitment to civil rights in his personal, as well as professional life.
Pyle has published five books, all focusing on elements of the US government. Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, 1967-1970 was Pyle’s first book, in which he incorporates the testimonies of 125 anonymous former intelligence agents. The President, Congress, and the Constitution: Power and Legitimacy in American Politics, co-written with Richard Pious, describes the importance of policymakers in politics. Extradition, Politics, and Human Rights is Pyle’s 2001 book that examines the hypocrisy of American extradition. Getting Away with Torture: Secret Government, War Crimes and the Rule of Law looks at war crimes perpetrated by the Bush-Cheney administration during the War on Terror following the events of 9/11. In The Constitution Under Siege: Presidential Power Versus the Rule of Law, Pyle and Pious examine how subtly, yet frequently, US laws are broken by those in power.
Pyle was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1972 to 1974, where he was on the Privacy Committee, and again from 2006 to 2009 as a member of their Board of Directors. In 1979, he was a commentator for an ACLU analysis of the proposed FBI Charter Act. Pyle was also Chairman of the Board of the Petra Foundation, a foundation dedicated to supporting those who champion equality, fight for social justice, and defend the rights of individuals.
Pyle’s work and scholarship on the topic of civil liberties has contributed to groundbreaking discoveries on covert operations in the United States. Through his teaching of politics at various universities over a span of five decades, his books and articles on civil liberties, and his participation in organizations and Congressional committees, he has dedicated his life to exposing and correcting the disturbing truths of government surveillance.
