*** Report: Hanssen key leader in spy unit
LOS ANGELES (AP) - While former FBI agent Robert Hanssen was selling secrets to Moscow, he also was a key supervisor in a 1980s domestic program that questioned the loyalty of Americans in an effort to thwart Soviet spy activity, according to a newspaper report. The program monitored peace and anti-nuclear activists and other groups that the White House worried could be manipulated by Soviet propaganda. Its stated goal was to uncover Soviet attempts at altering U.S. policy by influencing targeted groups. Hanssen's initials appear on numerous files among 2,815 pages of formerly classified documents recently obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. "It's astonishing that the very guy who was going after dissenters was in fact working for the Soviets," said Michael Ratner, vice president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, a left-leaning political group that has been monitored by the FBI in the past.
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/ dave /