A recent revelation into declassified documents of cold war has showed that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr and heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali.
The researchers at George Washington University have revealed that NSA's secret programme called 'Minaret' monitored the overseas phone calls and cables of several other leading figures of the Vietnam War, the Independent reports.
The six-year spying programme was deemed disreputable, if not outright illegal, by the people involved in it, the report added.
The program even continued after Richard Nixon entered the White House in 1969.
U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson had shut down the NSA program in 1973, just as the Nixon administration was engulfed in scandal.
However, the NSA is still being accused of overstepping its authority and breaching civil rights protections since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
