During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a dramatic, fundamental shift in American society generally, which profoundly affected public political behavior. Elected officials were compelled to confront new constituents with new attitudes. In particular, for the Central Intelligence Agency, the societal change altered notions of what was considered 'politically acceptable conduct'. In the early cold war period, the Agency had been somewhat exempt from normal standards of accountability, so that it could employ its special espionage and covert capacities against what was understood as an amoral communist enemy. At times during this period, the CIA operated under a cloak of secrecy, where it met the ideological foe in a gray-and-black world. In that era, normal Congressional oversight was informally modified to block unwanted public scrutiny, which might be useful to the enemy.