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The Spies That Secured The American Revolution?

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of FOX and Friends on FOX News, spoke with Chris Stigall this morning on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about his new book, George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring that Saved the American Revolution.

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Brian Kilmeade

Kilmeade says this spy ring "went through Connecticut, across the Long Island Sound, all the way through Long Island -- 55 miles to Manhattan. And this circle, run really by six people for three and a half years, in Washington's own words, was indispensible to the success."

"The intelligence they got really led to the Revolutionary War victory, because we did not have the men to square off with the British, but we had time on our hands, and we were relentless thanks to Washington's leadership," Kilmeade said, driving home how important the information the spies provided to the George Washington was.

"The covert spy ring made us look like soothsayers in everything the British were about to do. Washington was able to anticipate almost everything because we had people behind enemy lines," he explained.

Kilmeade and Stigall tied the first Commander-in-Chief's use of intelligence gathering to the debate currently underway regarding the NSA's broad collection of metadata to attempt to track down terrorists.

"Washington would've done whatever it took to be successful, so I think he would've been pro-NSA. You have civil rights and I give you that, but you don't have a country if you don't do everything to keep us safe," Kilmeade said.

And Kilmeade, too, sided with the government's argument on the necessity of collecting the information.

"I think today, idealistically, it violates the Constitution with the NSA. But in reality, when you have two presidents that are polar opposites that looked at the program and said, 'We need this,' you have to wonder why they agree on it. What intelligence do they see that they use?"

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