The Return of COINTELPRO?
The article is short but has links to redacted FOIA materials and is well sourced in general. There are links provided from a plethora of sources.
I have my own opinion about what the material means for the USA.
How can this be defended and still call our form of government a democratic republic that serves the needs and wants of The People?
The Return of COINTELPRO?
by TOM MCNAMARA
“Democracies die behind closed doors” – Judge Damon J. Keith
For 15 years (1956-1971) the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ran a broad and highly coordinated domestic intelligence / counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgrams). What was originally deemed as a justifiable effort to protect the US during the Cold War from Soviet and Communist threats and infiltration, soon devolved into a program for suppressing domestic dissent and spying on American citizens. Approximately 20,000 people were investigated by the FBI based only on their political views and beliefs. Most were never suspected of having committed any crime.
The reasoning behind the program, as detailed in a 1976 Senate report, was that the FBI had “the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order.” The fact that the “perceived threats” were usually American citizens engaging in constitutionally protected behaviour was apparently overlooked. The stated goal of COINTELPRO was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” any individual or group deemed to be subversive or a threat to the established power structure.
The FBI’s techniques were often extreme, with the agency being complicit in the murder and assassination of political dissidents, or having people sent away to prison for life. Some of the more “moderate” actions that were used were blackmail, spreading false rumors, intimidation and harassment. It has been argued that the US is unique in that it is the only Western industrialized democracy to have engaged in such a wide spread and well organized domestic surveillance program. It finally came to an end in 1971 when it was threatened with public exposure.
Or did it?
In a stunning revelation from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), it appears that COINTELPRO is alive and well. Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, PCJF was able to obtain documents showing how the FBI was treating the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, from its inception, as a potential criminal and domestic terrorist threat. This despite the FBI’s own acknowledgement that the OWS organizers themselves planned on engaging in peaceful and popular protest and did not “condone the use of violence.”
much more at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/21/the-return-of-cointelpro/
= new reply since forum marked as read
...because they were active on nearly every major college campus, in addition to infiltrating any other domestic group they suspected.
Additionally, the FBI was not the only domestic LEO involved in domestic spying on, and infiltration of groups they suspected of engaging in un-American activities. Those groups, usually major city police departments, developed their own lists independent of COINTELPRO.
The Defense Department also conducted....and probably still conducts...domestic spying operations usually centered around military bases and military personnel and their interfaces with local suspect groups.
I'd be willing to bet COINTELPRO-type activities exploded after 9/11 to include surveillance of all forms of social media.
to the Man!
