Information AboutCointelpro |
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HISTORY COINTELPRO began in 1956 and was designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA). However, the program was soon enlarged to include disruption of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), African-American nationalist groups (including the Black Panther Party and the Nation Of Islam ) (1967), the American Indian Movement, and the entire New Left socio-political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). A later investigation by the Senate's 2005 . Congress and several court casesSee, for example, ''Hobson v. Wilson'', 737 F.2d 1 (1984); ''Rugiero v. U.S. Dept. of Justice'', 257 F.3d 534, 546 (2001). later concluded that the COINTELPRO operations against communist and socialist groups exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association. Supporters of the program argue that the project was rooted in the Bureau's knowledge that some domestic left-wing and radical organizations were manipulated by hostile foreign intelligence agencies. For example, the FBI had access to the Venona decrypts that showed the Soviet Union and its KGB manipulated and worked under the cover of the CPUSA for espionage purposes and to incite domestic unrest in the United States. Some of the largest COINTELPRO campaigns targeted the " (including several anti-war groups such as the Students For A Democratic Society and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ), Black Nationalist groups (such as the Black Panthers and the Republic Of New Africa ), Puerto Rican Independence Groups , the American Indian Movement and the Weather Underground . The program was secret until 1971, when an FBI field office in 2007 . Further documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by NBC correspondent Carl Stern, the SWP, and a number of other groups. A major investigation was launched in 1976 by the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, commonly referred to as the " Church Committee " for its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho . However, millions of pages of documents remain unreleased, and many released documents are entirely censored. In the Final Report of the Select Committee COINTELPRO was castigated in no uncertain terms: :"Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence." http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIa.htm , retrieved August 14 2005 . The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI being used for purposes of Political Repression as far back as World War I , through the 1920s, when they were charged with rounding up "anarchists and revolutionaries" for deportation, and then building from 1936 through 1976. The FBI claims that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics claim that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO target groups like the Committee In Solidarity With The People Of El Salvador , Earth First! and the Anti-Globalization Movement . METHODS According to Brian Glick, in ''War at Home'', COINTELPRO used a broad array of methods, including: 1. "Infiltration: Agents and Informer s did not merely Spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and Disrupt . Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to Smear genuine activists as agents." As an example of infiltration of organizations, Bill Wilkinson, the leader of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was an FBI informant. 2. "Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used myriad other " 2005 . 3. "Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to Harass dissidents and make them appear to be Criminal s. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, 'investigative' interviews, and grand jury Subpoena s in an effort to Intimidate activists and silence their Supporter s." 4. "Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI and 2005 . The FBI also conducted " 2005 . Supporters of the FBI argue that the Bureau was convinced that there was such a threat of domestic subversion posed by radical groups that extraordinary efforts were required to forestall violence and revolutionary insurgency. Hoover was willing to use false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: "Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the Black Panther Party and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge." In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party revealed that in his city, at least, the Black nationalists were primarily feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the career ambitions of the agent were directly related to his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the BPP was "a violence prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means". In one particularly controversial incident, civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was killed in 1965 by a shot from a car in which four Ku Klux Klansmen were riding; one of the Klansmen was an FBI informant. Afterward, COINTELPRO spread false rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and had abandoned her children in order to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the Civil Rights Movement . http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/violaliuzzo.html; Detroit News, April 9 2004 ; http://tom.digitalelite.com/2006_03_30_07_30_00.html ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE The Final report of the Church Committee concluded: :"Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous -- and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations -- have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity. Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed -- including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform. :Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law. CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT COINTELPRO While the existence of COINTELPRO is well-documented, a number of conspiracy theories have arisen in the wake of the disclosures about COINTELPRO.Chip Berlet, βThe X-Files Movie: Facilitating Fanciful Fun, or Fueling Fear and Fascism? Conspiracy Theories for Fun, Not for False Prophets,β 1998. Political Research Associates, http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/x-files.html; Conspiracy Culture: from Kennedy to the X Files, Peter Knight, Routledge, 2001; Hobson v. Brennan, 646 F.Supp. 884 (D.D.C.,1986) Some radical groups accuse factional opponents of being FBI informants or assume the FBI is infiltrating the movement.Mike Mosedale, "Bury My Heart," City Pages, Volume 21 - Issue 1002 - Cover Story - February 16, 2000 Some authors have accused COINTELPRO of undocumented actions. Several authors have accused the FBI of deploying COINTELPRO tactics against the American Indian Movement, alleging that the federal government intended to acquire uranium deposits on the Lakota tribe's reservation land, and that this motivated a larger government conspiracy against AIM activists on the Pine Ridge reservation.Weyler, Rex. ''Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against First Nations''.Ward Churchill and James Vander Wall. ''Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement'', 1988, 1990.Matthiessen, Peter. ''In the Spirit of Crazy Horse'', 1980. Viking.Woidat, Caroline M. ''The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture'', ''The Journal of American Culture'' 29 (4), 2006. Pages 454β467 Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against Activist groups.McQuinn, Jason. ''Conspiracy Theory vs Alternative Journalism'', Alternative Press Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, Winter 1996Horowitz, David. ''Johnnie's Other O.J.'', September 1, 1997. FrontPageMagazine.com. FURTHER READING Books Theoharis, Athan, Spying on Americans: Political Surveillance from Hoover to the Huston Plan (Temple University Press, 1978). Articles
U.S. Government reports
SEE ALSO
ENDNOTES EXTERNAL LINKS Documentary
Websites
Articles Cynthia McKinney regarding COINTELPRO on CounterPunch {Link without Title} U.S. Government reports Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, 2005 .
: I. Introduction and Summary : II. The Growth of Domestic Intelligence: 1936 to 1976 : III. Findings :: (A) Violating and Ignoring the Law :: (B) Overbreadth of Domestic Intelligence Activity :: (C) Excessive Use of Intrusive Techniques :: (D) Using Covert Action to Disrupt and Discredit Domestic Groups :: (E) Political Abuse of Intelligence Information :: (F) Inadequate Controls on Dissemination and Retention :: (G) Deficiencies in Control and Accountability : IV. Conclusions and Recommendations
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