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Federal Bureau of Investigation
Abbreviation FBI
Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. The FBI used covert operations from its inception; however the formal COINTELPRO operations took place between 1956 and 1971. [1] The FBI motivation at the time was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order. " Targets included groups suspected of being subversive, such as communist and socialist organizations; people suspected of building a "coalition of militant black nationalist groups" ranging from the Black Panther Party and Republic of New Africa, to "those in the non-violent civil rights movement," such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), and other civil rights groups; "White Hate Groups" including the Ku Klux Klan and National States Rights Party; a broad range of organizations lumped together under the title "New Left" groups, including Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers Guild, the Weathermen, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War, and even individual student demonstrators with no group affiliation; and nationalist groups such as those "Seeking Independence for Puerto Rico. The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist / Maoist African-American organization established The Republic of New Afrika, (RNA is a proposed independent Black-majority country situated in the southeastern region of the United States. Martin Luther King Jr ( January 15, 1929 April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, Activist and prominent leader The Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC) is an American Civil rights organization The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is one of the oldest and most influential Civil rights organizations Ku Klux Klan ( KKK) is the name of several past and present secret domestic terrorist organizations in the United States, generally in the southern states that are Students for a Democratic Society ( SDS) was historically a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations The National Lawyers Guild is a progressive/left-wing Bar Association in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization, was an American Radical left organization The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia "[2] The directives governing COINTELPRO were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and their leaders. WikipediaManual of Style (biographies#Postnominal initials [3]

Contents

History

COINTELPRO began in 1956 and was designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA). The Communist Party of the United States of America ( CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist Political party in the United States. However, the program was soon enlarged to include disruption of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party (1967), and the entire New Left socio-political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). The Socialist Workers Party, or SWP, is a Communist Political party in the United States. Ku Klux Klan ( KKK) is the name of several past and present secret domestic terrorist organizations in the United States, generally in the southern states that are The Nation of Islam ( NOI) (أمة الإسلام Ummah al-Islāmu) is a group founded in Detroit, Michigan, The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist / Maoist African-American organization established The New Left were the Left-wing movements in different countries in the 1960s and 1970s that unlike the earlier leftist focus on union activism instead adopted a A later investigation by the Senate's Church Committee (see below) stated that "COINTELPRO began in 1956, in part because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups. The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a . . "[4] Congress and several court cases[5] 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.

The program was secret until 1971, when an FBI field office in Media, PA was burglarized by a group of left-wing radicals calling themselves the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. The borough of Media is the County seat of Delaware County Pennsylvania and is located 12 miles (19 km west of Philadelphia. The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI was a leftist activist group operational during the early 1970s Several dossiers of files were taken and the information passed to news agencies, many of which initially refused to publish the information. News is any new information or information on Current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or Word of mouth Within the year, Director Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future counterintelligence operations would be handled on a case-by-case basis. WikipediaManual of Style (biographies#Postnominal initials [6]

Further documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by NBC correspondent Carl Stern, the Socialist Workers Party, and a number of other groups. The Socialist Workers Party, or SWP, is a Communist Political party in the United States. 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. The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a For his son Frank Forrester Church IV the Unitarian Universalist minister and theologian see Forrest Church. The State of Idaho ( is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. 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. "[4]

The Church Committee documented a history of FBI directors' using the agency 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. Political repression is the Persecution of an individual or group for political reasons particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take part World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All

Range of targets

According to the Church Committee:

While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the "national security" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of the targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a "potential" for violence -- and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave "aid and comfort" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause.
The imprecision of the targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black. " Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist-"Hate Group. "
Furthermore, the actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the titles of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Communist Party members but also sponsors of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or not deemed to be "anti-Communist". The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of antiwar demonstrations which were cosponsored by the SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included every Black Student Union and many other black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to the InterUniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from Antioch College ("vanguard of the New Left") to the New Mexico Free University and other "alternate" schools, and from underground newspapers to students' protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them.

The FBI claims that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics claim that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO targeted groups like the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador[7], the American Indian Movement[8][1], Earth First![9], and the Anti-Globalization Movement. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, based in Washington D The American Indian Movement ( AIM) is an Indian Activist organization in the United States. Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979 " Anti-globalization " is a term that encompasses a number of related ideas

Methods

According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

The FBI also conducted "black bag jobs",[10] which were warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members. Black bag operations (or "black bag jobs" are Covert or clandestine surreptitious entries into structures to obtain information for human intelligence [11]

In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party (BPP) 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". [12]

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 BPP and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge. The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist / Maoist African-American organization established "[13]

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. Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo ( April 11, 1925 &ndash March 25, 1965) was a Civil rights activist from the U Afterward COINTELPRO spread false rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement. A Political party described as a communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of Communism through a communist form of African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa See also Protests of 1968 Historically the civil rights movement was a concentrated period of time around the world of approximately twenty years (1960-1980 in [14]

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 Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a 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.
The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them. "[15][16]

Contentions that COINTELPRO tactics continue

While COINTELPRO was officially terminated in April 1971, suspicions persisted that the program's tactics continued informally. [17][18] Critics have suggested that subsequent FBI actions indicate that post-COINTELPRO reforms in the agency did not succeed in ending the program's tactics. [19] “Counterterrorism” guidelines implemented during the Reagan administration have been described as undercutting these reforms, allowing a return to earlier tactics. [20] Some radical groups accuse factional opponents of being FBI informants or assume the FBI is infiltrating the movement. [21] Several authors have accused the FBI of continuing to deploy COINTELPRO-like tactics against radical groups after the official COINTELPRO operations were ended. Several authors have suggested the American Indian Movement (AIM) has been a target of such operations. The American Indian Movement ( AIM) is an Indian Activist organization in the United States. A few authors go further and allege 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. Lakota or Lakotah may refer to Lakota people, a Native American tribe Lakota language, the language of the Lakota The American Indian Movement ( AIM) is an Indian Activist organization in the United States. [22][8][1][23][24] Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against activist groups. Activism, in a general sense can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change [25][26][24] Some scholars have argued that with respect to Native Americans, COINTELPRO should be understood within a historical context in which "Native Americans have been viewed and have viewed the world themselves through the lens of conspiracy theory. "[27] Other authors note that while there are conspiracy theories related to COINTELPRO, the issue of ongoing government surveillance and repression is nonetheless real. [28]

Further reading

Books

Articles

U. S. Government reports

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall, (1990), The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent, Boston: South End Press, pp. Police brutality is the world wide use of excessive force usually physical but potentially also in the form verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by Traditionally an agent provocateur ( Plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent" is a person employed by the police or Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (Born October 4, 1943, as Hubert Gerold Brown) also known as H This article is about Fred Hampton Sr For his son see Fred Hampton Jr Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo ( April 11, 1925 &ndash March 25, 1965) was a Civil rights activist from the U The NSA call database is a reported Database created by the United States National Security Agency (NSA that contains records of Telephone calls Operation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence domestic and foreign media beginning in the 1950s Viola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo ( April 11, 1925 &ndash March 25, 1965) was a Civil rights activist from the U Morris Joseph Starsky (d 1989 an American political and social Activist and Philosophy Professor, served as a Tenured faculty member Red Squads are police intelligence units that specialize in infiltrating conducting counter-measures and gathering intelligence on political and social groups THERMCON was the code name of a FBI operation which was launched in response to the sabotage of the Arizona Snowbowl ski lift near Flagstaff Arizona Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization, was an American Radical left organization The COINTELPRO Papers Documents from the FBI's Secret War Against Domestic Dissent is a book by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. A security culture is a set of customs shared by a community whose members may engage in illegal or unwanted activities the practice of which minimizes the risks of such activities xii, 303.
  2. ^ Various Church Committee reports reproduced online at ICDC: Final Report, 2A; Final Report,2Cb; Final Report, 3A; Final Report, 3G. Various COINTELPRO documents reproduced online at ICDC: CPUSA; SWP; Black Nationalist; White Hate; New Left; Puerto Rico.
  3. ^ Black Nationalist program.
  4. ^ a b SUPPLEMENTARY DETAILED STAFF REPORTS ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS. United States Senate. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1183 - Taira no Munemori and the Taira clan take the young Emperor Antoku and the three sacred treasures
  5. ^ See, for example, Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F. 2d 1 (1984); Rugiero v. U. S. Dept. of Justice, 257 F. 3d 534, 546 (2001).
  6. ^ A Short History of FBI COINTELPRO, retrieved July 13, 2007. Events 1174 - William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173-1174, is captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century.
  7. ^ Gelbspan, Ross, (1991), Break-Ins, Death Threats, and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement, Boston: South End Press.
  8. ^ a b 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, Boston, South End Press.
  9. ^ Karen Pickett, "Earth First! Takes the FBI to Court: Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney’s Case Heard after 12 Years," Earth First Journal, no date.
  10. ^ FBI document, 19 July 1966, DeLoach to Sullivan re: "Black Bag" Jobs.
  11. ^ http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIf.htm, retrieved August 14, 2005. Events 1183 - Taira no Munemori and the Taira clan take the young Emperor Antoku and the three sacred treasures Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
  12. ^ FBI document, 27 May 1969, Director FBI to SAC San Francisco, available at the FBI reading room
  13. ^ FBI document, 16 September 1970, Director FBI to SAC's in Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Haven, San Francisco, and Washington Field Office available at the FBI reading room
  14. ^ "Viola Liuzzo", Detroit News, April 9, 2004
  15. ^ INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS BOOK II, FINAL REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES UNITED STATES SENATE (Church Committee). United States Senate. Retrieved on May 11, 2006.
  16. ^ Tapped Out Why Congress won't get through to the NSA.. Slate. com. Retrieved on May 11, 2006.
  17. ^ David Cunningham. There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI. University of California Press, 2005: "However, strong suspicions lingered that the program's tactics were sustained on a less formal basis—suspicions sometimes furthered by agents themselves, who periodically claimed that counterintelligence activities were continuing, though in a manner undocumented within Bureau files. "; Hobson v. Brennan, 646 F. Supp. 884 (D. D. C. ,1986)
  18. ^ Bud Schultz, Ruth Schultz. The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America. University of California Press, 2001: "Although the FBI officially discontinued COINTELPRO immediately after the Pennsylvania disclosures "for security reasons," when pressed by the Senate committee, the bureau acknowledged two new instances of "Cointelpro-type" operations. The committee was left to discover a third, apparently illegal operation on its own. "
  19. ^ Athan G. Theoharis, et al. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999: "More recent controversies have focused on the adequacy of recent restrictions on the Bureau's domestic intelligence operations. . Disclosures of the 1970s that FBI agents continued to conduct break-ins, and of the 1980s that the FBI targeted CISPES, again brought forth accusations of FBI abuses of power — and raised questions of whether reforms of the 1970s had successfully exorcised the ghost of FBI Director Hoover. "
  20. ^ Bud Schultz, Ruth Schultz. The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America. University of California Press, 2001: : "The problem persists after Hoover…. "The record before this court," Federal Magistrate Joan Lefkow stated in 1991, "shows that despite regulations, orders and consent decrees prohibiting such activities, the FBI had continued to collect information concerning only the exercise of free speech. "
  21. ^ Mike Mosedale, "Bury My Heart," City Pages, Volume 21 - Issue 1002 - Cover Story - February 16, 2000
  22. ^ Weyler, Rex. Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against First Nations.
  23. ^ Matthiessen, Peter, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, 1980, Viking.
  24. ^ a b Woidat, Caroline M. The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture, The Journal of American Culture 29 (4), 2006. Pages 454–467
  25. ^ McQuinn, Jason. Jason McQuinn is an American Anarchist, founder and co-editor of Alternative Press Review, and founder and former co-editor of the journal Anarchy "Conspiracy Theory vs Alternative Journalism", Alternative Press Review, Vol. Alternative Press Review (byline "Your guide beyond the mainstream" is an independent American Magazine established in 1994 as a sister 2, No. 3, Winter 1996
  26. ^ Horowitz, David. Johnnie's Other O. J. , September 1, 1997. FrontPageMagazine. com.
  27. ^ Woidat, Caroline M. The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture, The Journal of American Culture 29 (4), 2006. Pages 454–467
  28. ^ Chip Berlet, “The X-Files Movie: Facilitating Fanciful Fun, or Fueling Fear and Fascism? Conspiracy Theories for Fun, Not for False Prophets,” 1998, Political Research Associates, http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/x-files.html; Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, 1998, "One key to litigating against government prosecution of dissidents: Understanding the underlying assumptions," Parts 1 and 2, Police Misconduct and Civil Rights Law Report (West Group), 5 (13), (January–February): 145–153; and 5 (14), (March–April): 157–162. Also available in revised form online: [1].

External links

Documentary

Websites

Articles

Cynthia McKinney regarding COINTELPRO on CounterPunch [2]

U. Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17 1955 is a former United States Representative and the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States. CounterPunch is a biweekly Newsletter published in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical 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, April 26 (legislative day, April 14), 1976. Events 1467 - The miraculous image in Our Lady of Good Counsel appear in Genazzano, Italy. Events 43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar 's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in [AKA "Church Committee Report"]. Archived on COINTELPRO sources website. Transcription and html by Paul Wolf. Retrieved April 19, 2005. Events 1012 - Martyrdom of Alphege in Greenwich London. 1529 - At the Second Diet of Speyer Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

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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