The Return of COINTELPRO?

The Return of COINTELPRO?
2013 01 30

“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.”

The documents, while heavily redacted, give a clear picture of how the FBI was using its offices and agents across the country as early as August 2011 to engage in a massive surveillance scheme against OWS. This was almost a month before any actual protests took place or encampments were set up (the most famous being the one in New York City’s Zuccotti Park).

The FBI’s documents show a government agency at its most paranoid.

[...]

Read the full article at: counterpunch.org

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

BBC, UK media told to shut up in the name of national security
2013 06 19
MoD serves news outlets with D notice over surveillance leaks BBC and other media groups issued with D notice to limit publication of information that could ’jeopardise national security’ Defence officials issued a confidential D notice to the BBC and other media groups in an attempt to censor coverage of surveillance tactics employed by intelligence agencies in the UK and US. Editors were ...

Uri Geller psychic spy? The spoon-bender’s secret life as a Mossad and CIA agent revealed
2013 06 19
A new documentary claims the showbiz psychic is involved in global espionage - and that after 9/11 he was ’reactivated’ as a pyschic spy. We may know him for spoon bending antics and for his lengthy friendship with pop star Michael Jackson but showbiz psychic Uri Geller has seemingly had a lengthy second career as a secret agent for Mossad ...

Confirmed: 1-Billion-Year-Old Water Tastes ’Terrible’
2013 06 19
Saltier than sea water and the consistency of "very light maple syrup." Yuck. Last month, a paper published in Nature reported on some water that had been trapped 1.5 miles below the Earth’s surface in Canada for a long while. How long? Based on an analysis of the isotopes of natural gases in the water, scientists believe it to be ...

The Govt Is Spying on America with Drones, Too
2013 06 19
In an alarming but hardly shocking admission, FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed that drones have been used to conduct surveillance in the US, though he was quick to reassure citizens that it was ’very seldom’. He did not disclose the particulars of the surveillance to the Senate hearing being held on Wednesday (June 19, 2013), but went on to characterize ...

TWA Flight 800 Investigators Claim the Official Crash Story Is a Lie
2013 06 19
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being leveled by some of the very investigators who put the report together. Six experts who appear in the film were members of the National Transportation Safety ...

More News »