A Brief History of Modern Police Surveillance and Oppression

There has been a whole generation of activists since the revelations about the FBI COINTELPRO program and Watergate.  Something that happened fifteen, or even five years ago, it’s as if it never happened.  We need to teach the lessons learned by previous movements about how to empower ourselves and fight back without losing sight of our political goals.”

- Jinsoo Kim, Movement Support Network 

I.          Huge amount of history just within the U.S. - no way to do justice to the full subject in 1/2 hour.  Best way to deal with this is to look to modern examples (COINTELPRO in the 1950s and beyond) and watch for common threads in police tactics that run through them.

A.         Covert Surveillance & Infiltration

1.            Bugs/wiretaps

2.            Opening mail

3.            Informants (from surveilled organizations but also within media orgs)

B.         Activists labeled and discredited in government documents and through the media

C.        Doorknocks, break-ins, and other non-covert physical threats & harassment

D.        Selective arrests, excessive force, instigation at demonstrations

E.         Turning groups against each other, including setups for violence

F.         Dirty courtroom tactics

1.            High bail

2.            Excessive charges

G.        Sponsored violence against activists, usually by private right-wing organizational allies

II.            COINTELPRO (FBI Counterintelligence Program)

A.         Begun by J. Edgar Hoover on August 19, 1956 to “increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections” within the communist party.

1.            Program soon targeted others, including Socialist Workers Party, black nationalist groups, anti-war groups (particularly campus groups), and entire “new left” including community and religious activists

a.            Rev. Martin Luther King

b.            Black Panther Party

c.            Nation of Islam

d.            Progressive Labor Party

e.            New York Post

B.         Practical purpose was counter-subversion, not criminal investigation

1.            After COINTELPRO was investigated by the Senate and (temporarily) shut down in 1976, its real purpose came to light through the final report of the Senate Committee looking into the abuses -

a.            Report: “The [FBI] conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment right 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.”

b.            From the horse’s mouth: Memo by J. Edgar Hoover, after an agent surveilling the Black Panther Party reported that there was no criminal activity going on, and the organization’s focus in San Francisco appeared to be feeding breakfast to children - “Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt... and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge.”

C.        Scale of the operation was immense beyond any “conspiracy theorist’s” fantasy

1.            FBI opened over 500,000 intelligence files on over 1,000,000 Americans

2.            In Chicago alone, from 1966 to 1976, FBI employed over 5,000 secret undercover informers to operate within civic and political organizations which violated no laws, at a cost of $2.5 million.

3.            Thousands were targeted for round-up and detention in case of a “national emergency,“ which was not defined.  The list was created in 1940, a decade before such a list was given statutory authority (the Emergency Detention Act of 1950)

D.        How did the FBI run its counterintelligence op?

1.            Surveillance

a.            Opened mail, bugged offices and homes, used infiltrators and informers

b.            Arranged office break-ins

i.            Office equipment and valuables would be left alone, but documents would be rifled through and even taken

ii.            Sometimes carried out by law enforcement, but also carried out by informally allied right-wing paramilitary groups

2.            Media operations

a.            Journalists printed disruptive information they were fed

i.            Sometimes false info sent in letters signed with fictitious names

ii.            Sometimes false info sent in an envelope bearing the targeted group’s return address to sow mistrust

iii.            Sometimes sent anonymous clippings of disruptive newspaper articles (written by FBI-friendly reporters or even by the FBI) to encourage similar coverage

b.            Journalists even willingly cooperated knowing they were participating in counterintelligence

i.            During FBI’s media program (1956 - 1971)...

ii.            16 FBI offices were asked to compile lists of cooperative and reliable reporters for COINTELPRO use

a.            Most active in NY, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee; cooperative media included Hearst chain, NY Daily News, Philadelphia Enquirer, Chicago Tribune

iii.            FBI-allied reporters assisted by writing articles to damage a targeted individual, organization, or event

iv.            Journalists agreed to ask activists embarrassing questions supplied by the FBI

c.            FBI arranged phone call and letter campaigns to force cancellation of radio and television appearances by progressives

3.            Information sharing with other organizations

a.            Federal/state/private

i.            FBI’s COINTELPRO operation was not the only one being run by the feds -

a.            CIA also surveilled over 300,000 people during the 1960s and 1970s, including opening mail and reading telegrams (Operation Chaos)

b.            During the same period the Pentagon spied mostly on anti-war and civil rights groups; though the Secretary of the Army ordered the over 100,000 dossiers destroyed, there is evidence that spying continued

d.            Though FBI didn’t “play well” with other federal law enforcement agencies, it didn’t stop information networking; various state and federal agencies and private right-wing groups swapped information through the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit, an association local law enforcement and investigative squads

ii.            Individual police departments also engaged in surveillance and disruption

a.            Example: In Chicago, police surveilled groups from the PTA to the Communist party, amassing some 200,000 files on individuals and organizations

iii.            Private right-wing paramilitary groups often assisted with break-ins, stealing, and disseminating information, and infiltration

a.            Some well-known private groups assisting in illegal surveillance were the American Security Council (1955 - ), Church League of America (1937 - 1985), Wackenhut Security (currently thriving on government contracts), and Anacapa Sciences (still developing technologies & doing behavioral science for the military & police)

b.            FBI sometimes assisted these groups in their violent activities; for example, the FBI hid a gun used in an assassination attempt against a leftist professor involved in protesting the Vietnam war

III.         Death (only temporary) of COINTELPRO

A.         Several incidents brought COINTELPRO activities to light and under congressional scrutiny in the 1970s

1.            Watergate

a.            Best known incident and investigation.  But details of other, more important investigations were subsumed by Nixon’s resignation

2.            Church Committee investigated government COINTELPRO & other surveillance (final report April 1976)

a.            Report’s revelations so shocking that the Department of Justice adopted new guidelines aimed at curtailing political surveillance

b.            State legislatures and city councils passed similar restrictions (does that sound like the BORDC efforts today?)

B.         Post-Church Committee victories were short-lived

1.            Post-Church DOJ guidelines didn’t apply to feds other than the FBI

2.            Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies quickly found loopholes, often by starting new information-sharing networks with private organizations that spied on political dissidents

a.            Example:  Anti-Defamation League (supposedly a civil rights watchdog) employed “fact finders” in major cities to track suspected dissidents, and was caught spying and acting as a law enforcement information clearing house in the early 1990s

IV.            Reagan’s election in 1980 re-opened the door to the classic COINTELPRO tactics

A.         In December 1981, Reagan issued EO 12333 authorizing the FBI to use intrusive investigatory techniques such as mail openings, wiretaps and burglaries in response to “terrorist” threats

B.         Reagan authorized FBI to rely on private information sources in national security investigations, and required agents not to ask “individuals acting on their own initiative” how they obtained their info

C.        FBI and CIA authorized to surveil individuals who are not acting for a foreign power or breaking the law; anyone who has contact with foreign individuals or organizations could be subject to investigation

D.        McCarthy witch hunt was reignited by Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism

1.            In 1982, Committee staffer Samuel Francis tried to discredit leftists critical of the committee by labeling some organizations as “identified as Communist Party front groups” and calling the National Lawyers Guild the “ideological ally” of terrorism and murder, and recalling J. Edgar Hoover’s statement that it may be “even more dangerous than those who throw the bombs.”

2.            Committee’s hearings on the “Red Menace” were over-the-top and discredited the committee without anyone else’s help

E.         In 1983, Attorney General William Smith’s “Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Domestic Security/Terrorism Investigations” authorized surveillance of peaceful public demonstrations, the use informants and infiltrators, and investigation of persons or groups advocating “unlawful activities”

F.         By late 1983, harassment of Latin American support and anti-interventionist groups reached a fever pitch

1.            Law enforcement and private agencies stepped up smear and labeling campaigns by warning of communist or terrorist subversion

2.            FBI and military intelligence agents visited activists’ employers, friends, and co-workers asking “Did you know that your friend works with communists and KGB agents?”

3.            FBI threatened activists

a.            Example: to expose an undocumented activist to INS unless she provided information

b.            Example: to jail activists unless they revealed their “plans” for “terrorist” attacks on the 1984 summer Olympics and political conventions

4.            Nearly 100 reports of mysterious break-ins of activist offices since 1984

5.            Left-wing legal organizations like the National Lawyers Guild and legal services targeted as subversive organizations

G.        Skip ahead to 2001... during Bush inauguration, protestors were infiltrated with police agents

H          Rules placed on protestor conduct

1.            No platforms may be set up for speakers, even with a permit

2.            Signs can not be carried on sticks, or on sticks with a maximum thickness

3.            Puppets banned as places to conceal weapons

I.          When Bush visited Washington state in 2001, 600 peaceful protestors were arrested preemptively to prevent trouble later

V.         Today - It’s all back (Minnesota examples)

A.         Surveillance for activist affiliation no longer a dirty secret

1.            A couple of months ago, heard about Capt. Bill Chandler’s “domestic identified groups that may affect our communities” list announced as part of a talk on Domestic Terrorism in MN

B.         FBI/police doorknocks this spring

1.            Animal rights/environmental activists got visits by agents just wanting to talk

2.            Last year, office break-ins at TCCDMAJ with classic rummaging through data but no thefts of computer or other equipment

C.        Media disinformation

1.            On the day the Iraq war started, anti-war protest article from AP published in the Strib with misleading headline stating that activists are closing 35-W down at rush hour

D.        Police policy changed to make selective arrests

1.            Arrest demonstration leadership on any pretext

E.         Mass surveillance and info sharing schemes involving federal, state, private records - ready availability & high tech makes it easier and more dangerous

1.            Operation TIPS (dead), Total Information Awareness (dead, but not very), ASSR/CAPPS II (very much alive)

F.         Communications snooping

1.            Carnivore & other phone/Internet technology, “voluntary” ISP cooperation, rather than old-fashioned mail-opening

G.        Smear campaigns against activists

1.            Guildmember Cindy Kosiak’s run for county attorney up north last year - articles were written by her former employer attacking her as belonging to the NLG, members of which have the gall to defend terrorists and other unpopular people.  He ended by noting that he has informed the FBI of the group’s existence...

H.         All gloves off when targeting groups and individuals based on political affilation

1.            2002 Ashcroft Surveillance Guidelines allow Internet surfing based on content to seek out groups that might be “a threat to domestic security,” encourage intrusive surveillance, allow endless “preliminary investigation” without reason to believe a crime is being committed, and without oversight