COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO
Counterintelligence is the name given to covert operations intended to disrupt and subvert the activities of enemy organizations. Counterintelligence programs, or COINTELPRO's, have been used by the CIA to influence foreign elections and overthrow foreign governments. They have also been used by the FBI to supress political dissent in the US. The methods are the same, for inciting a revolution, or preventing one; provacateurs inflitrate the targeted groups, exploit internal divisions, and work to create chaos. Phoney organizations are set up, and real ones are misrepresented by black propaganda.
Domestic targets of COINTELPRO have included everyone from peace activists and Amnesty International to churches and Martin Luther King. Non-violent political enemies of the State Department have been labelled national security threats, persistently harassed, and in some cases murdered in cold blood.
In the late sixties and early seventies, using countless numbers of informants, and aided by the National Security Agency's domestic telephone surveillance infrastructure, more than a thousand political organizations were watchlisted. A watchlisted person or group could have their telephone conversations converted to text and stored in a searchable database, their mail secretly opened, copied, and resealed. At least 10,000 American homes were burglarized by the FBI in illegal "black bag jobs" for the purpose of political intelligence gathering. But COINTELPRO went much further than just gathering information.
Below are links to some popular movements and political activists targeted by the FBI COINTELPRO of the sixties and seventies. The reason for bringing this sordid and embarrassing material into the public consciousness is to prevent similar things from happening in the future. Because the purpose of studying history is not just to keep track of it, but to change it.
friendly media contacts phony organizations
anonymous mailings
black bag jobs
mail openings
wiretapping
infiltration
provocation
bad-jacketing
IRS investigations
harrassment arrests
fabrication of evidence
political assassinations
Black Liberation Movement
"King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own but I am sure that they don't have one at this time that is any where near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. ...King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant. You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
- anonymous letter from FBI to Martin Luther King obtained from FBI files using the FOIA
Who Killed Martin Luther King?
Black Panther Party * Malcolm X * Eldridge Cleaver * Fred Hampton * Huey Newton * Geronimo Pratt * Bobby Seale * Sundiata Acoli * Assata Shakur * Dhoruba Al-Mujahid Bin Wahad * Republic of New Afrika * Angela Davis * Nation of Islam
The FBI, COINTELPRO, and Far Right Vigilantee Networks
by Tom Burghardt
The Public-Private Partnership
by Tom Burghardt
Some Call it Murder
by Shelly Waxman
Church Committee hearings and internal FBI documents revealed that more than one quarter of all active Klan members during the period were FBI agents or informants. In at least half of all Klan units, Bureau spies were elected to top leadership posts.
Protectors of Priveledge, Frank Donner
From the FBI coloring book , sent by the FBI to thousands of white Americans in the name of the Black Panther Party.
The Covert War Against Native Americans by Ward Churchill
"They are a conquered nation, and when you are conquered, the people you are conquered by dictate your future. This is a basic philosophy of mine. If I'm part of a conquered nation, I've got to yield to authority ... a colonial police force."-- ASAC Zigrossi, at seige of Wounded Knee, 1976
American Indian Movement links to many COINTELPRO-AIM articles
Leonard Peltier * Dennis Banks * Russell Means * Anna Mae Aquash * Myrtle Poor Bear * John Trudell
Communist Party, USA
Labor Movement, USA
As long as [anti- communism] remains national policy, an ... important requirement is an aggressive covert psychological, political and paramilitary organization more effective, more unique, and if necessary, more ruthless than employed by the enemy. No one should be permitted to stand in the way of the prompt, efficient, and secure establishment of this mission.The Doolittle Committee Report, 1954
Other Targeted Groups
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."
Martin Niemoller (a German anti-Nazi pastor)
MOVE * Mumia Abu-Jamal & Churchill Interview on Mumia
"Anticipating how far the city would go to silence them, MOVE began fortifying their Osage Avenue home. Meanwhile, the police made preparations for a murderous assault by secretly obtaining from the FBI over 37 pounds of the powerful military explosive C4."
-- 25 Years on the Move
Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador * Puerto Rican Independence Movement * La Raza Unida Party of Texas * La Casa de Carnalsimo * Pro-choice / Abortion * National Lawyers' Guild * Earth First!
More Links
The Federal Bureau of Intimidation
FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose --- book review and exerpt ------ the logistics of a black bag job
COINTELPRO in the 60's
COINTELPRO in the 70's
COINTELPRO in the 80's
COINTELPRO in the 90's
Mike Rivero's COINTELPRO page
CIA OPERATION CHAOS * CIA OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD * School of Americas CI Manual
DOJ Computer Confiscation Case History
pgp and mailing lists * cell phone tracking
If An Agent Knocks
Spy & Counterspy: The author was under hostile surveillance for eight years. In order to strengthen his countersurveillance skills, the author hit on the idea of provoking other agencies into conducting surveillance against him. Much like the way hackers break into computer systems, the author hacked surveillance operations.
In 1971, only 1% of the paper collected by the FBI had anything to do with organized crime, and 2/3 was devoted to political monitoring and supression of political activities. The FBI carried out 500,000 investigations on so-called subversives from 1960 to 1974, without a single court conviction.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, the material on this webpage is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
ECHELON -- COINTELPRO -- WAR ON DRUGS
webpage by Paul Wolf
