Global InformationCOINTELPRO information
COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal[1][2] projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive.[3][4][5][6] Groups and individuals targeted by the FBI included feminist organizations,[7][8] the Communist Party USA,[9] anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists in the civil rights and Black power movements (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements (including Puerto Rican independence groups such as the Young Lords and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party), a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan[10][11] and the National States' Rights Party.[12]
The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. Many of the tactics used in COINTELPRO are alleged to have seen continued use, including discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; illegal violence; and assassination.[13][14][15][16] According to a Senate report, the FBI's motivation was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order".[17]
Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers targeted include Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal,[18] and Marshall Conway. Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of exculpatory evidence.[19][20][21]
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and especially their leaders.[22][23] Under Hoover, the official in charge of COINTELPRO was assistant director William C. Sullivan.[24] Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of the programs,[25] giving written approval for limited wiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so".[26] Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.[27]
- ^ "I. Introduction and Summary" (PDF). Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans – Church Committee final report. II. United States Senate. April 26, 1976. p. 10. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 18, 2014. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
- ^ Wolf, Paul (1 September 2001). COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story. World Conference Against Racism. Durbin, South Africa. p. 11. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2018.
- ^ Jalon, Allan M. (March 8, 2006). "A break-in to end all break-ins". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
- ^ The Dangers of Domestic Spying by Federal Law Enforcement (PDF) (Report). American Civil Liberties Union. 2002. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 5, 2018. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
- ^ Morris, Rose (2019). Chronicle of the Seventh Son Black Panther Mark Clark. Rose Morris. pp. 209–214. ISBN 978-1733581714.
- ^ Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri (2008) [2007]. The FBI: A History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-300-14284-6. OCLC 223872966.
- ^ "The Women's Liberation Movement and COINTELPRO" (PDF). www.freedomarchives.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 24, 2015.
- ^ Salper, Roberta (2008). "U.S. Government Surveillance and the Women's Liberation Movement, 1968–1973: A Case Study". Feminist Studies. 34 (3): 431–455. JSTOR 20459215. Retrieved July 12, 2022 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Weiner 2012, p. 195.
- ^ Bosi, Lorenzo; Giugni, Marco; Uba, Katrin, eds. (2016). The Consequences of Social Movements. Cambridge University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-1107539211.
- ^ Newton, Michael (2014). White Robes and Burning Crosses: A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-7864-7774-6. OCLC 877370955.
- ^ "Groups targeted by COINTELPRO". Archived from the original on September 10, 2012.
- ^ Walby, Kevin; Monaghan, Jeffery (2016). "Private Eyes and Public Order: Policing and Surveillance in the Suppression of Animal Rights Activists in Canada". In Bezanson, Kate; Webber, Michelle (eds.). Rethinking Society in the 21st Century (4th ed.). Toronto: Canadian Scholars. p. 148, note 1. ISBN 978-1-55130-936-1. OCLC 1002804017.
- ^ Orr, Martin (2010). "The Failure of Neoliberal Globalization and the End of Empire". In Berberoglu, Berch (ed.). Globalization in the 21st Century: Labor, Capital, and the State on a World Scale. Springer. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-230-10639-0. OCLC 700167013.
- ^ Swearingen, M. Wesley (1995). FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-502-2. OCLC 31330305.
[Special Agent Gregg York:] We expected about twenty Panthers to be in the apartment when the police raided the place. Only two of those black nigger fuckers were killed, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
- ^ "Murder of Fred Hampton" (PDF). It's About Time – Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 15, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2009.
- ^ Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (PDF) (Final Report). 1976. S. Rep. No. 94-755. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 18, 2014. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ Corrigan, Lisa M. (2016). Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation. Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 86–88. ISBN 978-1496809100.
- ^ Neal, Cleaver, Kathleen (1998). "Mobilizing for Mumia Abu-Jamal in Paris". Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. 10 (2). ISSN 1041-6374. Archived from the original on April 6, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ On', Shaba (22 April 1996). "25th Ann. of Panther 21 Acquittal: Program in NYC" (Press release). Archived from the original on 28 December 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2018 – via Hartford Web Publishing.
- ^ Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G. (January 16, 2017). "The FBI's War on Civil Rights Leaders". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on February 12, 2018. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
Hundreds of Panthers were stopped, harassed and arrested by the police across the country. Hoover explained the 'purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the BPP and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge'. The effectiveness of COINTELPRO was overwhelming. Many organizations were destabilized with arrests, raids, break-ins, and killings.
- ^ "COINTELPRO Revisited – Spying & Disruption – In Black & White: The F.B.I. Papers". What Really Happened. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved June 23, 2008.
- ^ "A Huey P. Newton Story – Actions – COINTELPRO". PBS. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011. Retrieved June 23, 2008.
- ^ Weiner 2012, p. 196: "Sullivan would become Hoover's field marshal in matters of national security, chief of FBI intelligence, and commandant of COINTELPRO. In that top secret and tightly compartmentalized world, an FBI inside of the FBI, Sullivan served as the executor of Hoover's most clandestine and recondite demands.".
- ^ Weiner 2012, p. 233: "RFK knew much more about this surveillance than he ever admitted. He personally renewed his authorization for the taps on Levison's office, and he approved Hoover's request to tap Levison's home telephone, where King called late at night several times a week."
- ^ Hersh 2007, p. 372.
- ^ Hersh 2007, pp. 372–374.