COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program, was an FBI program to surveil, infiltrate, and actively subvert organizations that could threaten government policy or power. They have targeted anti-war protesters, Civil Rights groups, and environmentalists by placing agents within theirs ranks to feed back information to the FBI or actively work to entrap its members into committing illegal acts. Often times, FBI actions led directly to beatings and assassinations.
The COINTELPRO program was exposed in the 1970’s and said to have been dissolved, but its methods clearly continue today, as shown by recent publicized examples of FBI subversion.
The first case involves a human rights organization founded by a priest who aimed to close the U.S. Army School Of The Americas, a military camp for “revolutionaries” whose goal was to train soldiers to overthrow Latin American governments the USA didn’t like. They were infiltrated by the FBI and surveilled for over a decade.
Despite no incidents of violence over the multi-year period of the gatherings, the FBI justified its activities by claiming that other groups, such as anarchists, could join SOA Watch events and cause problems.
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Every year they acknowledge that it’s peaceful and just about every year they have some type of alarmist warning that ‘While it’s peaceful, you never know when something will turn unpeaceful.
Recently in Texas, the FBI infiltrated a group protesting the construction of a pipeline based on environmental grounds. No illegal acts were committed by the group to warrant FBI attention.
Between November 2012 and June 2014, the documents show, the FBI collated inside knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinised police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.
Also in Texas, a left-wing group was infiltrated by an FBI informant who insisted that the group become violent in response to the Republican scourge. Once he convinced members to make Molotov cocktails, the FBI stormed in and made arrests.
The film makes a compelling case that [FBI asset] Darby, with the FBI’s blessing, used his charisma and street credibility to goad Crowder and McKay into pursuing the sort of actions that would later land them in prison.
Lastly, the FBI infiltrated middle-aged peace activists and filed trumped-up charges of them providing “assistance” to terrorists. The bogus charges were eventually dropped.
The FBI first became interested in Tom and his fellow travelers on the eve of the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, when the bureau that purports to keep America safe sent an undercover agent who went by the name “Karen Sullivan” to infiltrate the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, one of the most prominent groups organizing protests outside the convention.
“I remember a woman who was really eager,” Tom told me. “She kept bringing up how eager she was about revolution. And you know, on the one hand, people think it’s good because we really need to change society, so it’s a fine thing to talk about. On the other hand, she was trying to find people she could manipulate into [committing] a crime.”
Is The FBI stopping terror or creating it?
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