This diary is intended to be a warning of exactly what happens when the government decides that it is the end-all be-all arbiter of justice. That is, when they decide that 'We the people' are to be kept out of the loop on what is necessary to protect 'We the people.'
An excellent repository of documents regarding COINTELPRO, including copies of the Church Committee reports on the subject, is located at cointel.org
So, for the uninitiated, allow me to let J. Edgar Hoover introduce you to COINTELPRO (short for counter intelligence program).
The forces which are most anxious to weaken our internal security are not always easy to identify. Communists have been trained in deceit and secretly work toward the day when they hope to replace our American way of life with a Communist dictatorship. They utilize cleverly camouflaged movements, such as peace groups and civil rights groups to achieve their sinister purposes. While they as individuals are difficult to identify, the Communist party line is clear. Its first concern is the advancement of Soviet Russia and the godless Communist cause. It is important to learn to know the enemies of the American way of life.
These programs came about when the Supreme Court handed down a series of decisions which severely limited the ability of one Joseph McCarthy and friends to openly persecute US citizens for supposedly communist party affiliations.
Although the original intended target was 'the communists', we all know that old uncle sam has problems differentiating between enemies. Powers allocated to stomp out communist activists were later appropriated to blackmail such people as Martin Luther King, Jr. From the Church committee report we have a quote of the FBI agent in charge describing how the case against King should be carried forward:
No holds were barred. We have used [similar] techniques against Soviet agents. [The same methods were] brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business.
and the final Church report also gives us this gem:
The FBI campaign to discredit and destroy Dr. King was marked by extreme personal vindictiveness. As early as 1962, Director Hoover penned on an FBI memorandum, "King is no good." 9 At the August 1963 March on Washington, Dr. King told the country of his dream that "all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I'm free at last."' 10 The FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division described this "demagogic speech" as yet more evidence that Dr. King was "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.
[my note: numbers in text are references; see full report here]
Similar efforts were made to subvert the activities of any and all who opposed the political will of the status quo.
The program continued until a few brave citizens took matters into their own hands.
The program was secret until 1971, when an FBI field office in Media, PA was burglarized by a group of left-wing radicals calling themselves the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. Several dossiers of files were taken and the information passed to news agencies, many of which initially refused to publish the information. Within the year, Director Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future counterintelligence operations would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
My point is simple, and since this diary has gotten rather long I will sum it up. What do you think that J. Edgar Hoover could have accomplished within the boundaries of the new FISA law. If he could have unlimited access to the phone calls and internet activity of the entire country, and could data-mine to his heart's content...putting all of this information into a database that never needed to be expunged or justified.
So, do you really believe that people like old J. Edgar Hoover don't exist anymore? Then why do we have a million names on the terrorist watch list?
Wake up, there are people who will use any and every power they possess against those who they deem are their enemies. Even if we keep the White House and Congress, there are plenty of career FBI agents who now have the capability to pursue their own black-bag jobs in the name of national security. In this day and age, one person is all it will take.
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