COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee COINTELPRO http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (1 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee COINTELPRO was the FBI's secret program to undermine the popular upsurge which swept the country during the 1960s. Though the name stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies. The FBI set out to eliminate "radical" political opposition inside the US. When traditional modes of repression (exposure, blatant harassment, and prosecution for political crimes) failed to counter the growing insurgency, and even helped to fuel it, the Bureau took the law into its own hands and secretly used fraud and force to sabotage constitutionally - protected political activity. Its methods ranged far beyond surveillance, and amounted to a domestic version of the covert action for which the CIA has become infamous throughout the world. The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall Preface - The Face of COINTELPRO HTML Index to the Documents Introduction - A Glimpse Into the Files of America's Political Police Chapter 1 - Understanding Deletions in FBI Documents Chapter 2 - COINTELPRO - CP/USA Chapter 3 - COINTELPRO - SWP Chapter 4 - COINTELPRO - Puerto Rican Independence Movement Chapter 5 - COINTELPRO - Black Liberation Movement Chapter 6 - COINTELPRO - New Left Chapter 7 - COINTELPRO - AIM Chapter 8 - Conclusion: COINTELPRO Lives On http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (2 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee Other Major Works Online COINTELPRO in the 60's * 70's* 80's & 90's from Brian Glick's War at Home Excerpts from the The Church Senate Committee Hearings (1 & 2), 1975 The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents by Ellen Schrecker Current Political Prisoners - Victims of COINTELPRO September 14, 2000 with Cynthia McKinney, Nkechi Taifa, Kathleen Cleaver, Michael Tarif Warren, Bruce Elison, Geronimo ji Jaga & Laura Whitehorn "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. [sic] 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 Freedom Of Information Act Martin Luther King * Black Panther Party * Geronimo Pratt * Nation of Islam Black Propaganda: this children's coloring book was sent by the FBI to thousands of people in the name of the Black Panther Party. http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (3 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee Armies of Repression: The FBI, COINTELPRO, and Far Right Vigilantee Networks The Public-Private Partnership by Tom Burghardt FBI Targets Leonard Peltier American Indian Movement Akicita's rebuttal to FBI media claims. The Covert War Against Native Americans by Ward Churchill Free Peltier! campaign in Czech Republic The FBI Probe of CISPES * Interview with Frank Varelli Albion Monitor Judi Bari Resource Page & legal documents Judi Bari Suit Reveals COINTELPRO Against Earth First! America's Secret Police http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (4 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee "After years spent trying to deal with the effects of COINTELPRO, my rage at the FBI's almost unimaginable evil remains undiminished because I believe that it succeeded in many of its horrifying goals, given the deaths of Martin King, Malcolm X, and other sixties leaders. ... Since the FBI uses taxpayer dollars to fund its extreme and ridiculous investigations of anyone who expresses dissenting opinions, even resorting to crime -- including theft, encouragement to murder, subornation of perjury, and manipulation of the judicial process -- to achieve its ends, I have always advocated its disbanding." William M. Kunstler, civil rights attorney More Articles and Links The Federal Bureau of Intimidation by Howard Zinn Some Call it Murder by Shelly Waxman FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose by M. Wesley Swearingen (book review) and exerpt ------ the logistics of a black bag job Real Audio interview with Wes Swearingen on Democracy Now Nothing Vague About FBI Abuse: Here Are the Dossiers by Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen The 1960s and COINTELPRO: In Defense of Paranoia Wages of COINTELPRO Still Evident in Omaha Black Panther Case by Ward Churchill 3/10/99 WBAI Interview with Ward Churchill on Mumia Abu-Jamal Mike Rivero's COINTELPRO page Michael Stec's Collection of Secret Documents CIA OPERATION CHAOS CIA OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD Countermeasures http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (5 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee Overcoming Repression Against Activists by The Public Eye Whistleblower Protection For FBI Employees Secret No More use the Freedom Of Information Act to conduct your own FBI investigations Executive Order 12958 Classified National Security Information. Executive Order 13142 automatic declassification of 25 year old records, effective October 2001. PGP and mailing lists how to set up a secure communications network Books The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents From the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall, South End Press, ISBN 0-89608- 360-8 Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall, South End Press, ISBN 0-89608-293-8 The Age of Surveillance, by Frank Donner, Vintage Books, 1980. ISBN 0-394-74771-2 COINTELPRO: The FBI's Secret War on Political Freedom by Nelson Blackstock, Pathfinder, 1975, ISBN 0-937091-05-7 FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose by M. Wesley Swearingen, South End Press ISBN 0- 89608-501-5 War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It by Brian Glick, South End Press In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen, 1991, Viking Press. (out of print) Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement by Ross Gelbspan, 1991, South End Press Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the FBI FILES: How to Secure and Interpret Your FBI Files by Ann Mari Buitrago and Leon Andrew Immermann, 1981, Grove Press Inc. VIDEO: All Power to the People! The Black Panther Party and Beyond [To order send $40 to Electronic News Group, PO Box 86208, Los Angeles, CA 90086-0208] Reading List on Intelligence Agencies and Political Repression by Chip Berlet & Linda Lotz http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (6 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO, FBI Counterintelligence, Covert Operations, Black Bag Jobs, Church Committee In the late sixties and early seventies, more than a thousand political organizations were watchlisted. At least 10,000 American homes were burglarized by the FBI in illegal "black bag jobs" for the purpose of political intelligence gathering. 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. War on Drugs and Human Rights in Colombia -- COINTELPRO -- ECHELON webpage by Paul Wolf http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointel.htm (7 of 7) [9/3/2001 11:33:41 AM] COINTELPRO COINTELPRO FBI Domestic Intelligence Activities COINTELPRO Revisited - Spying & Disruption By Brian Glick http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/warathom.htm (1 of 29) [9/3/2001 11:33:53 AM] COINTELPRO (author of War at Home, South End Press) INTRODUCTION Activists across the country report increasing government harassment and disruption of their work: -In the Southwest, paid informers infiltrate the church services, Bible classes and support networks of clergy and lay workers giving sanctuary to refugees from El Salvador and Guatamala. -In Alabama, elderly Black people attempting for the first time to exercise their right to vote are interrogated by FBI agents and hauled before federal grand juries hundreds of miles from their homes. -In New England, a former CIA case officer cites examples from his own past work to warn college students of efforts by undercover operatives to misdirect and discredit protests against South African and US racism. -In the San Francisco Bay Area, activists planning anti-nuclear civil disobedience learn that their meetings have been infiltrated by the US Navy. -In Detroit, Seattle, and Philadelphia, in Cambridge, MA, Berkeley,CA., Phoenix, AR., and Washington, DC., churches and organizations opposing US policies in Central America report obviously political break-ins in which important papers are stolen or damaged, while money and valuables are left untouched. License plates on a car spotted fleeing one such office have been traced to the US National Security Agency. -In Puerto Rico, Texas and Massachusetts, labor leaders, community organizers, writers and editors who advocate Puerto Rican independence are branded by the FBI as "terrorists," brutally rounded-up in the middle of the night, held incommunicado for days and then jailed under new preventive detention laws.