Epigraph Quotes:
The techniques of counterintelligence were worked out in the 19th century. What is counterintelligence actually? Well, counterintelligence has nothing at all to do with law enforcement. One of the architects of COINTELPRO (FBI’s COunterINTELlicence PROgram) puts it this way: “It has nothing to do with acquiring intelligence information for purposes of bringing changes and prosecution and penalties. It has to do with neutralizing targets. If you effect the neutralization of the target, it means the target can no longer do whatever it was that caused the targeting to occur in the first place and you have a successful operation… Counterintelligence normally applies, by charter, to agents of hostile foreign powers. It has to do with espionage, sabotage, and so forth… It’s not within a legal framework. Constitutional rights and guarantees do not apply. Those are totally suspended. These (FBI agents) are people who are acting under the Espionage Act and under international law in the capacity that means they can be summarily executed if apprehended in the process. That’s the framework of understanding in which counterintelligence operations occur. That’s something, by legal definition, that is not applicable to the citizenry of the United States in pursuit of political ideals, visions, or whatever. It’s not until 1956 that there is a formal inception of a counterintelligence program nationwide basis by the FBI that is directed at the citizenry of the United States (COINTELPRO).
Professor Ward Churchill, from Big Brother is Watching (Jan., 2001)
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today (is) my own government. I can not be silent.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1967 (Murdered by FBI in 1968)
Webmaster Comments: Clearly, the targeted individual program is the modern continuation of the highly secret, extra-legal, targeting and sabotage campaigns the FBI has waged against countless innocent Americans for over a century. The FBI’s systematic neutralization via murder, slow death, sabotage, torture, terrorization, psychological warfare, slandering, framing, discreditation, and bad-jacketing of “targeted individuals” in the COINTELPRO program of the 1950’s-70s deployed the very same methods deployed against “targeted individuals” today. Individuals selected for targeting and neutralization, such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon and many others (see below) tend to be intelligent, effective high-profile leaders of social movements the FBI, and by extension, the USG, has sought to crush. These have included the civil rights movement, Chicano groups, American Indian Movement, Puerto Rican groups, environmental and animal rights groups, i.e., groups seeking social justice. In this sense, COINTELPRO can be regarded as a draconian “social engineering” black program.
Interestingly, per the definition of “counterintelligence” above, in carrying out and overseeing the “targeted individual program” against innocent US citizens, FBI, police, and their surrogates, by law, can be summarily executed if apprehended in the process! The problem is, who’s going to apprehend the FBI when they have the full backing of the Dept. of Justice and the US government? Furthermore, the “program” goes far beyond what is defined as “counterintelligence!” These domestic terror programs also incorporate the host of other warfare tactics deployed by the military in what are euphemistically termed “counterinsurgency,” “countersubversion,” “counterterrorism,” and low-intensity conflict operations. In essence, for over a century, the US government has been a fascistic, repressive, despotic, totalitarian police state that has waged war against elements of its own citizenry to maintain the status quo for the super rich.
The ten videos and three articles included herein prove that the FBI has always functioned as a secret POLITICAL and military police on behalf of the elite, rich, and powerful, i.e., corporations. It is just as cruel and malicious, probably, as the communist East German Stasi police and, indeed, today’s TI program incorporates many of the techniques of the Stasi’s “zerzetsung” (decomposition) program. These programs were declared highly criminal and ordered shut down by the US Senate in the middle 1970s. Nonetheless, they continue. The people carrying out these treasonous black programs have names and addresses and most are drawing government salaries. They people who pose as our protectors must be criminally prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. These are the real terrorists.
Cointelpro 101: Documentary Film (2010) on FBI Death Squads and Reign of Terror In America
COINTELPRO: The Secret FBI Program- Explained
COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Americans
Big Brother Is Watching- Professor Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill: Big Brother is Watching, Jan., 2001
Big Brother Is Watching- Professor Ward Churchill
Big Brother Is Watching (Jan. 27, 2001)
Ward Churchill on COINTELPRO and Leonard Peltier
Ward Churchill on COINTELPRO and Terrorism
Cynthia McKinney, Ward Churchill on COINTELPRO and Counterterrorism
Ward Churchill on COINTELPRO, Black Panther Party, and American Indian Movement
Ward Churchill Interviews on Alternative Radio
UNL students were protesting the Vietnam War, and the FBI was watching
II. Articles
A. Operation CHAOS, COINTELPRO, and the FBI/CIA’s War on the Counterculture: Mae Brussell’s Revelations of State-Sponsored Repression
U.S. Black Operations: Operation CHAOS, Mae Brussell & CIA Counterculture
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
‘Relax’ said the night man
‘We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave! – The Eagles
Tracy Turner
U.S. Intelligence Agencies, engrossed in mass surveillance and the torture of innocent citizens through tactics like Surveillance Role Players, have become instruments of a corrupt empire, persecuting the innocent while allowing real terrorists-both foreign and domestic-to thrive unchecked. Obsessed with power and control, the system exacerbates the very terrorism it claims to combat, with counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism operations frequently undermining their own stated objectives.
The US government concocted several clandestine programs during the era of the 1960s and 1970s in a futile attempt to discourage the emergence of various counterculture groups opposed to authority and the promotion of controlled cultural movements. Of many such projects that garnered notoriety, perhaps the most intriguing was originally dubbed Operation CHAOS. Mae Brussell, a famous conspiracy researcher, devoted much of her work to researching how the CIA surveilled the counterculture. Her ideas, regularly read as briefs by members of both Houses of Congress, were well-embedded in various corroborated investigations and declassified documents showing the extent of the government’s involvement in suppressing such movements. One of Mae Brussel’s articles on Operation Chaos has a mortality list that would be suitable to a large airliner crash, but it is about probable assassinations via the CIA, FBI, NSA and the Military.
Mae Brussell’s claim is that there was some inconsistency in the supposed death of Jimi Hendrix, including that his finding in the autopsy showed less than a lethal amount of barbiturates for a supposed overdose but his lungs did not reveal aspiration pneumonia, which was supposed to be the companion cause. Brussell also pointed out that the circumstances of finding Hendrix’s body were suspicious: nobody had seen him fall, and in general, the conditions of how he was found were strange. The anomaly of these aspects was, according to her, supposed to indicate that his death might have been orchestrated, not just an overdose. Jimi had a very low blood alcohol level, contrary to claims he was heavily intoxicated. His lungs (not his stomach) were filled with more than a liter of Red Wine.
Jimi Hendrix reportedly offered to fly Black activists to Washington, D.C., in 1969 to support their political efforts, highlighting his growing political awareness and solidarity with the Civil Rights Movement. This gesture was seen by some as a sign of his potential influence, which Mae Brussell speculated could have made him a target of powerful interests. Hendrix made the offer and was then found dead. We are to believe he made the promise and then committed suicide. Mae Brussell argued that Hendrix’s political engagement with Black activists made him a target of powerful interests. Despite being fond of psychedelics, Hendrix allegedly “committed suicide” after promising to fly Black Panthers to Washington, D.C. He had over a liter of Red Wine (not vomit) in his *LUNGS*. The only person who knew what might have happened, his girlfriend Monika Charlotte Dannemann fell down a dark stairwell. Both deaths were and are extremely suspicious. The Mae Brussell article discussing these events is here. Monika Charlotte Dannemann told authorities Jimi Hendrix had been murdered, then recanted, then fell down a stairwell.
The Church Committee and Government Surveillance
The Church Committee, officially known as the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations concerning Intelligence Activities, was a significant investigation into US intelligence activities. Established in 1975, this committee exposed numerous covert operations run by the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies. Most notably, it documented that among the targets of Operation CHAOS were anti-Vietnam War activists, student organizations, and other segments of the USé counterculture. The committee vindicated her on the point that the government had indeed undertaken an extensive spy network through the CIA, neutralizing perceived threats to the political and social order of the US.
McCoy’s Analysis and Contextualizing CIA Methods
A wider context of the CIA’s secret operations during the Vietnam War is provided by Alfred W. McCoy’s book The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, published in 1972. Although McCoy focuses on the CIA’s devolution in the international narcotics trade, he provides sufficient evidence of the CIA’s secret operations. McCoy’s work illuminates the methods utilized by intelligence agencies in controlling domestic dissent, showing how the CIA employed manipulative tactics to influence public opinion and suppress political movements. His analysis further confirms Brussell’s thesis: that the government sought hegemony over the political and cultural landscape, which the burgeoning counterculture rejected. McCoy’s past work (by extrapolation) shows the government running an extremely lucrative “business” to pump money into Black Operations . The Programs in the preceding link are too fat to fit in this slim article. Todayé The Program (1990-2025) snips bitcoin, stock trades, engages in human trafficking to monetize NSA black ops (paying Surveillance Role Players). The endless march of Black Operations has been and is an existential threat, it sidetracks truly pressing existential threats .
Marchetti and Marks on CIA Infiltration
One of the central sources vindicating all of Brussell’s findings is the book by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, CIA and the Cult of Intelligence , published in 1974. This expose, written by ex-CIA officer Marchetti and journalist Marks, delves into the agency’s covert operations. The book highlights how the CIA actively infiltrated and disrupted domestic groups, including anti-war protests and radical leftist movements, with the intent to disrupt them. It also mentions the agency’s domestic surveillance, supporting Brussell’s claims of the CIA’s in-depth involvement in monitoring and subverting cultural movements, especially the Global counterculture.
COINTELPRO and FBI Repression
In addition to the CIA, the FBI played a leading role in repressing domestic dissent through programs such as COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program). Nelson Blackstock’s 1973 article Fearing the Black Messiah: The FBI and the Counterculture speaks to how the FBI attempted to penetrate and neutralize civil rights and left-wing counterculture. Although COINTELPRO primarily targeted racial and political activism, it extended to the counterculture, perceiving these movements as threats to national security. Blackstock’s article highlights governmental surveillance and disruption patterns that align with Brussell’s theories regarding targeting cultural figures deemed subversive to the established political order. It is ironic that the CIA promoted LSD, and then the FBI went to war with the Psychedelic movement.
Surveillance and Harassment of Activists, Musicians, Politicians, and Leaders (1960s-2020s)
Name (Years Surveilled) Role/Title/Occupation Agency/Agencies that Harassed/Surveilled Reason for Surveillance/Harassment
Martin Luther King Jr. (1960s) Civil Rights Leader, Baptist Minister FBI (COINTELPRO) Advocacy for racial equality, anti-war activism, influence on the Civil Rights Movement
Malcolm X (1960s-1965) Black Nationalist, Minister, Civil Rights Leader FBI, CIA Leadership in the Nation of Islam, outspoken criticism of U.S. government policies, anti-imperialist views
John Lennon (1970s) Musician, Former Member of The Beatles, Peace Activist FBI, CIA, NSA (Operation CHAOS) Anti-Vietnam War activism, involvement in peace movements that were seen as subversive
Bob Dylan (1960s-1970s) Singer-Songwriter, Protest Music Icon FBI, CIA (Operation CHAOS) Influential political songs, civil rights activism, anti-war stance
Jane Fonda (1970s) Actress, Anti-Vietnam War Activist FBI Anti-Vietnam War protests, especially her trip to North Vietnam in 1972
Angela Davis (1960s-2020s) Political Activist, Scholar FBI (COINTELPRO) Involvement with the Black Panther Party, Communist Party, radical Black Power movement
The Black Panther Party (BPP) (1960s-1970s) Revolutionary Socialist Organization FBI (COINTELPRO) Advocacy for Black self-defense, empowerment, anti-police actions
Huey Newton (1960s-1970s) Co-Founder of the Black Panther Party FBI (COINTELPRO) Leadership in the BPP, advocacy for armed self-defense of Black communities
Bobby Seale (1960s-1970s) Co-Founder of the Black Panther Party FBI (COINTELPRO) Leadership in the BPP, involvement in protests, anti-government rhetoric
Fred Hampton (1969) Chairman of Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party FBI, Chicago Police (COINTELPRO) Radical Black Power leadership, organizing, assassination by FBI
Cesar Chavez (1960s-1970s) Labor Leader, Civil Rights Activist FBI Advocacy for farm workers’ rights, labor organizing, support for nonviolent resistance
Leonard Peltier (1970s-present) Native American Activist and AIM Member FBI Involvement in the American Indian Movement (AIM), conviction for murder of two FBI agents
Tommy Smothers (1960s-1970s) Comedian, TV Host (The Smothers Brothers) FBI Political satire, anti-Vietnam War comments on his television show
Abbie Hoffman (1960s-1970s) Political Activist, Co-Founder of the Yippies FBI, CIA Radical political activities, anti-Vietnam War protests, disruption of the political process
Jerry Rubin (1960s-1970s) Political Activist, Co-Founder of the Yippies FBI Radical protests, Chicago Eight trial, anti-government activism
Sonia Sanchez (1960s-1970s) Poet, Civil Rights Activist FBI Black Arts Movement, Black Power activism
Chicano and Native American Activists (1960s-1970s) Leaders and Activists of Chicano and Native American Rights Movements FBI (COINTELPRO) Advocacy for Indigenous and minority rights, anti-colonialism, self-determination
The American Indian Movement (AIM) (1960s-1970s) Civil Rights and Native American Advocacy Organization FBI (COINTELPRO) Protests for Native American rights, including the 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation
Woody Guthrie (1930s-1950s) Folk Singer, Political Activist FBI Advocacy of labor rights, anti-fascist views, socialist beliefs during the Great Depression
Phil Ochs (1960s-1970s) Singer-Songwriter, Political Activist FBI Anti-Vietnam War protest songs, outspoken political activism
Jackson Browne (1970s-1980s) Singer-Songwriter FBI Involvement in peace activism, left-leaning political causes
Peter, Paul, and Mary (1960s-1970s) Folk Music Trio FBI Anti-Vietnam War activism, civil rights support through their music
Diana Ross and the Supremes (1960s-1970s) Motown Group FBI Political activism, influence on African American population, effect on Civil Rights era
Edward Snowden (2013-2020s) Former NSA Contractor, Whistleblower CIA, FBI, NSA Revealing global surveillance programs, exposing government overreach and privacy violations
Assata Shakur (1970s-present) Political Activist, Former Black Panther FBI Alleged involvement in 1973 police officer’s murder, political activism, living in exile in Cuba
Julian Assange (2010s-2020s) Wikileaks Founder CIA, FBI, UK Intelligence Publishing classified government materials, exposing U.S. military actions, facing extradition to the U.S. for espionage charges
Documented Evidence and National Archives Findings
The declassification of many government documents over the decades has further validated Brussell’s research. Documents obtained from the National Archives reveal the CIA’s surveillance activities targeting cultural figures and political activists. For example, the CIA monitored anti-Vietnam War protests, civil rights leaders, and countercultural icons, including many, many rock stars. These findings confirm Brussell’s assertion that the government viewed the counterculture as a threat and employed dark operations to suppress it.
The Program: Evolution and Continued Surveillance
In the 1990s and 2000s, such operations re-emerged under the rubric of The Program, expanding on Operation CHAOS with more advanced technological methods. This paper examines how The Program evolved from Operation CHAOS and its continued impact on surveillance, dissent, and political activism.
The term The Program entered usage after the 1993 Rwandan genocide, the Gulf War, and the emergence of the civil rights and environmental movements. Because the true origins of The Program were and remain murky, it was assumed to have been an outgrowth of earlier projects like CHAOS and COINTELPRO, combining both domestic and foreign wiretaps into a single larger program. However, what was different with the Program was that the more pervasive use of emerging technologies, such as observation, data mining, and surreptitious information gathering from social media sites during the earlier years of Operation CHAOS, had not been as readily available.
Another seminal contributor to the issue is Mark Lowenthal, whose work Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (2003) traced the operations of intelligence agencies in regard to political movements in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century. Lowenthal recorded how the CIA was part of active movements through an assumed premise of counterterrorism and ensuring national security. He discussed the increasing role of information technology and how it expanded the scope of surveillance efforts well beyond what had been conceived during the era of Operation CHAOS. Lowenthal’s work suggests that while The Program was not an explicit continuation of CHAOS, its methods and goals shared many of the same objectives: preventing the rise of political movements that challenged the American status quo (Lowenthal, 2003).
The Expanding Surveillance State: Technology and The Program
The most basic function in which The Program differentiated from its precursor, Operation CHAOS, rested in the monumental technological scaling up of surveillance. During the 1960s and 1970s, the CIA utilized HUMINT surveillance, such as infiltration of protest groups, wiretapping phone lines, and intercepting communications. However, as the digital age advanced, central intelligence agencies began to rely increasingly on signals intelligence and the newly developing open-source intelligence methods whereby they could track people and groups through computers, phones, and eventually the Internet. The Patriot Act of 2001, following the September 11 attack, empowered a broader scope for a systematic surveillance program, directly feeding into The Program. Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who disclosed the so-called Pentagon Papers in 1971, called the new legal framework since 9/11 a path through which state surveillance operations began to stretch into areas that were once considered unconstitutional or too intrusive. According to Ellsberg (2004), this associated surveillance state reached unprecedented levels in the 21st century, making it much harder for such voices of dissent to fail to be picked up by the ever-vigilant intelligence agencies.
Perhaps most significantly, insight into that shift came through the work of Glenn Greenwald on the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013. No Place to Hide, as Greenwald’s book of 2014 explained, was for example the extent of mass surveillance of virtually any digital communication: from emails through social network messages. It was justified as counterterrorism at the time but certainly raises some pretty fundamental questions with regard to the continued suppression of dissent, as movements pertaining to civil rights, labor organizing, and anti-globalization become increasingly put under surveillance. Greenwald’s research underlines the evolution that US intelligence operations have undergone under The Program and suggests that, in the post-9/11 world, many of the same tactics used in CHAOS had been modernized and made more invasive.
The Program and Contemporary Movements
Well into the early 21st century, The Program continued to have an oversized effect on several social and political movements, most notably the anti-globalization protests in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As movements against global economic structures and corporate control, the United States viewed these actions as threats to national and international stability. Agencies like the CIA and FBI continued their attempts at infiltrating, monitoring, and disrupting protest groups through various means, ranging from traditional infiltration and surveillance to the more covert tactics of cyber surveillance.
Besides the targeting of distinct political movements, The Program expanded to monitor public figures in the entertainment industry, particularly those opposing US foreign policy. Public figures included Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and Tim Robbins, all vocal critics of the Iraq War who reportedly had been under surveillance in the broader efforts to quell anti-war dissent (Madsen, 2004). This has been a continuous act on the part of the government in monitoring not only political movements but also those who may sway public opinion and the masses against them.
Less publicized than, and much less studied than, its forerunners, Operation CHAOS and COINTELPRO, The Program represents a turning point in the history of the US government’s strategy of domestic repression. Ongoing development within the technologies of surveillance, combined with new legal frameworks and growing fears concerning national security created an environment in which a much larger and more intrusive politics-monitoring Program could be built. While some of the means utilized in The Program were quite reasonably shown to be part of counterterrorism, they inevitably raised serious questions regarding civil liberties and the erosion of privacy. From Operation CHAOS to The Program, that historical arc reveals a pattern reminiscent of how the government has sought to retain control over political narratives and suppress opposition as methods and technologies evolve.
Widening the Investigation into Covert Activities against the Counterculture
While most publicity has concerned the government’s secret operations during the 1960s and 1970s-Operation CHAOS being the best known-the better-documented aspects of the US surveillance and suppression effort, further scholarship adds an important dimension to our consideration of the era. This expanded question now encompasses the military’s role, media complicity, the part played by cultural icons, modern parallels in contemporary surveillance, and were drug control interfaces with countercultural surveillance. These help us see the multiagency efforts taken to control dissent and maintain the political order of the time. The Role of the US Military in Domestic Surveillance
Besides the CIA and FBI, the US army was responsible for most of the domestic surveillance through military intelligence and the NSA. The government had used military intelligence in the post-Vietnam War era to spy on domestic anti-war movements. Operations positioned the NSA to intercept communications between US dissident groups and foreign organizations as part of a more efficient intelligence machinery aimed at suppressing political as well as cultural movements. Such military involvement put a finger on the pulse of the state apparatus brought down against those challenging the US political status quo during the 1960s and 1970s.
Documentary Films and Oral Histories
Documentaries and oral histories fill in some gaps in knowledge about the experiences of those targeted or active in covert operations. Films like The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) dramatize the reach of the operations into dissent, while the documentary The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (2003) is a direct look at intelligence operations, including CHAOS. Oral histories by retired CIA officers, like John Stockwell, speaking in the first person about illegal activities of the agency, provide texture to understanding the surveillance and political control of the time.
Role of US Media US media actively supported or passively propagated the narratives inspired by the government. Many mainstream outlets helped the government frame civil rights activists, feminists, and anti-Vietnam War protestors as subversive threats to national security. Such research in this area may show that complicity within the media created public perceptions about the counterculture and the government’s surveillance efforts in service of intelligence agencies’ agendas such as the CIA and FBI.
Cultural Icons and Their Influence
The neutralization of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Abbie Hoffman had been only part of the broader effort of the government in repressing anti-government views. This surveillance on Lennon by the FBI revealed, together with the opening of government records, how high-profile cultural icons posed a danger not solely from their political actions but through their cultural importance as well. Works like Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon by Robert Rosen therefore give reason to believe that a government fearful of its power to mobilize young people against the prevailing political order acted.
Historical Parallels with Modern Surveillance Modern practices of surveillance, especially in this post-War on Terror and post-Snowden era, have shown striking parallels with the tactics utilized in Operation CHAOS. The depth of the NSA domestic surveillance programs-from mass data collection-reflects the continuity and growth of state surveillance across time. Comparatively, the two periods make more sense with how government surveillance has evolved and how consistent the motives are behind such an activity: the control of dissent and maintenance of political stability. This parallel serves as a useful lens to consider the more enduring legacy of covert operations like CHAOS.
Other Targets
Of course, it wasn’t only Lennon and Dylan who did not escape the prying eyes of government intelligence. Similar to most musicians known to have and express their political views, Frank Zappa also became a target in similar ways by the intelligence community. Active disinformation operations against Hollywood figures perceived as politically subversive did occur. Judging the less well-known targets of such operations places the government’s organized endeavor to contain political activity and its cultural impact when it threatened entrenched values in a wider perspective.
The Drug War and COINTELPRO
The FBI’s COINTELPRO operation, while primarily associated with civil rights and Black Power movements, also encompassed the counterculture, particularly in relation to the linkage between drug use and political radicalism. The government’s obsession with the counterculture’s drug use, particularly with its associations with marijuana and psychedelics, reveals the juncture at which social control and surveillance meet. How the FBI and other agencies linked drug use with political subversion provides further insight into the broader government strategy to neutralize countercultural movements.
Legislative Responses to Covert Operations
A spate of seminal legislative responses succeeded the revelations by the Church Committee. In fact, FISA and the Intelligence Oversight Act were all meant to contain excess in domestic surveillance. Indeed, reforms actually tried to make the operations less secret and more subjected to oversight, although a number of questions about these reforms’ efficacy still remain. It is within an analysis of such legislative responses that understanding will emerge as to how the shift in government efforts towards suppression of dissent after public exposure of covert activities shifted and how the intelligence community adapted to maintain control within new legal constraints.
Media Complicity and Cultural Icons
The US media often supported government narratives, portraying civil rights activists and anti-war protestors as threats to national security. The surveillance and targeting of cultural icons like John Lennon and Frank Zappa highlighted efforts to neutralize figures seen as politically subversive.
From Operation CHAOS to The Program, the historical arc reveals the government’s enduring strategy to control political narratives and suppress opposition. This legacy underscores ongoing concerns about privacy, state control, and the suppression of dissent.
Investigative Journalists and Whistleblowers
While exposes from the Church Committee as early as the 1970s had brought to light the then-surreptitious workings of the CIA, for the most part, The Program was still under wraps until the late 1990s. It was not until after a slew of whistleblowers, former intelligence officers, and investigative journalists released information about the operation that any actual existence or extent was truly understood.
One of the largest exposés about The Program came through John Ranelagh’s The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA (2001), documenting the shifting nature of CIA operations and further surveillance on dissent using new guidelines. Ranelagh insinuated that the general principles of surveillance, political intervention, and neutralization of perceived threats to US interests continued for many years after the official termination of Operation CHAOS.
The True Nature of Covert Operations: Control, Not Protection
These covert operations, whether they are called CHAOS, COINTELPRO, MK Ultra, or The Program, are not simply about protecting national security. At their core, these programs serve to maintain a political system that thrives on secrecy, fear, and control. The real purpose of these agencies is not to prevent terrorism, but to perpetuate their own existence through the surveillance and suppression of dissent.
Counter-Intelligence: A Sinister Game of False Targets
The world of counterintelligence is a shadowy one, in which the lines between genuine national security concerns and the targeting of innocents are blurred. These agencies, often operating with a sense of paranoia and institutional inertia, have historically targeted vulnerable and marginalized groups-those most likely to challenge the status quo-while diverting attention away from actual threats. This is a fundamental flaw in the intelligence apparatus: a fixation on dissenters, rather than on real terrorism.
Scapegoats and Silenced Voices
Throughout history, political and social justice movements, including the civil rights movement, have been targeted not because they posed a real threat to national security, but because they represented a challenge to the established power structure. Figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur were surveilled and persecuted not for any violent intentions, but because their calls for justice and equality posed a threat to the status quo. Their resistance, not foreign power, was the real danger in the eyes of the state.
The Real Terrorists: Unseen and Unscathed
Meanwhile, the real terrorists-those responsible for violent acts or destabilizing regimes abroad-slipped through the cracks, often aided by the very intelligence systems that were meant to prevent such attacks. The CIAé secret operations to overthrow foreign governments in countries like Iran, Chile, and Guatemala are a case in point. Yet, while the U.S. intelligence agencies focused on surveilling dissent at home, they failed to recognize and thwart the genuine threats emerging on the international stage.
The True Purpose: Power and Perpetuation
This dynamic is not a result of incompetence; it is intentional. Intelligence agencies exist in a cycle of self-preservation. The bigger the “threat,” the greater the budget. The more “terrorists” that can be created out of activists, dissenters, or innocent bystanders, the more justification there is for the surveillance stateé existence. This system feeds itself, perpetuating fear and suspicion to maintain its own power and control.
A Never-Ending Cycle
The tragic irony is that those who challenge the system-whether through protest, intellectual debate, or artistic expression-are marked as the enemies of the state, while the true terrorists escape scrutiny. From COINTELPRO to todayé surveillance programs, the pattern remains consistent: the machinery of repression targets the powerless while protecting the powerful. In the end, the surveillance state does not work to protect the public; it works to protect itself, fostering fear and uncertainty to justify its ongoing existence.
The agencies responsible for surveillance have long pursued a policy of repression, turning the very tools meant to protect national security into mechanisms of political control. From MK Ultra to the modern-day surveillance dragnet, these operations have always been more about control than protection. They create a perpetual state of fear and uncertainty, with the agencies at the center of this cycle, unaccountable and unchecked. While the names and methods may change, the core mission of these programs remains the same: to maintain power, suppress dissent, and justify their own existence. And in the process, they turn us all into suspects, while the true dangers remain unchecked and unaddressed.
This study underscores how US intelligence agencies monitored and suppressed dissent during the 20th century and draws modern parallels with contemporary surveillance practices. This historical trajectory highlights enduring tensions between national security, privacy, and civil liberties. The Patriot Act, AUMF, NDAA 1021, and 1022 all grant the U.S. government broad surveillance and detention powers, raising concerns over civil rights, including privacy, due process, and protection from indefinite detention.
“FBI forced to admit Patriot Act powers led to exactly zero major terrorism cases cracked.” Maggie Ybarra – Washington Times. – Thu, 21 May 2015
Dedicated to Brett Redmayne Titley and Sky Ebbets.
“If there had ever been a Conspiracy Theory named Chaos or CoIntelPro, I would have certainly have heard of it, by now…” Rob Kall (telephonically in 2012) owner of OpEdNews, Censor Extraordinaire. Gedankenkontrolle, Rob. MK CHAOS is Germanic, for Mind Kontrolle CHAOS, Rob. Are you listening, or are you too busy curating disinformation?
The only thing MK CHAOS is an error, but an important one on my part.
It should read, “MH Chaos”, not MK Chaos. There are so many it is confusing: MK Ultra, MK Ultra, MK-NAOMI, MK-SEARCH, MK Naomi, MK Delta are all interrelated to MH Chaos. MK Chickwit. MK Often, et al.
To this day, Operation Mockingbird (The Media) keeps it all hush-hush. Shh, don’t use Yandex.com to look up, one-by-one:
Agent Blue, Agent Orange, AVIARY, Blue Beam, Blue Flag, Camelot, CHAOS, Cloverleaf, COINTELPRO, FUBELT, GRILL-FLAME, L.U.C.I.D., MK Chikwit, MK Delta, MK Often, MK Naomi, MK Search, MK Ultra, Mockingbird, Monarch, Paperclip, Phoenix Project, Project Pegasus, Operation Artichoke/Bluebird, Operation Chatter, OPERATION CONDOR, Operation Doormouse, Operation Jefferson, Operation Keelhaul, Operation Garden Potter, Operation MILABS, Operation Midnight Climax, Operation Mind Control, Operation Northwoods, Operation Pique, Operation Red Rock, Operation REX 84,
Catcher, Starfish, Tailwind Project, Control, Operation, Mind, Whale.To, Bibliotecapleyades.Net, Government, Corrupt, Blue, Monarch, Agent, Artichoke, Mk-Ultra, Condor, History, Secret, Montauk, Security, Chaos, Intelligence, Program, Mockingbird, Mkultra and Nazi-CIA Canadian Experiments with Mind Control on Children (Paperclip).
References:
Blackstock, N. (1973). Fearing the Black Messiah: The FBI and the Counterculture. The Nation.
Brussell, M. (1970). The Death of Jimi Hendrix and Monika Dannemann: A Case for CHAOS [Article]. Mae Brussell Archives.
Church Committee. (1975). Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations concerning Intelligence Activities. US Senate.
Colodny, L. (2007). A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the CIA. Skyhorse Publishing.
Ellsberg, D. (2004). Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. Viking.
Greenwald, G. (2014). No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State. Metropolitan Books.
Jeffreys-Jones, R. (2007). The FBI and the American Political Tradition. Yale University Press.
Levine, Y. (2018). Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet. Hachette Books.
Lowenthal, M. (2003). Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (3rd ed.). CQ Press.
Marchetti, V., & Marks, J. D. (1974). CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. Dell Publishing.
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B. COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Covert War on Civil Rights, Political Activism, and Dissent
ATTENTION TARGETED INDIVIDUALS
CIARA TAVARES-REYES
DEC 31, 2024
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and often illegal FBI operations that targeted American citizens and organizations deemed “subversive.” Officially launched in 1956 under the direction of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO was designed to monitor, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt groups that were perceived to pose a threat to U.S. national security or the existing social order. Over the years, it became a tool of oppression against a broad range of groups, including civil rights organizations, Black liberation movements, left-wing political activists, feminist groups, and anti-Vietnam War protestors.
Although the FBI claimed it was focused on protecting national security and combatting violent extremism, in practice, COINTELPRO was often used to suppress legitimate dissent and social movements that challenged the status quo, especially those advocating for racial justice, economic equality, and an end to militarism. The extent of the FBI’s actions, which included illegal surveillance, disinformation campaigns, and attempts to provoke violence, was not fully revealed until the program was exposed in the early 1970s. Even now, COINTELPRO remains a dark chapter in U.S. history, with lasting impacts on the political landscape.
Origins and Objectives: COINTELPRO Begins
COINTELPRO was initiated in 1956 during the height of the Cold War. The program’s initial focus was on the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), which the FBI viewed as a threat due to its ties to the Soviet Union. J. Edgar Hoover, who had been leading the FBI since 1924, had a deep-seated fear of communism and believed that subversive elements were working to undermine American democracy from within. As a result, the FBI became heavily involved in monitoring and disrupting communist activities.
However, the scope of COINTELPRO quickly expanded beyond communism. By the 1960s, Hoover and the FBI began targeting domestic groups that were pushing for social change, particularly those involved in the burgeoning civil rights movement. The FBI’s stated goal was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” these groups, many of which were seen as a threat to law and order, the American capitalist system, and the dominant social hierarchy.
The FBI’s targets were wide-ranging, including:
Civil rights organizations, most notably the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Black liberation movements, including the Black Panther Party and individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr.
Left-wing and socialist groups advocating for labor rights and economic equality
The feminist movement and women’s liberation organizations
Anti-Vietnam War protestors and groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
What distinguished COINTELPRO from ordinary law enforcement activities was its use of covert and illegal methods to sabotage these movements. These tactics included infiltration, disinformation, psychological warfare, and incitement of violence, all of which were designed to prevent these groups from gaining influence.
Targeting the Civil Rights Movement: The Campaign Against Martin Luther King Jr.
One of the most notorious aspects of COINTELPRO was its relentless campaign against Martin Luther King Jr. and the broader civil rights movement. Despite King’s commitment to nonviolence and his role as a leader advocating for racial equality, the FBI viewed him as a threat to national stability. J. Edgar Hoover, in particular, saw King as a dangerous subversive and worked tirelessly to undermine his reputation and leadership.
The FBI placed King under extensive surveillance, wiretapping his phones and monitoring his activities for years. This surveillance was justified under the pretext that King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), had possible ties to communism, though this was never proven. Instead, the FBI gathered personal information about King, including details of his private life, with the intention of using it to discredit him.
In 1964, the FBI sent an anonymous letter to King, which has since been referred to as the “suicide letter.” The letter, accompanied by a tape recording of King’s alleged extramarital affairs, threatened to expose his private life if he did not commit suicide within a certain time frame. The letter, which was clearly intended to drive King to despair, is now widely recognized as one of the most despicable actions taken by the FBI during this period. Despite these efforts, King remained steadfast in his activism until his assassination in 1968.
The FBI’s campaign against King was part of a broader effort to disrupt the civil rights movement. Other prominent figures and organizations, including the SNCC and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were also targeted. FBI agents infiltrated these organizations, sowed discord among leaders, and spread false rumors to weaken the movement from within. The goal was to prevent the movement from achieving its objectives of dismantling segregation and promoting racial justice.
The Black Panther Party: A Target for Destruction
Another key target of COINTELPRO was the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary socialist organization founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The Panthers were known for their radical stance on racial justice, their community programs (such as free breakfasts for children), and their willingness to use armed self-defense to protect Black communities from police brutality. These activities quickly made the Panthers a prime target for the FBI.
The FBI considered the Black Panther Party to be one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security, labeling the group as a “black nationalist hate group.” COINTELPRO sought to destroy the Panthers by any means necessary, often using highly aggressive and illegal tactics. The FBI’s objectives included:
Preventing the rise of a “Black messiah” who could unify and electrify the Black community
Disrupting the Panthers’ efforts to form coalitions with other radical or moderate groups
Undermining the Panthers’ public image and support within the Black community
Encouraging internal strife and factionalism within the organization
To achieve these objectives, the FBI employed several tactics, including:
Infiltration: The FBI recruited informants to infiltrate the Panthers, providing intelligence on the group’s activities and sowing discord among its members. In some cases, infiltrators acted as provocateurs, encouraging violent actions that would justify law enforcement crackdowns.
Disinformation: The FBI spread false rumors to discredit the Panthers, both within the organization and in the public eye. For example, agents would send fake letters and leaflets to sow suspicion among Panther leaders, often leading to internal conflict and divisions.
Legal Harassment: The FBI and local police forces frequently harassed Panther members through arrests on minor or trumped-up charges. This legal harassment drained the organization’s resources and prevented it from focusing on its community programs and political activism.
One of the most infamous examples of COINTELPRO’s campaign against the Black Panthers was the assassination of Fred Hampton, the charismatic chairman of the Illinois chapter of the party. In 1969, Hampton was killed during a raid on his Chicago apartment by local police, acting on intelligence provided by an FBI informant who had infiltrated the Panthers. Hampton’s murder was widely viewed as an extrajudicial killing, and it became a rallying cry for the broader movement against COINTELPRO.
Attacks on the Anti-War Movement: Suppressing Dissent
In addition to civil rights and Black liberation groups, COINTELPRO also targeted the growing anti-Vietnam War movement. By the late 1960s, opposition to the Vietnam War had reached a fever pitch, with protests erupting across the country. Student organizations, like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), played a leading role in organizing these protests, which often challenged not only U.S. military intervention abroad but also the broader structures of American capitalism and imperialism.
The FBI viewed the anti-war movement as a breeding ground for subversive activities and Communist sympathies. COINTELPRO’s operations against the movement were designed to disrupt its organizational efforts and discredit its leaders. Tactics used against anti-war groups included:
Infiltration and Provocation: As with other movements, the FBI used informants to infiltrate anti-war organizations and provoke violent actions. These provocateurs encouraged confrontations with the police or other authorities, which could then be used to justify crackdowns on the movement.
Discrediting Activists: The FBI spread false information about anti-war leaders to undermine their credibility. Activists were portrayed as Communist sympathizers or moral degenerates, damaging their reputations and the movement’s public image.
Intimidation and Surveillance: Anti-war leaders were subjected to constant surveillance and harassment. The FBI often collaborated with local law enforcement to intimidate activists through arrests, legal pressure, and threats.
The Bureau’s efforts to undermine the anti-war movement were largely successful in the short term, but they also fueled public outrage when the extent of COINTELPRO’s actions was revealed. The FBI’s repression of peaceful dissent became a symbol of government overreach, further eroding public trust in the government during a period of deep social upheaval.
Women’s Liberation and Left-Wing Movements
COINTELPRO’s reach extended beyond civil rights and anti-war activists. During the 1970s, the FBI also targeted the growing feminist movement, which was fighting for gender equality, reproductive rights, and broader social reforms. Radical feminist organizations, such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), were subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration. The FBI viewed these groups as subversive because of their demands for structural changes to American society.
Left-wing and socialist groups, which advocated for workers’ rights, economic equality, and the redistribution of wealth, were also key targets. Groups such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) were placed under intense surveillance, with the FBI using similar tactics of infiltration, disinformation, and legal harassment to disrupt their organizing efforts.
The Fall of COINTELPRO: Public Exposure and Fallout
COINTELPRO remained secret for nearly two decades, but in 1971, it was brought to light in a dramatic and unexpected way. A group of activists calling themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole documents that revealed the existence of COINTELPRO. These documents were leaked to the press, sparking public outrage.
The revelations led to investigations by Congress and other bodies, including the Church Committee, which conducted a broad inquiry into intelligence abuses by the FBI, CIA, and other government agencies. The Church Committee’s findings confirmed many of the most egregious aspects of COINTELPRO and led to reforms intended to curtail government surveillance and protect civil liberties.
However, the long-term impact of COINTELPRO is still felt today. The program left lasting scars on social movements in the U.S., undermining trust between activists and law enforcement, fostering divisions within movements, and contributing to the overall decline of the radical left in the 1970s. Moreover, COINTELPRO’s legacy continues to shape public debates about government surveillance, civil liberties, and the right to dissent.
Conclusion: The Dark Legacy of COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO represents one of the darkest chapters in the history of U.S. law enforcement. Through its covert and illegal actions, the FBI sought to undermine some of the most important social movements of the 20th century, from the civil rights movement to the anti-war protests. While the program was officially ended in 1971, its legacy serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked government power and the lengths to which authorities may go to suppress dissent.
The exposure of COINTELPRO has also had profound implications for the ongoing struggle for civil liberties in the U.S. It serves as a reminder that the right to free speech, assembly, and protest is not always guaranteed and must be vigilantly protected against abuse by those in power. As new forms of surveillance and social control emerge in the digital age, the lessons of COINTELPRO remain as relevant as ever.
C. 45 Years After COINTELPRO, FBI Still Thinks ‘Dissent is the Enemy’
More than 60 groups sign letter calling for full investigation into government spying on protest groups
LAUREN MCCAULEY, Mar 08, 2016
Forty-five years ago on Tuesday, peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and unearthed documents exposing the government’s expansive COINTELPRO operations, which aimed to surveil, disrupt, and “neutralize” lawful activist groups, including war protesters, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the American Indian Movement, and the National Lawyers Guild.
Though the COINTELPRO revelations stirred widespread outrage and led to the eventual passage of reform legislation, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, such abuse of activists’ First Amendment rights continues to this day.
More than 60 national and local groups on Tuesday sent a letter (pdf) to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees expressing concern over the FBI’s and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s “abuse of counterterrorism resources to monitor Americans’ First Amendment protected activity.”
The groups, which include Center for Constitutional Rights, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Government Accountability Project, Greenpeace USA, National Lawyers Guild, School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), and Veterans for Peace, among others, are urging the Committees to conduct a full investigation, not unlike the Church Committee, “to determine the extent of FBI and DHS spying in the past decade.”
“The FBI in particular has a well-documented history of abuse of First Amendment rights,” the letter states–referring specifically to the COINTELPRO operations–and such activities have continued, including “sending undercover agents and informants to infiltrate peaceful social justice groups, as well as surveillance of, documenting, and reporting on lawful political activity.”
Groups recently targeted by the FBI include SOAW, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and anti-Keystone XL Pipeline activists. Meanwhile DHS and local fusion centers, which operate as local sources of “counter-terrorism” intelligence gathering and sharing, monitored the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements as well.
What’s more, the groups note, “documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the FBI continuously invokes counterterrorism authorities to monitor groups it admits are peaceful and nonviolent.”
“Labeling activism as terrorism criminalizes political dissent,” the letter states. “Given the current political climate and draconian laws concerning terrorism, individuals may be deterred from participating in completely lawful speech, such as a protest march, by this stigma.”
“That the FBI cannot discern between activism and terrorism shows us that they think dissent is still the enemy,” said Chip Gibbons, legal fellow with Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Defending Dissent Foundation, which organized the letter. “There have been multiple attempts at reform but after each and every one we see the same thing happening again. The FBI claims to no longer investigate groups for their political beliefs, but look at who the FBI investigates under its counterterrorism authority–peace groups, racial justice groups, economic justice groups–the very same types of organizations that were targeted during the heyday of J. Edgar Hoover.”
An Unconstitutional Rampage
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next.
It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk.
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