Citizens’ Commission Exposes COINTELPRO (1971)

Mon Mar 08, 1971

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Image: A photograph of the Washington Post news article that broke the story, with the headline “Stolen Documents Describe FBI Surveillance Activities”, authored by Betty Medsger and Ken W. Clawson.

On this day in 1971, a group of activists known as the “Citizens’ Commission” broke into an FBI field office and stole over 1,000 classified documents, exposing COINTELPRO, a widespread surveillance operation of left-wing activists.

The “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI” was an activist group that operated in the U.S. during the early 1970s, of which this is their only known action. Members of the raid mailed these documents anonymously to several U.S. newspapers, most of which refused to publish the information. The Washington Post was the first newspaper willing to publish the story.

The documents detailed widespread illegal surveillance on civil rights activists and contained some of the FBI’s most self-incriminating documents, including several that detailed the FBI’s use of postal workers and switchboard operators to spy on black civil rights activists.

Noam Chomsky stated that analysis of the stolen documents show that 40% of them were devoted to political surveillance, including two cases involving right-wing groups, ten concerning immigrants, and over two hundred on left or liberal groups. Notably, Muhammed Ali, whose 1971 fight with Joe Frazier provided cover for the burglary, was himself a target of this surveillance.

The perpetrators were never caught. Over 40 years after the break-in, some participants decided to go public with their story. In 2014, Betty Medsger’s book “The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret F.B.I.” was released, which details the burglary and revealed the identities of five of the eight participants. In 2014, filmmaker Johanna Hamilton made a documentary about the event, titled “1971”.

  • @[email protected]
    5•4 days ago

    two cases involving right-wing groups, ten concerning immigrants, and over two hundred on left or liberal groups.

    Now that’s a ratio that makes sense for American priorities.