Police/FBI behaviour in Philly echoes COINTELPRO program.
>WHAT WAS COINTELPRO? "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.
>
>HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT IT? COINTELPRO was discovered
>in March, 1971, when secret files were removed from
>an FBI office and released to news media. Freedom
>of Information requests, lawsuits, and former
>agents' public confessions deepened the exposure
>until a major scandal loomed. To control the damage
>and re-establish government legitimacy in the wake
>of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress and the courts
>compelled the FBI to reveal part of what it had
>done and to promise it would not do it again.
>
>HOW DID IT WORK? The FBI secretly instructed its
>field offices to propose schemes to "misdirect,
>discredit, disrupt and otherwise neutralize
>"specific individuals and groups. Close
>coordination with local police and prosecutors was
>encouraged. Final authority rested with top FBI
>officials in Washington, who demanded assurance
>that "there is no possibility of embarrassment to
>the Bureau." More than 2000 individual actions were
>officially approved. The documents reveal three
>types of methods:
>
>1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not
>merely spy on political activists. Their main
>function was to discredit and disrupt. Various
>means to this end are analyzed below.
>
>2. Other forms of deception: The FBI and police
>also waged psychological warfare from the
>outside--through bogus publications, forged
>correspondence, anonymous letters and telephone
>calls, and similar forms of deceit.
>
>3. Harassment, intimidation and violence: Eviction,
>job loss, break-ins, vandalism, grand jury
>subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups, and physical
>violence were threatened, instigated or directly
>employed, in an effort to frighten activists and
>disrupt their movements. Government agents either
>concealed their involvement or fabricated a legal
>pretext. In the case of the Black and Native
>American movements, these assaults--including
>outright political assassinations--were so
>extensive and vicious that they amounted to
>terrorism on the part of the government.
>
>WHO WERE THE MAIN TARGETS? The most intense
>operations were directed against the Black
>movement, particularly the Black Panther Party.
>This resulted from FBI and police racism, the Black
>community's lack of material resources for fighting
>back, and the tendency of the media--and whites in
>general--to ignore or tolerate attacks on Black
>groups. It also reflected government and corporate
>fear of the Black movement because of its
>militance, its broad domestic base and
>international support, and its historic role in
>galvanizing the entire Sixties' upsurge. Many other
>activists who organized against US intervention
>abroad or for racial, gender or class justice at
>home also came under covert attack. The targets
>were in no way limited to those who used physical
>force or took up arms. Martin Luther King, David
>Dellinger, Phillip Berrigan and other leading
>pacifists were high on the list, as were projects
>directly protected by the Bill of Rights, such as
>alternative newspapers.
>
>The Black Panthers came under attack at a time when
>their work featured free food and health care and
>community control of schools and police, and when
>they carried guns only for deterrent and symbolic
>purposes. It was the terrorism of the FBI and
>police that eventually provoked the Panthers to
>retaliate with the armed actions that later were
>cited to justify their repression.
>
>Ultimately the FBI disclosed six official
>counterintelligence programs: Communist Party-USA
>(1956-71); "Groups Seeking Independence for Puerto
>Rico" (1960-71); Socialist Workers Party (1961-71);
>"White Hate Groups" (1964-71); "Black Nationalist
>Hate Groups" (1967-71); and "New Left" (1968-
>71).The latter operations hit anti-war, student,
>and feminist groups. The "Black Nationalist"
>caption actually encompassed Martin Luther King and
>most of the civil rights and Black Power movements.
>The "white hate" program functioned mainly as a
>cover for covert aid to the KKK and similar
>right-wing vigilantes, who were given funds and
>information, so long as they confined their attacks
>to COINTELPRO targets. FBI documents also reveal
>covert action against Native American, Chicano,
>Phillipine, Arab- American, and other activists,
>apparently without formal Counterintelligence
>programs.
>
>WHAT EFFECT DID IT HAVE? COINTELPRO's impact is
>difficult to fully assess since we do not know the
>entire scope of what was done (especially against
>such pivotal targets as Malcolm X, Martin Luther
>King, SNCC and SDS),and we have no generally
>accepted analysis of the Sixties. It is
>clear,however, that:
>
>-COINTELPRO distorted the public's view of radical
>groups in a way that helped to isolate them and to
>legitimize open political repression.
>
>-It reinforced and exacerbated the weaknesses of
>these groups, making it very difficult for the
>inexperienced activists of the Sixties to learn
>from their mistakes and build solid, durable
>organizations.
>
>-Its violent assaults and covert manipulation
>eventually helped to push some of the most
>committed and experienced groups to withdraw from
>grass-roots organizing and to substitute armed
>actions which isolated them and deprived the
>movement of much of its leadership.
>
>-COINTELPRO often convinced its victims to blame
>themselves and each other for the problems it
>created, leaving a legacy of cynicism and despair
>that persists today.
>
>-By operating covertly, the FBI and police were
>able to severely weaken domestic political
>opposition without shaking the conviction of most
>US people that they live in a democracy, with free
>speech and the rule of law.
>
>[Source: Brian Glick-author of War at Home, South
>End Press]
>
>THE DANGER WE FACE IS .... DID COINTELPRO EVER
>REALLY
Original: COINTELPRO IN ACTION