What is COINTELPRO?
Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI engaged in a sustained and coordinated campaign to hinder constitutionally-protected activism and neutralize political dissent. The targets included both the well-known leaders and the ordinary folks in the civil rights and peace and justice movements. The truth about COINTLPRO came out during Congressional hearings in 1975. According to the Church committee, the FBI’s activities “would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that . . . the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights....”
Unfortunately, the FBI has never changed its ways... and agents now have even more tools at their disposal to chill dissent.
- Government and Independent Reports on FBI Abuses of Power
- Stories of FBI Harassment
- Activists Respond
- The FBI Guidelines (or, Are They Really Allowed to Do That?)
- The Campaign to Rein in the FBI (Take Action Here!)
we're working to improve our website, much more content about the
new Cointelpro is on its way....
Reports
August
23, 2011: Mother Jones expose on FBI informants
A
fantastic investigative report in Mother Jones magazine (read the
aritcles and subscribe!)
July 27, 2011: Brennan Center Releases FBI: Fact or Fiction?
April
2011: DOJ Reports Increase in Domestic Surveillance
According to a new Department
of Justice report, domestic surveillance activity increased last
year. A few numbers: the FBI sought information about over 14,000
U.S. citizens using over 24,000 National
Security Letters. The Government made over 1,500 requests for electronic
surveillance and physical searches to the FISA court, and none were
denied. The report is only two pages long, and doesn’t provide any
details about the ways the surveillance authorities were used (or
abused). The Inspector General audits which shined the light on FBI
abuses of NSLs and exigent letters and more are no longer required
by law, so the last full accounting we have pertains to pre-2007 abuses
(you can find those reports below).
Feb.
2011: FBI Agents: Abusing our Privacy...
and Watching Porn?
Our allies at the Brennen Centor for Justice and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation have just release devestating reports on FBI abuses of
power and violations of our First and Fourth Amendment rights. In
fact, the
EFF report, Patterns of Misconduct estimates
that agents violated internal guidelines, abused National Security
Letters and used improper evidence to obtain subpoenas and committed
a myriad of other violations about 40,000 times between 2001-2008.
The Brennen Center report,
Domestic Intelligence: New Powers, New Risks, recounts
how the unchecked investigative powers of the FBI undermine counterterrorism
and adversely impact First Amendment activity.
You can read a summary of those reports here... but you probably won't hear about it on the news. Instead, turn to CNN to find out what their investigative reporters turned up: CNN exclusive: FBI misconduct reveals sex, lies and videotape
Oct.
2010: Inspector
General Report: FBI ACTED IMPROPERLY (AGAIN!)
Just days before the September 24 FBI raids, the Department of Justice
Inspector General issued a new report on FBI spying on domestic political
groups – finding that the FBI improperly opened investigations, and
kept the investigations going for too long, put activists' names on
terrorist watch lists for no justifiable reason, and improperly retained
information about First Amendment activities. Read
more here...
April
2010: Reps. Nadler, Sensenbrenner and
Conyers ask the FBI to take steps to stop abuses.
The three members
of the House Judiciary Committee wrote to FBI Director Mueller regarding
abuses of National Security Letters uncovered by the Inspector General:
"As you are aware, the IG report documents numerous improper
actions by FBI personnel to obtain personal telephone record information
on individuals between 2003 and 2006, including actions that "violated
the requirements" of federal law. More than 700 times, such infomration
was obtained about more than 2,000 phone numbers by so-called "exigent
letters," some of which were signed by FBI agents even though
they believed that factual information in the letters was false. For
more than 3,500 phone numbers, the call information was extracted
without even a letter, but instead by email, requests on a post-it
note, or "sneak peaks" of telephone company records. In
several cases, FBI personnel violated additional rules by seeking
telephone records of news reporters,
including one case where actual phone records were improperly obtained
concerning Washington Post and New York Times reporters."
The letter demanded that the FBI fully implement the Inspector Generals recommendations, including make the rules on using National Security Letters clear and binding, and to hold agents who violate the rules accountable. Read the letter here.
Jan.
2010: Inspector
General Report: FBI Abuse of National Security Letters
Apparently, all it takes is a post-it note from an
FBI agent to convince AT&T, Verizon and MCI to turn over our telephone
records. Really! The latest Inspector
General Report on the FBI's abuse of National Security Letters
(NSLs) reveals that the FBI illegally collected thousands of telephone
records between 2002 and 2006. In some cases, FBI agents cited non-existent
terrorism emergencies, but often enough, they simply asked-or scrawled
a number on a post-it. In fact, one senior agent described how getting
access to our phone records was as easy as "having an ATM in
your living room." Read
more here...
July,
2009: Report:
7000 Americans Subject to NSLs Last Year
The use of National Security
Letters (NSLs) is on the rise again. According to a Justice Department
report issued to Congress in May, the FBI used 24,744 NSLs to investigate
over 7000 Americans last year. That's up from 16,804 NSLs issued in
2007. Read
more here…
July
2009:
FBI Watchlists
The DOJ Office of Inspector General has completed a new audit of the
FBI's terrorist watch list. You won't be surprised to learn that they
found the list to be full of errors. Not only are subjects of terrorism
investigations left off the list, but in 72% of cases, the FBI neglected
to remove names from the list in a timely manner. The audit concludes
that there is a 35% error rate.
Stories
from the front:
FBI (and other police agencies) Harassment, Infiltration and Abuses
FOIA
Reveals More FBI Spying (May, 2011)
The FBI spent three years keeping an eye on a Texas activist, creating
a 440 page file about his activities (many were labeled "Domestic
Terrorism"). The New York Times has a detailed story of the case
-- which was uncovered when the activist, Scott Crow got his file
through a FOIA request. Read
the NYT article here. Find out how to file your FOIA request here.
FBI
Raids Homes and offices of union, anti-war and solidarity activists
(9/24/10)
On Friday, September 24, FBI agents fanned out across the Midwest
to raid the homes of twenty activists. Most of the targeted activists
lived in Chicago or Minneapolis and were active in anti-war, international
solidarity and/or the trade union movement. The early morning raids
involved gun-toting agents kicking in doors and spending hours rummaging
through personal belongings. Agents carted away cell phones, computers
and boxes of paperwork along with children’s artwork, posters and
other odds and ends. The offices of the Anti War Committee in Minneapolis
and the Arab American Action Network in Chicago were also searched.
Full
Article here.
-- Action at FBI Headquarters, Washington DC (10/2/2010)
-- Update
(11/1/10)
-- Update
(6/2011)
FBI
Spies on Iowa Peace Activists
(10/08/10)
The FBI spent nine months spying on Iowa peace activists. Hundreds
of pages of documents were released showing that the FBI had surreptitiously
photographed and videotaped activists staked out their homes and accessed
their cell phone and motor vehicle records. The FBI even went through
the garbage of at least one activist. There was no evidence to suggest
that any criminal acts were planned. Read
more here...
EMBARRASSING,
YES. BOMBS? NO.
(10/10)
The Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security contracted with a
private firm that tracked and infiltrated activist groups and developed
Intelligence Bulletins alerting local law enforcement and private
industry about upcoming protests and organizing meetings. Find
links to the bulletins, and read more here...
On April 21, 2009, the FBI added Daniel Andreas San Diego, an animal rights activist, to their Most Wanted Terrorists List. An FBI news release pointed out that San Diego is the first "domestic terrorist" to be added to the list. He is accused of participating in the planting of two bombs in Northern California in 2003 that caused property damage but no human injuries. There have been no new developments in his case, so the timing of this announcement, in the middle of the uproar about the Rightwing Extremism report, has raised a few eyebrows in the animal rights movement as well as in the media.
Activists
Respond
Activists have learned a
lot since the days of COINTELPRO -- most importantly, the power of
solidarity. Recent attempts to vilify and isolate particular groups
of activists have been met with a united front, and a determination
to stand together.
Solidarity for
Solidarity Activists (Feb. 2011)
Nine Palestine solidarity activists from Chicago, mostly Arab-Americans,
were subpeonaed to appear before a grand jury investigating material
support of terrorism on January 25, but they elected to stand in solidarity
with the 14 activists who had previously been subpoenaed (see below);
they have all refused to appear voluntarily. The US Attorney in the
case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has not indicated whether he will force
the activists to appear (giving them the choice of testifying, or
serving time in jail); so the activists wait in limbo. In addition,
although the FBI raided homes and carted away belongings over four
months ago, no one has been indicted yet for any crime and only a
few items have been returned to their owners.
Meanwhile, protests were held in over 50 cities on January 25 in support of the activists, demanding an end to the grand jury, and an end to FBI harassment. The Department of Justice clearly did not realize the hornet’s nest they were stepping on when the FBI raided seven homes last fall and delivered the first subpeonas. Since the raids, hundreds of protests, “know your rights” briefings and other educational events have been held, energizing thousands.
The FBI Raids: Activists Respond to Government Intrusion (part 1) from Thomas Nephew on Vimeo.
.
October 2nd, 2010 - Washington D.C. - Glass Bead Collective in conjunction with Indymedia Minneapolis, Indymedia Pittsburgh and DARTT executed a direct action projection on the J Edgar Hoover Building/FBI Headquarters.
"We are shining a bright light on the F.B.I. and it's unlawful COINTELPRO style nationwide attack on the antiwar movement", said Vlad Teichberg of the Glassbead Collective. He continued "The latest Grand Juries in Chicago and New York have targeted the homes and families of solidarity activists. These latest attacks are effectively criminalizing the support of global social movements and is a blatant attempt to take away the freedom of association from American citizens."
"These F.B.I. raids are a recent reminder of the constant attacks our communities face every day" said Teichberg. He continued, "we wanted to bring truth to power by projecting images of the victims of F.B.I. attacks".
These recent raids only emphasize the importance of organizing for equal justice for all: people, animals, and the earth. This action was in honor and solidarity with political prisoners around the world.
FBI Domestic Intelligence Guidelines
Attorney
General's Guidelines
At the very end
of the Bush Administration, Attorney General Mukasey adopted new guidelines,
ignoring protests from civil liberties groups and some members of
Congress. These new guidelines vastly expanded the investigatory authorities
available to agents without any predicating facts or allegations,
by creating an Assessment tier of investigative activity. The 2008
Guidelines authorize a number of intrusive investigative techniques
during Assessments, including pretext interviews, interviewing members
of the public, recruiting and tasking informants, physical surveillance
not requiring a court order, grand jury subpoenas for telephone or
electronic mail subscriber information, and more.
The Guidelines give FBI agents broad individual discretion to investigate Americans using these techniques without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, or supervisory approval or oversight. They also allow race or religion to be used as a factor, among others, justifying scrutiny. Given the pressure on agents to identify unknown threats to national security before they emerge, such unchecked power invites abuse, including inappropriate profiling according to race, religion or national origin. Read the Guidelines here.
This area is ripe for congressional oversight and long overdue for legislative parameters. At a recent oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committe, FBI Director Mueller testified that religious groups are protected from profiling because FBI agents cannot begin an investigation without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. WRONG! The guidelines allow FBI agents to investigate anyone without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever. After the hearing, Mueller sent a note to the committee saying he had ‘misspoken’. Duh
At a minimum, Congress should obtain and examine aggregate data about the number and type of FBI assessments, the number of individuals who have been targeted with these assessments and whether information gathered in the assessment led to the opening of predicated investigations. Demographic information about the targets of these investigations should also be evaluated in order to establish the empirical extent of profiling according to race, religion and national origin.
Domestic
Investigations and Operations Guide
We learned in June
that the FBI has drafted new rules for its agents, giving them significant
new powers. Civil liberties advocates had been lobbying the FBI to
tighten its rules to safeguard privacy and Constitutional rights.
Unfortunately, the FBI went the wrong way. The timing sets off alarms,
as these changes come when President Obama is asking Congress to allow
FBI Director Mueller to serve beyond the limit of his term.
July
27, 2011: Civil Liberties Groups to Congress: PAY ATTENTION!
In
a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee,
civil rights advocates called on Congress to investigate the reported
changes to the FBI’s guidelines for domestic investigations.
New
Changes to FBI Guidelines Call into Question Proposal to Extend FBI
Director’s Term
Deeplink
by Jennifer Lynch (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
This month, the New York Times reported
that the FBI has updated its internal domestic investigations guidelines
to provide its agents with “significant new powers.” According to
the Times, this update will provide agents with “more leeway to search
databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to
scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.”
These changes are especially troubling as they come on the heels of
the Obama Administration’s efforts to extend FBI Director Robert Mueller’s
term and on
recent reports that the Bureau has once again engaged in controversial
surveillance activities directed at “prominent peace activists and
politically-active labor organizers.”
The FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (also known as the “DIOG”) is a collection of procedures, standards, approval levels, and explanations, created by the FBI, that implements current Attorney General’s Guidelines as they apply to Bureau investigations.
The Bureau most recently updated the DIOG in 2008, after then-Attorney General Mukasey introduced new AG Guidelines that reduced restrictions on certain surveillance protocols by allowing agents to open investigative “assessments” on Americans and American organizations. As we wrote in a blog post at the time, these assessments, which are still in use today, “allow the use of intrusive techniques to surreptitiously collect information on people suspected of no wrongdoing and no connection with any foreign entity.” Even though the DIOG impacts all domestic investigations, the FBI failed to release the 2008 DIOG publicly until EFF filed a FOIA request and later a lawsuit in 2009.
The recent announcement that FBI has once again updated the DIOG to further relax restrictions on invasive investigatory techniques follows the Obama Administration’s push to extend the 10-year term of the FBI Director, which is set to expire this year. The convergence of these two events—the amendment to the DIOG and the proposed extension of the FBI Director’s term—is important. Both were put in place 35 years ago in direct response to the extensive FBI abuses that occurred in the 60s and 70s during the nearly 50-year reign of the FBI’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover.
In the last few years, the DOJ Inspector General found in several reports (see above) that the FBI engaged in significant abuses during Director Mueller’s term as well, including investigating domestic advocacy organizations and engaging in illegal electronic surveillance practices that resulted in what the DOJ IG described as "an egregious breakdown" in the FBI's responsibility to comply with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Last fall, the IG also investigated and uncovered “significant abuses and cheating” on an exam that all FBI agents, analysts, and technicians must take on implementing the DIOG, (See Investigation of Allegations of Cheating on the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) Exam, September 2010 (pdf) at p. 30), suggesting the Bureau does not take seriously the training of its staff on these important rules.
None of these events inspire confidence that the Bureau is doing as much as it should to protect our civil liberties. Although Valerie Caproni, the FBI’s general counsel, has described the latest changes to the DIOG as “more like fine-tuning than major changes,” the changes would allow much broader FBI surveillance of our private and protected activities with much less oversight. In one of the most problematic changes, agents will now be allowed to search for information about a person in a commercial or law enforcement database without any firm evidence for suspecting criminal or terrorist activity and without making any record of their search. Not requiring agents to put information uncovered from these searches into F.B.I. files unless they later opened an assessment will undoubtedly make it much harder to detect and prevent agents from using these databases for non-intelligence related purposes and may in fact overstep the AG Guidelines by creating a new “pre-assessment” stage.
The new Guidelines include additional important changes. For example, the Times notes “the new manual says an agent or an informant may surreptitiously attend up to five meetings” of any group, including those organized for political purposes, before the agent or informant is subject to any rules that would restrict such speech-suppressing activities. The FBI used these tactics recently to infiltrate activists’ circles in the Midwest and Arizona by posing as a lesbian mother to befriend lesbians with small children and by infiltrating political meetings to befriend anarchists. Further, the new Guidelines will relax restrictions on administering lie-detector tests and searching people’s trash and will also allow agents to use secret surveillance squads repeatedly to track targets..
Although the Times provides some information on the new Guidelines, the FBI has not yet made the 2011 DIOG available to the public. This was the same story three years ago, before EFF filed its FOIA lawsuit. At that time the Bureau repeatedly stated its interest in public and lawmaker comments on the 2008 updates, despite the fact that it never made a complete copy available to the public (even the 2008 version released to EFF (available here) was heavily redacted). The Bureau also stated at the time that it “had very substantial outreach to privacy and civil liberties groups”—as if to imply that consulting with these groups ensured the DIOG would protect Americans’ privacy and civil liberties and thus these groups had added their stamp of approval.
We hope the FBI is not planning to repeat this charade in 2011. On Friday, Senators Leahy and Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, urging the FBI to provide an updated briefing to the Senate Judiciary Committee on proposed changes to the DIOG. Apparently, the Committee has not been briefed on the revisions since sometime last year.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved an extension to Mueller’s term on June 16, and Congress will vote on it some time before August 3. It is crucial that Congress and the public at large have access to the new DIOG before that time so that Americans can fully analyze and debate the implications of the unprecedented (and perhaps unconstitutional) proposal to extend the FBI Director’s term.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation Deeplinks Blog
