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2007, Research in Drama Education
AI
The paper explores the intersections of satire, surveillance, and state power through the lens of COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterintelligence program targeting dissident groups. By presenting comedic performances as a means of advocacy, the work emphasizes the importance of engaging audiences in critical dialogue about their rights and liberties in contemporary society. It draws from Freire's educational theories to offer a model for stimulating awareness and promoting active participation in political discourse.
1971 'CITIZEN'S COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE THE FBI' COINTELPRO, 2019
This article explains how secrecy influenced the communication and decision-making processes of the FBI's covert and illegal program to disrupt left-leaning Black political organizations between 1967-1971. Memos exchanged between the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and field offices reveal the explicit techniques for concealing their identities as the source of their anonymous communication. The Bureau's techniques point to the high degree of coordination among organization members required to maintain organizational secrecy; they also point to the ways in which secrecy enabled the organization to engage in reprehensible behavior.
Intelligence and national security, 2020
Activists Under Surveillance presents readers with declassified documents which formed part of the FBI's investigations into persons and groups deemed to pose a threat to America's security. Most of the targeted were activists who had morally and intellectually defensible reasons to oppose some of the U.S. government's policies, such as the mistreatment of minorities or the war against North Vietnam, and yet they were perceived by the FBI as subversive threats potentially being directed by Moscow. Activists Under Surveillance shows how this politicization empowered unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to pursue suspects and, in so doing, criminalize legitimate opposition and seriously compromise civil liberties, particularly during the Cold War. Additionally, the text under review contributes to our understanding of the Intelligence Community's (IC) politicization from the middle of the 20 th century to the present; accordingly, it will be of keen interest to scholars and general readers concerned with this tendency and the dangers it poses to democracy. The documents displayed in Activists Under Surveillance are mostly from the period when the FBI was led by J. Edgar Hoover, and hence in many ways they reflect his worldview, which was, among other things, intensely anti-communist. A diverse array of activists was targeted, in part because they were suspected of having communist sympathies. Libertarians, feminists, anti-racists, activists fighting for native rights and the Palestinian cause, and particularly those opposed to U.S. foreign policy were all suspected by the FBI. Each individual suspect has their own chapter, 1 which begins with the editors' preamble on the investigation, providing helpful background information and context of the person under examination. Most of the documents are written in sterile bureaucratese, and some are heavily redacted despite being declassified. This makes reading some of them a slog, but the effort is worth it since they provide a window into this agencies' activities during much of the Cold War. One position which in particular drew Hoover's ire, and triggered many FBI investigations, was opposition to the war in Vietnam. Notable examples included in Activists Under Surveillance are the investigations of legendary labour leader Cesar Chavez, writer and psychologist Abbie Hoffman, and historian Howard Zinn. In the case of Hoffman (and others discussed below), documents reveal that he was categorized by the FBI as 'potentially dangerous because of background, emotional instability [emphasis added], or activities in groups inimical to the U.S.' (p. 190). Here we have an example of how the FBI at times conflated political opposition with a psychological deficiency, and many readers might be reminded of how political dissent in the Soviet Union was also sometimes treated as a mental illness, although with much graver consequences. One of the ways that the FBI carried out investigations of activists was to attend their rallies, often on college campuses, and take detailed notes of their speeches. Activists Under Surveillance allows readers to see some of the results of these investigations, mainly the summaries of the agents' observations, allowing one to imagine with some amusement an undercover FBI agent present among a group of hippies, listening intensely for comments he considers to violate federal laws, or a threat to the U.S.'s security. One in particular stands out: Abbie Hoffman, who, during a speech at Marshall University on April 21 st , 1972, in front of 400 students, criticized 'the [Nixon] administration in Washington D.C. regarding the continuation of the war in Vietnam, and the renewed bombing of North Vietnam' (p. 202). Hoffman's case is also fascinating because he knew the FBI was watching him, and he reacted, in contemporary terms, by 'trolling' it. For example, he organized a séance to end the Vietnam war by levitating the Pentagon via, among other things, Tibetan chanting. He also
By the 1960s the Civil Rights Movement had evolved towards Black Power and self-defense narratives. This evolution procreated the Black Panther Party, a political organization that sought to establish equality and freedom in impoverished neighborhoods neglected by the government. This program extended beyond the black community and began to form coalitions and to foster a shared narrative between other racial groups in America. Vietnam era communist fear was prevalent as a result of American propaganda. Red smear campaigns later developed to exploit this communist fear for political discrediting of dissenting political opinions that were closely monitored and stifled under the control of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, or the FBI. The FBI is a national security organization with law enforcement and intel responsibilities under the Justice Department. The potential coalition among the lumpenproletariat, society’s lowest caste, under this new social consciousness threatened the de facto American capitalist hierarchies and prompted a refocus of an FBI subsector, Cointelpro, that was specifically designed to, often illegally, interfere and subvert the ideals and goals of the Black Panther Party. This essay examines how the Federal Bureau of Investigations operated in relation to the Panther Party, claim that these operations were directly enforced in an attempt to undermine political free speech and in doing so demonstrate the historical impacts that each group had on the growth and evolution of one another through the late 20th century.
Journal of American History, 2012
Competitive Intelligence Review, 1994
Radical History Review, 2011
The Bush administration's so-called war on terror needs to be situated within the context of earlier efforts to demonize dissent. Since the early 1970s the FBI has increasingly linked the threat of terrorism to lawful domestic social movements to undermine their legitimacy and blur meaningful distinctions between violent and peaceful political activity. In recent years, the FBI has become the leading control agency in what scholars and popular writers term the “surveillance society.” The FBI monitors public spaces and has deployed increasingly sophisticated technological surveillance. The bureau also has developed a new “preventative paradigm,” viewing well-nigh all street protest as dangerous. Recently declassified government records are beginning to document how the FBI, using its expanded powers, played a major role in threatening the rights of free speech and of assembly after 9/11.
Law <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&amp;"/> Policy, 2002
Since 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has governed United States intelligence gathering for national security purposes. Enacted in response to the Watergate-era civil rights violations and revelations of a Senate investigation headed by Senator Frank Church that other presidential administrations had authorized similar warrantless surveillance, FISA established a statutory framework for national security surveillance. Understanding FISA contributes to the study of criminal justice policymaking because law enforcement and intelligence communities view it as an important tool for combatting espionage and terrorism. This article examines the enactment of FISA from the perspective of symbolic politics.
Journal of Intelligence History, 2015
Monthly Review, 2014
During six riveting months in 2013-2014, Edward Snowden's revelations about the National Security Agency (NSA) poured out from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, and Brazil's O Globo, revealing nothing less than the architecture of the U.S. global surveillance apparatus. Despite heavy media coverage and commentary, no one has pointed out the combination of factors that made the NSA's expanding programs to monitor the world seem like such an alluring development for Washington's power elite. The answer is remarkably simple: for an imperial power losing its economic grip on the planet and heading into more austere times, the NSA's latest technological breakthroughs look like a seductive bargain when it comes to projecting power and keeping subordinate allies in line. Even when revelations about spying on close allies roiled diplomatic relations with them, the NSA's surveillance programs have come with such a discounted price tag that no Washington leader was going to reject them. For well over a century, from the pacification of the Philippines in 1898 to trade negotiations with the European Union today, surveillance and its kissing cousins, scandal and scurrilous information, have been key weapons in Washington's search for global dominion. Not surprisingly, in a post-9/11 bipartisan exercise of executive power, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have presided over building the NSA step by secret step into a digital panopticon designed to monitor the communications of every American and foreign leader worldwide. What exactly was the aim of such an unprecedented program of massive domestic and planetary spying, which clearly carried the risk of controversy at home and abroad? Here, an awareness of the more than century-long history of U.S. surveillance can guide us through the billions of bytes swept up by the NSA to the strategic significance of such a program for the planet's last superpower. 1 What the past reveals is a long-term relationship between
The discovery of Soviet eavesdropping on US telecommunications by the Ford Administration in 1974 set off a chain of events that culminated in the creation of the first substantive US government policy on electronic privacy and security. This discovery occurred in the politically sensitive aftermath of the Watergate scandal and led the Ford administration to formulate federal information privacy policy for the first time. This policy recognized the growing link between computers and telecommunications systems and the vulnerability of US information networks. The Ford Administration’s National Security Council implemented a complex plan to secure the US telecommunications infrastructure from foreign eavesdroppers with a clear understanding of the convergence of computers and telecommunications technologies by ordering the Office of Telecommunications Policy and the National Security Agency to examine the problem and recommend solutions. These policies addressed the intelligence community’s concerns over communications security and access to signals intelligence as well as administrative concerns about the US telecommunications market structure. Soviet eavesdropping set in motion the development of modern information privacy policy centered on national security and intelligence priorities and this has been the foundation upon which US privacy policy has been built.
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional …, 2004
American Communist History, 2011
and anyone touched by the spreading contagion of accusation'' (196). Rossinow illustrates the inconsistencies, for many liberals were simultaneously moved by the global bad image of US racism, and thus stood for steps against discrimination in an America they felt otherwise sound. Even so, they boarded persecutory bandwagons in academia, civil liberties and entertainment. Still, liberal civic responsibility sustained progressive state initiatives in the early 60s: public works, civil rights laws, improved social benefits. But the best liberal tradition found no ''champion'' as the 60s evolved. Moreover, the Vietnam War first intensified liberal-left antagonism, until the greater part of public opinion suffused the anti-war movement, indeed bringing liberals and radicals together. Liberals and leftists alike may have entered the twenty-first century in some despair: organized labor manifestly weaker, socialist movements disarrayed, countries once ''socialist'' veering sharply off the course, rightwing agendas federally upheld, the very meaning of progress and vision of objectives obscured. But they would do well to recall what cooperation can change. The nation needs it: ''Reformers and radicals could, either separately or together, work to create that new America'' (260).
Canadian Historical Review, 2017
In 1951 the Canadian government created P.C. 3486 in order to engage in a covert phone-tapping program against individuals, organizations and foreign governments (embassies) on Canadian soil. The program was codenamed ‘PICNIC’ and was run by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Canada’s then security service, specifically out of the Special Branch. In consultation with the RCMP, the government decided to continue the phone-tapping indefinitely with the RCMP writing warrants instead of a judge. The program was continued through section 11 of Canada’s Official Secrets Act. I argue that security can be understood and interpreted as an ideological construct. What did security mean in this period to government and its intelligence services? Security was knowledge, in terms of safeguarding and hiding it, and secretly collecting it. The paper reveals the construction of state apparatus separated from the country's legislative branch and changes our understanding of surveillance in the Cold War. In terms of wiretapping, the RCMP was not 'going rogue' in its targeting of individuals in the Cold War, they were following orders. Link to article: https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.4220 See "Media" section of my page for media coverage of this research
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