CIVIL disobedience is necessary as means of challenging abuse of power. Sometimes people may also have to break the law in order to expose violations of the law (at a much higher level, with crimes of high severity). Now that we remember Martin Luther King (born January 15th, 1929) we should recall that the FBI recorded him and then played a recording back to him, urging him to commit suicide. Surveillance was used for blackmail as part of what we now know as COINTELPRO.
The shrill brigade of critics opposed to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden have repeatedly emphasized their belief that if he truly thought he was engaged in civil disobedience he should have remained in the United States and allowed himself to be jailed and prosecuted like Daniel Ellsberg or even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But now, this argument should be even more difficult for critics to make.
One of the great mysteries of the Vietnam War era has been solved. In 1971, a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and lifted files that helped reveal the FBI’s elaborate program of illegally spying on political groups. The documents, given to journalists at the time, provided the first hints of a secret counter intelligence program, or COINTELPRO, the FBI’s secret program to infiltrate, monitor and disrupt social movements. The burglars called themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI. They were never caught. But decades later, a number of them are coming forward for the first time. The idea for the burglary came from William Davidon, a physics professor and leader of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War. Davidon died last year. Also involved were a social worker named Bob Williamson and John and Bonnie Raines, a married couple with children. Convinced the FBI was infiltrating peace groups, they hatched a plan to stage the break-in on the night of a major championship boxing match. Another of the burglars, Keith Forsyth, described his motivation in a video produced by Retro Report.
On March 8, 1971, a group of eight Vietnam War protestors broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole hundreds of government documents that shocked a nation.
The stolen memos, reports and internal correspondence provided the first tangible evidence that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI was systematically targeting and harassing hundreds of American citizens then known collectively as “the New Left.”
The CIA has another intelligence collecting scandal to deal with. This time it was the November 2013 revelation that a former FBI agent (Robert Levinson) who disappeared while visiting Iran in 2007 was actually working for the CIA. Well, sort of. It seems Levinson was being paid by some CIA analysts to seek out some specific information while visiting Iran. The analysts were not using Levinson as a professional spy but as a professional observer.
Bank of America works with fusion centers, the FBI, state and local police, and campus security to monitor public protest in the United States, newly disclosed documents confirm.
The first thing I’d like to do as I conclude this open letter to the Occupy Movement is to congratulate every single person who consider themselves part of it. Contrary to the false narrative the corporate state has been trying to propagate so desperately, the Occupy Movement was enormously effective and successful if one takes into consideration the massive amount of resources the corporate state invested in suppressing it.
As the first step in rebelling against a broken system and a dysfunctional Congress, the NHRebellion invites you to continue Granny D and Aaron’s work by walking down through New Hampshire. On January 11, 2014—15 years after Granny D began her walk, and beginning on the day Aaron died—we will walk the state from the top to the bottom, recruiting as many citizens in New
Although our hearts remain heavy, on the one-year anniversary of his death we are reflecting as an organization and as individuals on how we can honor Aaron’s legacy by redoubling our commitment to the struggle for a more just and equitable world.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology bears some of the blame for the tragedy of Internet activist Aaron Swartz's suicide, according to author and activist Noam Chomsky, who has spent his academic career at the university.
A system of corruption, not particular crimes. Our focus is not Rod Blagojevich; it is the system of campaign funding in which fundraising is key, and the funders represent the tiniest fraction of the 1%. That system, we believe, corrupts this democracy. (We, and 71% of Americans according to a recent poll.) And until that system changes, no sensible reform on the right or the left is possible. Politicians may continue to play this fundraising game. We believe that New Hampshire can change it.
A high-ranking Democratic senator is trying to beef up the law that let prosecutors go after Internet activist Aaron Swartz.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Wednesday introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, making it the fifth time since 2005 that the chairman of the powerful judiciary committee has brought the bill forward. The bill's key aim is to standardize the disclosure rules governing businesses that have been hacked.
In January we lost Aaron Swartz, 26, to suicide. Or better, as the breadth of his work was wide and its depth, profound: In January we all lost Aaron Swartz to suicide.
After his son was arrested for downloading files at MIT, Bob Swartz did everything in his power to save him. He couldn’t. Now he wants the institute to own up to its part in Aaron’s death.
Suicides, by their nature, are difficult stories to tell. Unless the deceased leaves a note explaining everything, there is only a story with a terrible question mark at the end. Reporters have a natural tendency to focus on one event that must have prompted the decision to end it all. Depression is seldom so tidy.