A Celebration of Democracy, Dissent and Civil Liberties
March 8, 2006, Media, PA
(click on image for
full-size poster)
March 8, 1971: A group calling themselves the "Citizens
Commission to Investigate the FBI" break into the Media, PA FBI office,
removing hundreds of files which when made public document the FBI's
COINTELPRO
[Counter-Intelligence Program – scroll
down for more] policy of spying, infiltration, and harassment of civil
rights and anti-war activism at the time.
Account from the Celebration of Democracy,
Dissent, and Civil Liberties, ,
Wednesday,
March 8, was International Women's Day. It was also the 35th anniversary
of the Break-in at the Media FBI Office. In the face of the Bush's policy
of spying, intimidation of dissent, and disregard for civil liberties,
the Brandywine Peace Community organized a "Celebration of
Democracy, Dissent, & Civil Liberties" in front of the Delaware County
Courthouse located in Media just across from the apartment building where the
Media FBI was
located 35 years ago.
Brandywine was joined by the ACLU, Veterans for Peace and the Women's
International League for Peace & Freedom -
We heard from:
Paul Hetznecker, human rights attorney in Phila. who is working with the
Brandywine Peace Community and other local groups in an effort to challenge
what Paul called the historic "war on dissent" through a campaign of
group filing of Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests; Max Obuszewski,
American Friends Service Committee staff in
Baltimore, MD and target of National Security Agency [NSA] spying, spoke of the
NSA and recommended that we read "The Puzzle Palace", by James
Bamford; Carol Seeley, of the Women's International League for Peace &
Freedom, spoke of the surveillance of women social change pioneers, like Helen
Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt;
Beth Centz, co-founder of the Brandywine Peace Community, spoke of how she, in
the wake of the FBI Break-in 35 years ago, was asked to be an FBI informant;
and Sara Mullin (see her speech below), of the ACLU PA, gave
recent examples of government surveillance and spoke of the ACLU's Freedom of
Information Act outreach workshop campaign with which Brandywine is a
co-sponsor.
Music was provided by
Throughout the demonstration, people held a specially prepared and striking
poster reading: "BUSH: Don't Spy on Me" (above the "Don't Tread
on Me" insignia) and containing the names, logos, and web sites of
Brandywine Peace Community, American Friends Service Committee, and the
American Civil Liberties Union. If you would like
to place one of these posters on your front door, e-mail us at
brandywine@juno.com with your address and will send it out to you.
*************************************************************************************************
Any
society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will
deserve neither and lose both.
- Benjamin
Franklin
March 8, 1971: On International Womens Day, a group calling themselves the
"Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI" broke into the
Media, PA FBI office, removed hundreds of files which when made public
documented the FBI's COINTELPRO [Counter-Intelligence Program] policy of
spying, infiltration, and harassment of civil rights and anti-war activists.
Now, Again, We Must Protect Our Basic Rights...Torture, imprisonment without
charges, domestic spying for the sake of unrestricted presidential war
powers...we must protest the Bush Administrations widespread policy of domestic
spying and
Today, March 8, 2006, International Womens Day, Media, PA in front of the
Delaware County Courthouse across the street from the site of the Media FBI
office 35 years ago.
Join us...
American
Civil Liberties
Womens International
League for Peace &
….. in A Celebration of Democracy,
Dissent, & Civil Liberties!
For more information:
brandywine@juno.com
Celebration of Democracy, Dissent & Civil Liberties
Memorial & Dedication
On
International Womens Day, During A Time of War, March 8, 1971: a group calling
themselves the "Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI"
broke into the resident office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
[FBI], located
then in Media, PA within the County Court Apartment Building, across from the
Delaware County Courthouse. The group removed hundreds of files which
when made public documented the FBI's COINTELPRO [Counter-Intelligence
Program] policy of spying, infiltration, and harassment of civil rights and
anti-war activists.
Now, 35 years later, during another time of war, evidence shows that another
Presidential Administration is conducting
an even more widespread policy of domestic spying and intimidation of the
exercise of free speech and peaceful
dissent.
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little
security will deserve neither and lose
both.
- Benjamin Franklin
On this
On this
democratically by exercising fully and freely our civil liberties; We
will celebrate democracy, dissent, and
civil liberties for all.
American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclupa.org
Brandywine Peace Community,
Veterans for Peace
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom -
**************************************************************************************************
Sara Mullen, Associate Director, ACLU of
I
really wish today were one of those occasions when we looked back at a dark
chapter in our history and wonder “how could that have happened?”
Unfortunately, today’s anniversary is all too relevant.
We’re
all aware that the government is continuing to spy on its critics. They are not
targeted because they are a threat to national security – they’re targeted
because they are a threat to the policies of those in power. In the words of one of our clients, “The
fabric of democracy has a big hole in it.”
Even
if the government has not learned its lessons from the bad old days of
COINTELPRO, we have. Over the past year the ACLU filed Freedom of Information
Act Requests on behalf of dozens if not hundreds of activist groups around the
country as a first step in fighting this appalling practice. We have only recently received responses to
them. I’d like to share the results of one of those requests with you now. This
information will not become public until next Tuesday, so I can’t disclose the
name of the group yet. I can, however, tell you that these relate to another
peace group in
The
documents clearly indicate an ongoing and significant level of government
surveillance on the group’s peaceful activities since September 11, 2001. Some
of the highlights include:
- A memo on the
organization headed “International Terrorism Matters.” It includes the
statement that the group “has been determined to be opposed to the war in
- A detailed account
of one anti-war protest in which the agent provides a count of how many
people are in attendance who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent.
- A log of pages
that the government is withholding. The reason given is that that they
were withheld “pursuant to criteria established by an Executive order to
be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.”
We
will be using the release of these documents to draw media attention to this
issue in addition to a legal challenge down the road. The ACLU and Paul
Hetznecker will also be filing another round of Freedom of Information Act
requests for local groups.
I’m
sure many of you are wondering if you have your own files (and would be
somewhat disappointed if you didn’t). The ACLU is putting on a series of File
Your Own FOIA Requests workshops for individuals. The first one is March 22 at
AFSC. We have fliers with more information about that.
Together we will to continue the fight to “preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the
From the
A break-in to end all break-ins
In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the
government's domestic spying program.
By Allan M. Jalon
ALLAN M. JALON is a
longtime contributor to The Times and other publications on issues of culture
and media.
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago
today, a group of anonymous activists broke into the small, two-man office of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Media, Pa., and stole more than 1,000
FBI documents that revealed years of systematic wiretapping, infiltration and
media manipulation designed to suppress dissent.
The Citizens'
Commission to Investigate the FBI, as the group called itself, forced its way
in at night with a crowbar while much of the country was watching the Muhammad
Ali-Joe Frazier fight. When agents arrived for work the next morning, they
found the file cabinets virtually emptied.
Within a few weeks,
the documents began to show up — mailed anonymously in manila envelopes with no
return address — in the newsrooms of major American newspapers. When the
Washington Post received copies, Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell asked Executive
Editor Ben Bradlee not to publish them because disclosure, he said, could
"endanger the lives" of people involved in investigations on behalf
of the United States.
Nevertheless, the
Post broke the first story on
More documents went
to other reporters — Tom Wicker received copies at his New York Times office;
so did reporters at the Los Angeles Times — and to politicians including Sen.
George McGovern of South Dakota and Rep. Parren J. Mitchell of Maryland.
To this day, no
individual has claimed responsibility for the break-in. The FBI, after building
up a six-year, 33,000-page file on the case, couldn't solve it. But it remains
one of the most lastingly consequential (although underemphasized) watersheds
of political awareness in recent American history, one that poses tough
questions even today for our national leaders who argue that fighting foreign enemies
requires the government to spy on its citizens. The break-in is far less well
known than Daniel Ellsberg's leak of the Pentagon Papers three months later,
but in my opinion it deserves equal stature.
Found among the Media
documents was a new word, "COINTELPRO," short for the FBI's
"secret counterintelligence program," created to investigate and
disrupt dissident political groups in the
The Media documents —
along with further revelations about COINTELPRO in the months and years that
followed — made it clear that the bureau had gone beyond mere
intelligence-gathering to discredit, destabilize and demoralize groups — many
of them peaceful, legal civil rights organizations and antiwar groups — that
the FBI and Director J. Edgar Hoover found offensive or threatening.
For instance, agents
sought to persuade Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself just before he
received the Nobel Prize. They sent him a composite tape made from bugs planted
illegally in his hotel rooms when he was entertaining women other than his wife
— and threatened to make it public. "King, there is one thing left for you
to do. You know what it is," FBI operatives wrote in their anonymous
letter.
Under COINTELPRO, the
bureau also targeted actress Jean Seberg for having made a donation to the
Black Panther Party. The fragile actress ultimately committed suicide after a
gossip nugget based on a FBI wiretap was leaked to the
The sheer reach of a
completely politicized FBI was one of the most frightening revelations of the
Media documents. Underground newspapers were targeted. Students (and their
professors) were targeted. Celebrities were targeted. The Communist Party of
the
Eventually, the
COINTELPRO memos — some from Media and some unearthed later — prompted hearings
led by Rep. Don Edwards of California and by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho on
intelligence agency abuses. In the mid-1970s, the wayward agency began finally
to be reined in.
It is tragic when
people lose faith in their government to the extent that they feel they must
break laws to expose corruption.
But a war that had
been started and sustained by lies had gone on for years. And a government had
betrayed its citizens, manipulating their fear to strengthen its grip on power.
Today, again, many
people worry that their government may be on the road to subverting its own
ideals. I hope that the commemoration of those unknown activists being held
today in
COINTELPRO
History and overview
Copies
of the actual stolen FBI files - from WIN Magazine - published in 1971
(Courtesy Swarthmore Peace Collection) Warning: this is a large .pdf file and
will take time to download.
Below you will find the cover letter which accompanied the FBI files when they were submitted to WIN Magazine. There are also 5 examples of the FBI pages. To see the complete set of pages, please download the above .pdf file.
