Daily Read: The Cointelpro Revelations

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

A new book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by  Betty Medsger tells the "never-before-told full story of the 1971 history-changing break-in of the FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania"  that made clear the "shocking truth"  that J. Edgar Hoover was spying on Americans and which led to the Ciontelpro scandal.

The NYT report compares the 1971 incident to contemporary events:

"Unlike Mr. Snowden, who downloaded hundreds of thousands of digital N.S.A. files onto computer hard drives, the Media burglars did their work the 20th-century way: they cased the F.B.I. office for months, wore gloves as they packed the papers into suitcases, and loaded the suitcases into getaway cars. When the operation was over, they dispersed. Some remained committed to antiwar causes, while others, like John and Bonnie Raines, decided that the risky burglary would be their final act of protest against the Vietnam War and other government actions before they moved on with their lives."

The NYT video, part of its "retro report" series is definitely worth a watch.

On NPR, one important aspect is how Betty Medsger obtained and accessed the information:

"I think most striking in the Media files at first was a statement that had to do with the philosophy, the policy of the FBI," Medsger says. "And it was a document that instructed agents to enhance paranoia, to make people feel there's an FBI agent behind every mailbox."

The NPR segment is definitely worth a listen:

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