US Domestic Covert Operations
From the Archive: WAR AT HOME (2/5)
From: yibgle@cts.com (Gary Lee)
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 14:20:26 GMT
Organization: The Gloons of Tharf
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy
Anyone who doubts that the government is capable of using agents
provocateurs to plant phony requests for bomb-making information in this newsgroup as a pretext for censoring the entire net (or that it is capable of much worse if that fails) should take a glance at the following
articles. These posts also contain much that should be of interest to
anyone thinking about joining or starting any kind of anarchist
direct-action campaign or organization.
Gary
/** pn.publiceye: 23.5 **/
** Written 6:49 pm Jan 24, 1991 by nlgclc in cdp:pn.publiceye **
Since COINTELPRO was used mainly against the progressive movements of
the 1960s, its impact can be grasped only in the context of the
momentous social upheaval which shook the country during those years.
Government covert action against the New Left and anti-war movements also persisted, especially as activists mobilized to protest the 1972 Republican and Democratic Party conventions. In San Diego, where the Republicans initially planned to convene, this campaign culminated in the January 6, 1972 attempt on the life of anti-convention organizer Peter Bohmer by a "Secret Army Organization" of ex-Minutemen formed, subsidized, armed, and protected
by the FBI.
One of agent provocateur Joe Burton's main targets was
the United Electrical Workers Union (UE). The FBI falsified records to get
Burton into UE Tampa Local 1201 soon after its successful 1973 organizing
drive upset the Westinghouse Corporation's plan to
develop a chain of non-union plants in the South. Burton's attacks on
genuine activists repeatedly disrupted UE meetings. His ultra-left
proclamations in the union's name antagonized newly organized workers
and gave credibility to the company's red-baiting. Burton also helped
the FBI move against the United Farm Workers and the American Federation
of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
While boring from within, the FBI and police also attack dissident
movements from the outside. They openly mount propaganda campaigns
through public addresses, news releases, books, pamphlets, magazine
articles, radio, and television. They also use covert deception and
manipulation. Documented tactics of this kind include:
La Raza Unida Party of Texas was plagued with repeated, unsolved COINTELPRO-style political break-ins. Former government operative Eustacio "Frank" Martinez has admitted that after the close of COINTELPRO, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) paid him to help destroy La Casa de Carnalsimo, a Chicano community anti-drug program in Los
Angeles. Martinez, who had previously infiltrated the Brown Berets and
the Chicano Moratorium, stated that the ATF directed him to provoke
bombings and plant a drug pusher in La Casa.
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