From The Ramparts

US Police State Tactics Are Nothing New

US Police State Tactics Are Not New

“This activity led the CIA to establish proprietary companies, fronts, and covers for its domestic operations. So widespread did they become that President Johnson allowed the then CIA Director, John McCone, to create in 1964 a new super-secret branch called the Domestic Operations Division (DOD), the very title of which mocked the explicit intent of Congress to prohibit CIA operations inside the U.S. This disdain for Congress permeated the upper echelons of the CIA. Congress could not hinder or regulate something it did not know about, and neither the President nor the Director of the CIA was about to tell them. Neither was J. Edgar Hoover, even though he was generally aware that the CIA was moving in on what was supposed to be exclusive FBI turf.” Domestic Surveillance: The History of Operation CHAOS by Verne Lyon Covert Action Information Bulletin, Summer 1990

Most of us are familiar with the FBI’s infamous Counter Intelligence Program known as COINTELPRO that was a major component of the illegal activities and egregious abuses during the 1960's and beyond. What many are not aware of is the fact the US government has engaged in domestic surveillance, spying, disruption, repression and murder since day one. Their first targets were dissident whites, Native Americans and Africans during the nation’s infancy. As the nation grew the ruling elites feared the masses might one day wake up to what they were doing to them, so they kept a tight reign on them and monitored them lest threats to their predatory and exploitative capitalist system crop up. The key to success for the ruling elites was cheap labor. To secure it, they first attempted to enslave the Native American population while at the same time clearing and expropriating their lands. The Europeans’ attempts to enslave the so called “Indians” failed miserably so they turned to importing whites to serve as indentured servants and when that did not work out well, to importing kidnaped Africans. They kept the Africans under constant surveillance and formulated extensive slave codes and spy networks to prevent insurrections, uprisings and mass escapes.
Following the Civil War, the US elites recruited more Europeans to immigrate into this country to counterbalance the growing population of Africans in AmeriKKKa and help with the imperialist expansion into the West. It was only natural the whites who came would chafe at their working conditions, lowly status and they attempted to organize to challenge the exploitation they experienced. This lead to serious and often violent confrontations. The owners and their managers were pitted against the laborers. The capitalists called on the government (police, militia and courts) and they intervened on the side of the owners. By the late 1800's labor strife was the norm and the state forces almost always sided with owner class in numerous violent confrontations. The federal and local governments kept an eye on what their propagandists called “radicals and anarchists” and waged out and out war on labor organizers (mine and railroad workers).
Coming into the early twentieth century the federal government spied on blacks, the fledgling labor movement and the new radicals called “communists”. WWI ushered in repression and spying under the aegis of “national security” (the Palmer Raids), by WWII John Edgar Hoover and the military were in full stride; spying on AmeriKKKans with impunity. Following WWII with the creation of the CIA things started to get really out of hand. “For over fifteen years, the CIA, with assistance from numerous government agencies, conducted a massive illegal domestic covert operation called Operation CHAOS. It was one of the largest and most pervasive domestic surveillance programs in the history of this country. Throughout the duration of CHAOS, the CIA spied on thousands of U.S. citizens. The CIA went to great lengths to conceal this operation from the public while every president from Eisenhower to Nixon exploited CHAOS for his own political ends... During the life of Operation CHAOS, the CIA had compiled personality files on over 13,000 individuals including more than 7,000 U.S. citizens as well as files on over 1,000 domestic groups. The CIA had shared information on more than 300,000 persons with different law enforcement agencies including the DIA and FBI. It had spied on, burglarized, intimidated, misinformed, lied to, deceived, and carried out criminal acts against thousands of citizens of the United States. It had placed itself above the law, above the Constitution, and in contempt of international diplomacy and the United States Congress. It had violated its charter and had contributed either directly or indirectly to the resignation of a President of the United States. It had tainted itself beyond hope. ” Domestic Surveillance: The History of Operation CHAOS by Verne Lyon http://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html.
Keep in mind the legislation that created the CIA forbade domestic activity on US citizens. But this did not stop the good ol’ boy network from engaging in illegal activities along with their counterparts in the FBI, DIA, NSA and a host of other alphabet agencies. “We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes. We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as ‘vacuum cleaners’, sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens. The tendency of intelligence activities to expand beyond their initial scope is a theme which runs through every aspect of our investigative findings. Intelligence collection programs naturally generate ever-increasing demands for new data. And once intelligence has been collected, there are strong pressures to use it against the target. The pattern of intelligence agencies expanding the scope of their activities was well described by one witness, who in 1970 had coordinated an effort by most of the intelligence community to obtain authority to undertake more illegal domestic activity... Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and to much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs" surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous -- and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations -- have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity. Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed -- including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform. Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.”- INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS BOOK II FINAL REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES UNITED STATES SENATE TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL, SUPPLEMENTAL, AND SEPARATE VIEWS APRIL 26 (legislative day, April 14), 1976.
This report, The Church Committee Report was filed in 1976, a little over thirty years ago; alas it’s just as timely and factual today, even more so than in 1976! George W.Bu$h is no different than his father, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy or Eisenhower. The executive branch abusing its’ power is nothing new. Bu$h has merely expanded these abuses and declared himself “the decider” on issues of spying on AmeriKKKans. The problem is, the citizens have no one in their corner, no one to figh on our behalf. The CIA’s Operation Mockingbird and media deregulation are colossal successes having totally undermined the notion of a free press and tuned it into a mind control apparatus that would make the CIA’s MK Ultra program blush. Now the ruling elites are attempting to take over the Internet because they realize it is the last bastion of unfiltered information. So with the unprecedented expansion of the executive branch, the control of all information, total surveillance of the population, the enlargement of the AmeriKKKan gulag, AmeriKKKa has finally morphed into a totalitarian police state Hitler and Stalin would envy. The irony of all this is, the US Congress is more upset and concerned about the recent FBI raid on the offices of one of their own than the wholesale constitutional abuses, invasions of privacy or spying on millions of AmeriKKKans!

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 10:04 AM