Author: David Cunningham
File Type: pdf
Using over twelve thousand previously classified documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act, David Cunningham uncovers the riveting inside story of the FBIs attempts to neutralize political targets on both the Right and the Left during the 1960s. Examining the FBIs infamous counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) against suspected communists, civil rights and black power advocates, Klan adherents, and antiwar activists, he questions whether such actions were aberrations or are evidence of the bureaus ongoing mission to restrict citizens right to engage in legal forms of political dissent. At a time of heightened concerns about domestic security, with the FBIs license to spy on U.S. citizens expanded to a historic degree, the question becomes an urgent one. This book supplies readers with insights and information vital to a meaningful assessment of the current situation.Theres Something Happening Here looks inside the FBIs COINTELPROs against white hate groups and the New Left to explore how agents dealt with the hundreds of individuals and organizations labeled as subversive threats. Rather than reducing these activities to a product of the idiosyncratic concerns of longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, Cunningham focuses on the complex organizational dynamics that generated literally thousands of COINTELPRO actions. His account shows how--and why--the inner workings of the programs led to outcomes that often seemed to lack any overriding logic it also examines the impact the bureaus massive campaign of repression had on its targets. The lessons of this era have considerable relevance today, and Cunningham extends his analysis to the FBIs often controversial recent actions to map the influence of the COINTELPRO legacy on contemporary debates over national security and civil liberties.From BooklistCunningham analyzes the counterintelligence program of the FBI that was discovered in the early 1970s and formally stopped as an illegal operation in violation of the targets civil rights. Illegal surveillance was conducted with a broad range of groups from the New Left to civil rights groups to the Ku Klux Klan and related hate groups. Cunningham asserts that while the formal COINTELPRO was outlawed, many of its practices have continued because they are rooted in the strong anti-communist era when the FBIs activities went far beyond mere surveillance. Cunningham reflects on both the similar and distinctly different treatment of the New Left, which FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered to be unpatriotic, and the Klan, which was viewed as patriotic but prone to violence. Cunningham draws connections between structural deficiencies of the agency from the 1970s until today, and their impact on the agencys inability to detect the activities of the 911 terrorists. This is an absorbing book for readers interested in the balance between our governments questionable surveillance practices and concerns about national security. Vernon Ford American Library Association. ltReviewAn absorbing book for readers interested in the balance between our governments questionable surveillance practices and concerns about national security. -- Vernon Ford, Booklist