On March 8, 1971, four people broke into the FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole more than 1,000 classified documents. It was the night of the “Fight of the Century” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and most people, including the police, were absorbed in the live radio broadcast. The four burglars escaped with the documents unwitnessed, and were never caught. In the weeks that followed, documents were mailed anonymously to newspapers around the country from an organization calling itself the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, revealing the existence of a secret illegal surveillance operation that the FBI was conducting against American citizens. Keep reading to learn more about the exposure of the FBI’s counterintelligence program, known as COINTELPRO, and its continuing influence on state surveillance in the present day.

The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI

Even as hundreds of federal agencies searched for them,^[1]The identities of the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI were never discovered and, despite a nationwide manhunt, they were never apprehended. The hunt for them ceased in the 1970s when the statute of limitations for the break-in … Continue reading the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI began sending documents to the press. In April, the Washington Post gave the story front-page coverage, and published a trove of documents. Further releases followed, until the full quantity of 1,000 classified documents had been released.

Researchers and journalists immediately noticed a pattern in the documents. Of the more than 1,000 documents released, only two pertained to the investigation of white nationalist groups, notably the Ku Klux Klan. A handful concerned investigations into Puerto Rican and Black nationalist groups. The remainder—constituting the vast majority of documents—consisted of reports on the surveillance and attempted disruption of predominantly nonviolent left-wing and anti-war groups^[2]Thomas I. Emerson, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bill of Rights, 2 Yale Rev. L. & Soc. Action 169 (Winter 1971). This article can be found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. centered on college campuses.

The stated mission of COINTELPRO, at the personal command of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was to“expose, disrupt, and neutralize”^[3]David Cunningham, The Patterning of Repression: FBI Counterintelligence and the New Left, 82 Soc. F. 209 (September 2003). This article can be found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. the broad spectrum of anti-war organizations composing what was referred to as the New Left. In addition to widespread and warrantless surveillance of American citizens, the FBI used information collected to blackmail, harass, intimidate, and coerce^[4]Andrea Dennis, Remarks, 55 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 759 (Summer 2022). This article can be found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library. individuals belonging to groups deemed subversive.

The scope of the FBI’s extensive counterintelligence programs, collectively designated as COINTELPRO, was shocking to the public. The revelation of the Watergate Scandal the following year only increased sentiments of mistrust in the government, and fueled calls for investigations^[5]Privacy : the collection, use, and computerization of personal data : joint hearings before the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Privacy and Information Systems of the Committee on Government Operations and the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the … Continue reading and increased oversight of counterintelligence agencies by Congress.

The Church Committee: COINTELPRO Revealed

In the Senate, the task of investigating the COINTELPRO investigations fell to the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, more commonly referred to as the Church Committee, after its chairman, Senator Frank Church. The Church Committee issued its final report in 1976 in six parts, all of which are available in full on HeinOnline: I,^[6]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set.II,^[7]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set.III,^[8]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set.IV,^[9]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set.V,^[10]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set.VI.^[11]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set.

The Committee found that COINTELPRO activities were even more extensive than had been indicated in the files released by the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, and had been conducted on an ad hoc basis for decades prior to the official initiation of the program (the FBI dismissed this, and all findings of the Church Committee, as being“editorialized,”^[12]File #62-116395. JFK Assassination Records Archives. This file can be found in HeinOnline’s John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection. although they did not dispute the truth of the Committee’s findings).

The six books of the report contain extensive reportage on the until-then secret activities of numerous intelligence agencies, many of which targeted American citizens for constitutionally protected speech. Key revelations in the report include:

• The concerted effort by the FBI, at the personal command of its director, to disrupt and discredit the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, including FBI surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.,^[13]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. unbeknownst to and without the consent of the then-President or Attorney General. Ironically, Muhammad Ali, whose fight with Joe Frazier provided cover for the break-in that first exposed COINTELPRO, was also revealed to be a target of harassment by the FBI.
• Extensive warrantless CIA and FBI mail-opening^[14]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. and wiretap programs aimed at New Left groups and anti-war student activists.
• The MKUltra^[15]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. program, a collaboration between the CIA and Department of Defense, in which LSD and other psychoactive drugs were administered to American citizens, often times without their consent,^[16]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. with the goal of developing effective “mind control” techniques.
• Operation Hoodwink,^[17]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. one of the most bizarre COINTELPRO programs, in which the FBI attempted to incite violence between the Communist Party-USA and Mafia, largely through the sending of anonymous threatening letters to various mafiosos and leftwing activists.
• The entirety of book five of the report consists of a renewed investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy.^[18]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. The investigation revealed information withheld from the prior Warren Commission investigation, including the CIA’s attempt to recruit the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro,^[19]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. and previously undisclosed contacts between Lee Harvey Oswald^[20]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. and American intelligence services.
• The report features the first public acknowledgment of the existence of the National Security Agency.^[21]Final report of Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities. 6 pts. This document can be found in HeinOnline’s U.S. Congressional Serial Set. Tasked with surveillance and counterintelligence, the NSA was created by a classified memo issued by President Harry Truman in 1952. Its existence remained secret from the public for decades, giving it the internal nickname of “No Such Agency.”

Frank Church was apparently most disturbed by the revelation of the NSA’s surveillance apparatus, which he viewed as a threat to the democratic principles of governance in the United States. He alluded to his findings in the report in an appearance, prior to its release, on Meet the Press. Referring to the then still-unacknowledged National Security Agency, Church warned:^[22]Erich Snow, The Abyss from Which There Is No Return: The Third Amendment Precludes NSA’s Section 215 Program, 21 Intell. Prop. & Tech. L. J. 21 (Fall 2016). This article can be found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library.

The Patriot Act and Surveillance Today

The Church Committee recommended that limitations be put in place to constrict the FBI’s ability to conduct clandestine surveillance, and that Congress establish a charter for the FBI. To circumvent statutory reform, Attorney General Edward Levi issued internal guidance, in the form of the first Attorney General Guidelines. These guidelines, commonly known as the Levi Guidelines,^[23]Aleena Aspervil, If the Feds Watching: The FBI’s Use of a Black Identity Extremist Domestic Terrorism Designation to Target Black Activists & Violate Equal Protection, 62 Howard L.J. 907 (Spring 2019). This article can be found in … Continue reading implemented some but not all of the recommendations of the Church Committee.

However, the exposure of COINTELPRO, and the public humiliation of the FBI, led to cultural shifts within the agency, which became more ever more secretive in subsequent decades. As the scholar David Cunnigham relates, while working with FBI archivist Linda Kloss over the course of research conducted in the early 2000s: “She was continually surprised by the types of information that escaped the censor’s marker then and informed me that much of the uncensored material in the COINTELPRO files would not escape censorship if released to the public today.”^[24]David Cunningham, The Patterning of Repression: FBI Counterintelligence and the New Left, 82 Soc. F. 209 (September 2003). This article can be found in HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library.

The 1980s and 1990s saw the gradual loosening of restrictions^[25]Aleena Aspervil, If the Feds Watching: The FBI’s Use of a Black Identity Extremist Domestic Terrorism Designation to Target Black Activists & Violate Equal Protection, 62 Howard L.J. 907 (Spring 2019). This article can be found in … Continue reading on domestic surveillance imposed by the Levi Guidelines. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Attorney General further loosed restrictions on the FBI’s ability to conduct surveillance of American citizens. This trend toward more expansive and pervasive surveillance was furthered in all intelligence agencies by the rapid passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT^[26]USA Patriot Act: A Legislative History of the Uniting and Strengthening of America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, Public Law No. 107-56 Series I, vols. 1-5 (covering 2001). This title can be found in … Continue reading in October of the same year (a backronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” the law is commonly referred to as “the Patriot Act”).

The law provided sweeping powers to domestic counterintelligence agencies in the United States. It was, and remains, highly controversial for a number of measures, including provisions for federal agents to view the borrowing histories of library patrons.^[27]Privacy of Library Records. This entry can be found in HeinOnline’s National Survey of State Laws. These provisions were staunchly opposed by the American Library Association and the American Association of Law Libraries.

Although many of the Patriot Act’s provisions expired in 2015 (to fanfare from the ALA), its surveillance powers have been preserved and extended by a number of other pieces of legislation, such as the FISA Amendments Act of 2008^[28]Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008., Public Law 110-261, 110 Congress. 122 Stat. 2436 (2008). This law can be found in HeinOnline’s United States Statutes at Large. and the 2015 USA FREEDOM ACT,^[29]Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015, Public Law 114-23, 114 Congress. 129 Stat. 268 (2015). This law can be found in HeinOnline’s United States Statutes at Large. as well as executive orders passed by subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations.

Further Reading

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