DOMESTIC OPERATIONS OF THE CIA

Despite its mandate to handle 'foreign' threats, the CIA has never kept its hands off domestic groups right here in the U.S. Its policy of persecution of such groups has always been based from the belief that they are the tools of foreign manipulation. And why not? If the CIA was manipulating Eastern European organizations during the rebellions of the Prague Spring, it figured the KGB was just as likely to be behind the revolutionary groups here in the U.S. Finding those links pointing to Soviet support was a pretty hard task (because there were none), but it never kept the Agency from its dirty work. Despite the fact that some of the groups, like the Trotskyist SWP, openly eschewed Soviet communism, the CIA could never accept the fact that such organizations were "homegrown" developments of dissent and discontent. They had to be getting their financing from abroad, thought the spookmasters...

During the late 60s, the CIA frequently recruited young men to infiltrate 'subversive' (generally antiwar) groups as agents provocateurs . These infiltrators were to try and agitate the groups and get them to surrender their nonviolent tactics for more militant ones. As part of the joint COINTELPRO effort with the FBI, the CIA maintained wiretaps, 'bugging' devices, hidden tape recorders, and other gimmicks for the invasion of privacy at the premises of the meeting places of many of these groups. Files were maintained on important (but potentially 'threatening') citizens such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tom Hayden. Anybody who was a potential troublemaker of whistleblower soon would discover how the CIA used its relationship with other government agencies (such as the IRS)... and find his or her credit rating slashed, employee record blacklisted, bank account frozen, incoming mail opened, and careers ruined. If they were authors, they might soon discover publishers avoiding them like the Plague; if they were film directors or producerers, they might find their projects suddenly 'cancelled.' You tangle with the Company at your own peril.

The groups that the COINTELPRO effort targeted primarily were the Socialist Workers' Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Young Communist League. Radical, revolutionary, militant, and communist organizations were the initial targets; but liberal, socialist, pacifist, and reformist groups (like Ralph Nader's) often found themselves under scrutiny as well. Often immigrants to the U.S. were monitored for possible ideological or other connections to 'hostile' foreign governments or to 'terrorist' organizations, and lost their right of residency (and speech) in the U.S. when they were suspected of 'un-American' sentiments. (Nixon's "plumbers" squad had some former CIA men on it, and they focused primarily on Nixon's real and perceived enemies, including columnist Jack Anderson, who received death threats.) The CIA found clever ways of discrediting organizations (such as the American Indian Movement) by 'framing' their leaders for crimes they did not commit or creating false trails to violent incidents and terrorist organizations.

The 9/11 "false flag" operation gave the opertunity to establish the Department of Homeland Security which not only brought "terrorism" into the governrment's arsenal for instilling fear into the population, but also enabled the CIA to better coordinate efforts similar to the Phoenix Program used in Vietnam