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strike-breaking to employers, and even built fraudulent cases

against teamster unionizers [12]. FBI: Repression,


And Much More
These brief profiles of FBI operations are just small pieces in a
Spying, and Murder
terrible picture of what this agency does. The FBI works to stop
those trying to improve the world. The FBI spies on Americans, from “There is an entire generation of young people who know
Charlie Chaplin, to Marilyn Monroe, to Norman Mailer. The FBI nothing about how viciously the FBI attacked The Black
carries out political assassinations both in America and abroad. The Panther Party, and why.” - Bobby Seale
FBI partners with white supremacist groups and fights against civil
rights groups. Is this really something you want to be part of? Since its inception the FBI has been used as a tool against
unionizing, black liberation, indigenous rights, economic equality,
Sources: and other progressive movements. Many people who are now seen
[1] Millies, Stephen: “The FBI is a Racist Sewer” as heroes, from MLK to Cesar Chavez, had FBI files for their
<www.workers.org/2017/05/18/the-fbi-is-a-racist-sewer/> ‘subversive activities’. The FBI has spied on anyone working for a
[2] Haas, Jeffery: The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police
Murdered a Black Panther
better world, imprisoned activists on fabricated charges, infiltrated
[3] Churchill, Ward and Vander Wall, Jim: Agents of repression: the FBI's secret wars against organizations to destroy them from the inside, and even murdered
the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement citizens in cold blood. These are not relics of the past, the FBI
[4] Farley, Jonathan: “Preventing the Rise of a ‘Messiah’”
<www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/04/preventingtheriseofamessi>
continues in the same direction to this day [1].
[5] Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF): “FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide
Occupy Monitoring” <www.justiceonline.org/fbi_files_ows>
[6] Wolf, Naomi: “Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy” Fred Hampton, Black Panther Party Leader,
<www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy>
[7] Gibbons, Chip: “Why is the FBI in Bed With Shadowy Corporate Spies?”
Murdered December 4, 1969
<rightsanddissent.org/news/fbi-bed-shadowy-corporate-spies/> Fred Hampton was deputy chairman of the Illinois Black Panther
[8] Levin, Sam: “Revealed: FBI Terrorism Taskforce Investigating Standing Rock Activists”
Party. The FBI started their file on him when he was 19 years old.
<www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/standing-rock-fbi-investigation-dakota-
access> On December 4, 1969, 21 year old Fred Hampton was drugged by
[9] Gage, Beverly: “What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals” an FBI informant and assassinated while lying in bed by local police
<www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html>
working under the direction of the FBI [2]. This was one piece in an
[10] Lardner Jr., George: “15 Years of Dirty Tricks Bared by the FBI”
[11] Heiss, Jasmine: “Is It Time to Free Native American Activist Leonard Peltier” organized effort to destroy the Black Panther party. Many
<www.newsweek.com/time-free-native-american-activist-leonard-peltier-460866> documents from this operation (COINTELPRO) have been
[12] Levin, Sam: “Top Prosecutor in Leonard Peltier Case Urges Clemency in 'Extraordinary'
declassified [3]. COINTELPRO outlined the FBI’s plans to stop the
Move” <www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/04/free-leonard-peltier-obama-open-
letter-james-reynolds> black liberation movement. One of those plans was to “prevent the
[13] Street, Richard: “The FBI’s Secret File on César Chávez” rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black
<www.jstor.org/stable/41171831>
nationalist movement”, bringing to mind the assassinations of Fred
[14] Dobbs, Farrell: “FBI: Anti-Union Weapon for Bosses Against Teamsters”
<www.themilitant.com/2017/8111/811149.html> Hampton, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King [4].
FBI to Martin Luther King Jr. “like all frauds
your end is approaching”
In 1964, after years of surveillance, the FBI sent Dr. King a letter in
an attempt to blackmail him into committing suicide. Alleging
“immoral conduct” in King’s sex life, they told King “you are done”,
and “there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is.”
They sent ‘evidence’ of his “sexual deviance” to his wife, which she
called “mumbo jumbo” [9]. The FBI also attempted to discredit the
Black Panther Party, releasing a ‘Black Panther Coloring Book’
depicting black people stabbing white people in an attempt to smear
the Black Panther Party as promoting violence [10].

Repression of the American Indian


Movement
The American Indian Movement (AIM) was an organization fighting
for the rights of indigenous people, founded in 1968. The FBI treated
them much like the Black Panther Party, infiltrating the organization
and assassinating and imprisoning leaders [3]. AIM member
Leonard Peltier is still in prison for allegedly aiding and abetting in
OWS and Dakota Access Pipeline the deaths two FBI agents. He was initially charged with murder but
FBI documents released in 2012 revealed the FBI treated Occupy all three witnesses recanted and admitted the FBI forced their
Wall Street (OWS) peaceful protesters as a potential terrorist threat statements, suppressed ballistics tests proved the shots didn’t come
[5]. They formed a joint task force with local police, Homeland from Peltier’s rifle, and the FBI was following a red truck, which
Security, regional fusion centers (state and local anti-terrorism Peltier didn’t drive [11]. The former lead prosecutor urged clemency
groups), and private security, working under the name ‘Domestic [12]. Peltier is receiving subpar medical care for his cancer.
Security Alliance Council’. They harvested information about college
students involved in OWS from campus police, met with banks, and
ignored threats against OWS leaders [6]. The Dakota Access Strikebreaking and Cesar Chavez
Pipeline protests began in 2016 to protest a pipeline going through In 1965, as he lead a strike against the brutal labor practices of
Standing Rock Indian Reservation land. The FBI worked with local California grape growers, César Chávez entered the radar of the
police and TigerSwan private security to violently repress protests, FBI. They opened a file on him and began spying on him and his
and is attempting to charge protesters with injuries from an union’s activities, and then covered up knowledge of assassination
explosion caused by the police [7,8]. These are modern attempts on Chávez by the farm owners [13]. This was typical of the
continuations of the old COINTELPRO strategies. FBI’s dealing with unions, as they provided intelligence and

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