Editing COINTELPRO (section)

==Range of targets==
At its inception, the program's main target was the Communist Party.<ref name="Churchill_1990" />

In an interview with the [[BBC]]'s [[Andrew Marr]] in February 1996, [[Noam Chomsky]]—a political activist and [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] professor of [[linguistics]]—spoke about the purpose and the targets of COINTELPRO, saying:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG24vg8js4o|title=Noam Chomsky v Andrew Marr: 'The Big Idea' Part 2|date=August 27, 2006 |accessdate=19 February 2024|via=www.youtube.com}}</ref>

{{quote|COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police, the FBI, under four administrations&nbsp;... by the time it got through, I won't run through the whole story, it was aimed at the entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as political assassination.}}

According to the [[Church Committee]]:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_II.pdf |title=Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Book II, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans) |year=1976 |page=213}}</ref>

{{quote|
While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the "national security" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of the targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a "potential" for violence—and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave "aid and comfort" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause.

The imprecision of the targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black". Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist "Hate Group".

Furthermore, the actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the titles of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Communist Party members but also sponsors of the [[National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee]] and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or deemed to be not sufficiently "anti-Communist". The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of anti-war demonstrations which were cosponsored by the SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included every Black Student Union and many other black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to the InterUniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from [[Antioch College]] ("vanguard of the New Left") to the [[New Mexico Free University]] and other "alternate" schools, and from underground newspapers to students' protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them.}}

Examples of surveillance, spanning all presidents from FDR to Nixon, both legal and illegal, contained in the Church Committee report:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94755_II.pdf |title=Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Book II, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans) |year=1976 |page=9}}</ref>
* [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt|President Roosevelt]] (1933–1945) asked the FBI to put in its files the names of citizens sending telegrams to the White House opposing his "national defense" policy and supporting Col. [[Charles Lindbergh]].
* [[Harry S Truman|President Truman]] (1945–1953) received inside information on a former Roosevelt aide's efforts to influence his appointments, labor union negotiating plans, and the publishing plans of journalists.
* [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|President Eisenhower]] (1953–1961) received reports on purely political and social contacts with foreign officials by [[Bernard Baruch]], [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], and Supreme Court Justice [[William O. Douglas]].
* The [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy administration]] (1961–1963) had the FBI wiretap a congressional staff member, three executive officials, a lobbyist, and a Washington law firm. [[US Attorney General]] [[Robert F. Kennedy]] received the fruits of an FBI wiretap on [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and an electronic listening device targeting a congressman, both of which yielded information of a political nature.
* [[Lyndon Johnson|President Johnson]] (1963–1969) asked the FBI to conduct "name checks" of his critics and members of the staff of his 1964 opponent, Senator [[Barry Goldwater]]. He also requested purely political intelligence on his critics in the Senate and received extensive intelligence reports on political activity at the [[1964 Democratic Convention]] from FBI electronic surveillance.
* [[Richard M. Nixon|President Nixon]] (1969–1974) authorized a program of wiretaps, which produced for the White House purely political or personal information unrelated to national security, including information about a Supreme Court Justice.

Groups that were known to be targets of COINTELPRO operations include:<ref>Various Church Committee reports reproduced online at ICDC: [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIa.htm Final Report, 2A] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061019170937/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIa.htm |date=2006-10-19 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIcb.htm Final Report, 2Cb] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050407085238/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIcb.htm |date=2005-04-07 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIa.htm Final Report, 3A] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111113092955/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIa.htm |date=2011-11-13 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIg.htm Final Report, 3G] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050407051001/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIg.htm |date=2005-04-07 }}. Various COINTELPRO documents reproduced online at ICDC: [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cpusa.htm CPUSA] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080211104916/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cpusa.htm |date=2008-02-11 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/swp.htm SWP] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210110450/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/swp.htm |date=2006-12-10 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/blacknationalist.htm Black Nationalist] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080422174359/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/blacknationalist.htm |date=2008-04-22 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/whitehate.htm White Hate] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080228011953/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/whitehate.htm |date=2008-02-28 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/newleft.htm New Left] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080214121914/http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/newleft.htm |date=2008-02-14 }}; [http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/pr.htm Puerto Rico] .</ref>
* [[Communism|Communist]] and [[Socialism|socialist]] organizations.
* Organizations and individuals associated with the [[civil rights movement]], including Dr. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and others associated with the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]], the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]], the [[Congress of Racial Equality]], and other civil rights organizations.
* [[Black nationalism|Black nationalist]] groups.
* The [[Young Lords]].
* The [[American Indian Movement]].
* [[White supremacy|White supremacist]] groups, including the [[Ku Klux Klan]].
* The [[National States' Rights Party]].
* A broad range of organizations labeled "[[New Left]]", [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] the [[Weatherman (organization)|Weathermen]], and environmental activists.
* Almost all groups [[Vietnam War protests|protesting the Vietnam War]], as well as individual student demonstrators with no group affiliation.
* The [[National Lawyers Guild]].
* Organizations and individuals associated with the [[women's rights]] movement.
* Nationalist groups, such as those seeking independence for [[Puerto Rico]], [[United Ireland|reunification of Ireland]], and Cuban exile movements including [[Orlando Bosch]]'s Cuban Power and the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]].
* Additional notable American individuals.

The COINTELPRO operators targeted multiple groups at once and encouraged splintering of these groups from within. In letter-writing campaigns (wherein false letters were sent on behalf of members of parties), the FBI ensured that groups would not unite in their causes. For instance, they launched a campaign specifically to alienate the Black Panther Party from the Mau Maus, Young Lords, [[Young Patriots Organization|Young Patriots]] and SDS. These racially diverse groups had been building alliances, in part due to charismatic leaders, such as Fred Hampton and his attempts to create a "Rainbow Coalition". The FBI was concerned with ensuring that groups could not gain traction through unity, specifically across racial lines. One of the main ways of targeting these groups was to arouse suspicion between the different parties and causes. In this way the bureau took on a divide-and-conquer offensive.<ref name="Churchill_1990" />

The COINTELPRO documents show numerous cases of the FBI's intentions to prevent and disrupt protests against the [[Vietnam War]]. Many techniques were used to accomplish this task. "These included promoting splits among antiwar forces, encouraging [[red-baiting]] of socialists, and pushing violent confrontations as an alternative to massive, peaceful demonstrations." One 1966 COINTELPRO operation tried to redirect the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] from their pledge of support for the antiwar movement.<ref>{{Cite book |title=COINTELPRO: The FBI's Secret War on Political Freedom |last=Blackstock |first=Nelson |publisher=Pathfinder |year=1975 |isbn=0-87348-877-6 |location=New York |pages=111 |oclc=46439435}}</ref>

The [[FBI]] has said that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics have claimed that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO targeted groups such as the [[Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador]],<ref>Gelbspan, Ross. (1991) ''Break-Ins, Death Threats, and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement'', Boston: [[South End Press]].</ref> the [[American Indian Movement]],<ref name="churchill-vanderwall-1990a" /><ref name="churchill-vanderwall-1988a">Churchill, Ward; and James Vander Wall. ''Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement'', 1988, Boston, [[South End Press]].</ref> [[Earth First!]],<ref>Pickett, Karen. [http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=132 "Earth First! Takes the FBI to Court: Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney's Case Heard after 12 Years], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091115151451/http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=132 |date=2009-11-15 }}, ''Earth First Journal'', no date.</ref> and the [[anti-globalization movement]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://inthesetimes.com/article/1628/to_the_extreme1 |title=To the Extreme |last=Hoffman |first=Hank |date=2001-10-01 |work=In These Times |access-date=2018-12-11 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215173118/http://inthesetimes.com/article/1628/to_the_extreme1 |archive-date=2018-12-15 |language=en-US |issn=0160-5992}}</ref>