FBI tracked Martin Luther King's Every Move

[Bjorn Against]

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it...

FBI tracked King's every move
By Jen Christensen
CNN

(CNN) -- FBI wiretaps have "given us the most powerful and persuasive source of all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin Luther King was," as a civil rights leader, according to a leading civil rights scholar.

"You see him being intensely self-critical. King really and truly believed that he was there to be of service to others. This was not a man with any egomaniacal joy of being a famous person, or being a leader," said Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar David Garrow in a recent interview with CNN.

Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the influence of Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under constant surveillance.

The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism.

But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- details the FBI was able to use against him.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/

Don't believe for a second that the same government that spied on King is only looking for terrorists today.

[H2O Man]

1. Recommended.

Hoover et al did a lot more than spy on King. And, for that matter, it's well-documented that army intelligence was tracking Martin in Memphis.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. That list is LONG. I remember Mr. Walt Disney was on their watch list.

[Logical]

4. Well, many here would be OK with this. They were trying to protect us. n-t

[The Straight Story]

5. We will always have an enemy we don't like that we can suspect citizens of belonging to

So that we have an excuse to spy on them when they are a threat to the status quo.

They just switch it up once in awhile when it gets stale. Commies, terrorists, etc

[liberal_at_heart]

6. K&R

[suffragette]

7. K&R

[backscatter712]

8. K&R! These are the same fascist scumfucks that Snowden's warning us about.

Oh, you think the surveillance state will only be turned on foreigners and brown people?

[Downwinder]

9. And were not able to protect him.

Surveillance is not security.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. They are probably the ones...

who orchestrated the assassination

[WillyT]

10. K & R !!!

[Demo_Chris]

11. Today he would be in GITMO or droned. And it would be "legal". nt

[BlueStreak]

12. The FBI is supposed to police the domestric space. The problem here is that the NSA has no business

spying on Americans. And the FISA court has no business authorizing a warrant to spy on Americans in America. The "F" in FISA is "Foreign."

I'm not saying the FBI was right to spy on King, but at least they had the right agency in the right continent.

[maindawg]

14. Until we admit

that the CIA killed John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy ,MLK, we have no chance to proceed.
The CIA killed them, we have to admit that. The lifetime reign of Herbert Hoover is he root cause of the downfall of our republic. The CIA is big brother, and the patriot act is the law. It happened over 10 years ago the ship has sailed the genie is out of the bottle.

[deurbano]

15. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)...

was spied upon in the early 80's. One of my (then) house mates (a lifelong friend) was very involved in the organization, and we used to joke that the FBI or CIA must be tapping our line since we were always hearing clicking noises (something I hadn't heard before... or since) while talking on the phone. Later, there was confirmation that CISPES members (and others) WERE being spied on during that period. Since we had come of age during Watergate, this was not exactly surprising to us, but still rather sobering and depressing to have some of our worst fears about our government realized.

Also.. since we always assumed our calls could be monitored, even if some nefarious plot HAD been hatched in our kitchen (which was not the case), my friend and his "comrades" wouldn't have been stupid enough to broadcast that information via telephone. I doubt REAL terrorists (terrorists with any hope of success, anyway) would be more clueless than we were. (Which means there is a ton of information being gathered that is dramatically undermining our civil liberties without making us any more "safe.&quot

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-02-23/news/mn-44777_1_fbi-headquarters

[CakeGrrl]

16. Yes, I'm sure they did - he was a high-profile, influential black leader

and that scared the hell out of the power structure.

Kind of like now.

I'm pretty sure that COINTELPRO was monitoring and had a hand in decimating the Black Panthers.

Nixon was probably keeping an eye on John Lennon.

This is not rocket science. People in positions of power who have nefarious agendas can abuse the tools at their disposal. And their targets are typically high-profile people who threaten their agenda. Sucks, but it's happened time and again.

To topic, I'm waiting for the proof that Snowden has uncovered the NSA monitoring Joe Blow average nobody. I believe he simply said the capability exists.

To that, I say "No shit. It has for a long time." Whenever I see some James Bond techno stuff in a movie, I assume that if they can conceive of it, the government probably has a prototype.

And what has that to do with me and the way I live my life? Not much.

It is possible to conceive of the power the government wields without living in a constant heightened state of paranoia that they're just going to come wreck my relatively uneventful life for the LOLZ.

Ironically, those who are lionizing Snowden have more to fear from the likes of him: techies with a grudge who abuses their access privileges to suit their own ends. Many here just happen to like his target - this time.

[Catherina]

17. Rec'd. Thank you n/t