The FBI started the program "Cointelpro"
(Counterintelligence Program). The FBI announced that for
"security reasons" it was terminating the Program as of April 27,
1971.
The "dirty business" included unauthorized bugging
and wiretapping; mail opening; warrantless break-ins ("black bag
jobs"); anonymously mailing reprints of newspaper and magazine articles
(some of them planted in the press by the Bureau itself); disseminating
defamatory information regarding individuals, much of it false; encouraging
street warfare between violence-prone groups; contacting an employee with
derogatory information about a person to get the target fired; using the IRS to
harrass individuals and organizations by audit; and so on.
As one newspaper writer put it, "almost nothing - beyond
lack of imagination - appears to have limited the range of dirty tricks' used by
the FBI..."
The explanation offered by the Bureau for its illegal acts was that the agency found them to be necessary to protect
national security (a catch-all pleading invoked by all federal agencies to
justify their lawless conduct); and to prevent violence.
In the programme's later phases, it became clear that it was
being used against persons and organizations whose beliefs were repugnant to the
Bureau. In short, Cointelpro was J. Edgar Hoover's secret war against what he
considered "dangerous" ideas, or sometimes against individuals who
were unpopular with his friends and supporters.
Whether the Church of Scientology was formally a part of the
Cointelpro or not, many of the same techniques used by the FBI during the 15
years that those programmes were in operation, were also employed against
Scientologists.
During more than 20 years, the Bureau conducted a deliberate
smear campaign against the church, one which has had lasting effects. The agency
became an avid collector of unfavourable news stories and magazine articles
concerning Scientology and its founder. Enquiries from individuals, other
agencies and foreign governments were all provided with these materials and
referred to other sources of derogatory allegations.
To conceal the fact that the FBI was the source of the
slander, Hoover would introduce the libel with the statement that "No
investigation has been conducted by this Bureau concerning Hubbard [or
"Scientology"]. However, our files reveal that... There would then follow
a deadly selection of venemous gossip, rumour and false published reports from
the copious FBI files, but attributed to other founts.
Sometimes, the Director would close his letter with the
words: "I am enclosing some material which I thought you might like to
have."
The "material" referred to would be a packet of
black propaganda in the form of raw data accumulated by the Bureau.
Over the years, the defamatory reports thus generated by the
FBI began to percolate among other governmental agencies and departments which,
in turn, built their own files and became new centers for further diffusion of the falsehoods.
The exchange was a contagion that eventually spread to the remotest corner of
the world. (O. Garrison, Playing
Dirty, pg. 53/60)
Documents reveal that the FBI (as well as other federal
agencies) had secret operatives at work in virtually every branch of the Church
of Scientology. Material obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also
makes it clear that in some instances, church members were coerced into
supplying the agency with confidential information, by the threat of, or offer
of immunity from criminal prosecution on some charge unrelated to Scientology.
In addition to paid spies, spiteful rumour mongers, and
coerced informants, intelligence agencies of the Government made use of illegal
wiretapping and bugging in their warfevered assault on the Church of
Scientology. (O. Garrison, Playing
Dirty, pg. 66)
Documents reveal that the FBI (as well as other federal
agencies) had secret operatives at work in virtually every branch of the Church
of Scientology. Material obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also
makes it clear that in some instances, church members were coerced into
supplying the agency with confidential information, by the threat of, or offer
of immunity from criminal prosecution on some charge unrelated to Scientology.
In addition to paid spies, spiteful rumour mongers, and
coerced informants, intelligence agencies of the Government made use of illegal
wiretapping and bugging in their warfevered assault on the Church of
Scientology.
The nature and extent of this global, electronic
eavesdropping will never be known. Many of the guilty weasels have been too
adroit at covering their tracks.
Judging from the documentary evidence available, however, the
coordinated efforts of the following agencies have been massive and widespread:
the