7 ms·

Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to e

by selmnoo 13y ago

Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his extramarital affairs if he did not commit suicide. Hoooooly shit. Wow. They actually did that.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Call me paranoid, but I am expecting a comeback of such things, considering this: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops_law_enforcement_as_primary_mission http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops...
afterburner 13y ago
Yup. Supposedly Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife read the letter first, possibly at MLK's request. This is why the NSA revelations are so scary. This kind of stuff has already been done, and the NSA could do it so much worse, to so many more people.
firstOrder 13y ago
If anyone saw the movie "A Serious Man", you may remember that the protagonist's employer received anonymous poison pen letters regarding himself. I know someone that happened to in real life. His name is Louis Proyect. He was a student in the 1960s and got involved with the anti-war movement, and then became a programmer at Metropolitan Life still active in the anti-war movement. The FBI used to send anonymous poison pen letters to his employer, Met Life, in order to try to get him fired. Actually he got his hands on some FOIA documents after a lawsuit, he has some of them on his web page: http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi
cfreeman 13y ago
They sent a tape with recordings of him having sex with a mistress too.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. "Existential risk to the republic" worse. The NSA is not "that bad", yet, probably. But the potential is there, if anything the potential for badness is far worse and the ability to reign it in seemingly diminished. Edit: Also, the fundamental problem today is not the NSA, it's just a symptom. Even if we completely defunded the NSA tomorrow as well as put every NSA employee on a rocket and shot them into the Sun it would still not solve the underlying problem and it would just be a matter of time before we'd be facing the same issues from some other direction. The problem is that the constitution has been weakened, in pretty much every way. But one important aspect to that is the idea that things that happen on the internet aren't "real" in some basic way that makes the absence of legal protection of fundamental liberties online acceptable.
- fit2rule 13y ago
  >As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. I disagree, 100%. The NSA is far more powerful, and far - FAR - more dangerous now than the FBI ever was under Hoover. If you don't think this is the case, I don't think you're really looking honestly at the situation. In the Hoover/FBI days, we had a chance - the Operation Snow Whites' and so on. Now, however, there is no such chance: the NSA has far, far too many safe-guards in place to protect itself, and has infiltrated - and controls, directly - too many so-called 'peace movements' and other groups that might have a chance at awakening the sheeple. We must be more diligent, and with greater resolve to fight back now, than ever before in history - because we are at the cusp of allowing a seriously evil influence over the world to have its will - whereas in the 60's and 70's, people were willing to stand up and fight, now hardly anyone will. At all.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    As I said the potential is worse, likely far worse, but right now it's not quite there (maybe?). Back in the worst days with Hoover they were actively targeting specific political activists and basically running black ops against them. We haven't reached that stage with NSA, as far as I can tell, though the potential is certainly there. Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, it shouldn't be an excuse to wait until things get worse before taking action. The fact that the potential is there should be enough.
a3n 13y ago
Weapons get used. Power gets used. Until 2013 it was possible to think that the NSA spying wasn't really pervasive, wasn't really against all Americans. Now we know better, but we still think that NSA blackmailing of politicians and others is just too out there, conspiracy theory. But the government has already done exactly that, and probably more. And they'll do it again. Dick Cheney's office outed a covert CIA spy for political revenge. Every overly powerful organization, whether government, corporate or just personal wealth, will be corrupted eventually, because they will inevitably attract corrupt people.
mikeash 13y ago
In the wake of Nelson Mandela's death, there were a lot of people who expressed the sentiment that he was not actually a great man, because he espoused violence, because he blew things up, etc. I've seen similar sentiments expressed about Dr. King. In short, he was a womanizer who does not deserve our praise. He is lauded for political purposes. It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. Nobody is perfect, and the more stuff somebody accomplishes, the less perfect they're likely to be. No hero will be without something like this to tarnish their image. By convincing the public that a hero should be perfect, they can hold their past transgressions over them in order to gain compliance, as the FBI tried to do here. They can control the narrative afterwards, by concentrating on the flaws of heroes they don't like, and ignoring the flaws of those they do. It certainly seems to have happened in politics, anyway. Few candidates with anything interesting to say make it to office, since they inevitably have something pointless but "scandalous" in their past. If they do, then the threat of exposure should work wonders for getting them to behave.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. With full awareness that governments have done this, I really wish people would stop thinking that if a group of rational people oppose things done by one of our heroes, that it could only be as a result of a government sockpuppet. Rhetoric as a concept or tool is incredibly expansive, it's hardly limited to just government. And it wasn't that long ago that Che Guevara was insulting the USA during his speech to the UN for the Ku Klux Klan, the existence of which should readily demonstrate that the people themselves will erect biases and grudges of their own independent of (and often contrary to) government interference. The same government responsible for the agency that threatened MLK, also had to forcibly integrate segregated schools, and forcibly adopt so many other civil rights measures that are still debated today. But in any event if you have paid enough attention to politics (or at least American politics) it would be clear that having minor scandals is not only not a roadblock, but can often be used to great effect in a politician's career. If one thinks "the people" are too stupid to figure this out then would could possibly be the point of a democracy? Let people point out what they want about Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, or anyone else (especially if it's true!). People see the world through different lenses, one may worry more about what our hero does "when no one is watching for compliance" as a measure of integrity. Another may worry only about what the hero does in public as a measure of effectiveness. That doesn't make one or the other of these people a government plant, it just means that we're (wonderfully) different.
grecy 13y ago
That's one of the least nasty things they did... they've intentionally infected thousands of people with nasty diseases, overthrown democratically elected governments, assisted in military coups, cheated, lied and stolen for years and years.

by selmnoo 13y ago

PavlovsCat 13y ago

Call me paranoid, but I am expecting a comeback of such things, considering this: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops_law_enforcement_as_primary_mission http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/05/fbi_drops...

afterburner 13y ago

Yup. Supposedly Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife read the letter first, possibly at MLK's request. This is why the NSA revelations are so scary. This kind of stuff has already been done, and the NSA could do it so much worse, to so many more people.

firstOrder 13y ago

If anyone saw the movie "A Serious Man", you may remember that the protagonist's employer received anonymous poison pen letters regarding himself. I know someone that happened to in real life. His name is Louis Proyect. He was a student in the 1960s and got involved with the anti-war movement, and then became a programmer at Metropolitan Life still active in the anti-war movement. The FBI used to send anonymous poison pen letters to his employer, Met Life, in order to try to get him fired. Actually he got his hands on some FOIA documents after a lawsuit, he has some of them on his web page: http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi http://louisproyect.org/2007/08/19/encounters-with-the-fbi

cfreeman 13y ago

They sent a tape with recordings of him having sex with a mistress too.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. "Existential risk to the republic" worse. The NSA is not "that bad", yet, probably. But the potential is there, if anything the potential for badness is far worse and the ability to reign it in seemingly diminished. Edit: Also, the fundamental problem today is not the NSA, it's just a symptom. Even if we completely defunded the NSA tomorrow as well as put every NSA employee on a rocket and shot them into the Sun it would still not solve the underlying problem and it would just be a matter of time before we'd be facing the same issues from some other direction. The problem is that the constitution has been weakened, in pretty much every way. But one important aspect to that is the idea that things that happen on the internet aren't "real" in some basic way that makes the absence of legal protection of fundamental liberties online acceptable.

fit2rule 13y ago
>As bad as we think the NSA is today the FBI in its "glory days" under Hoover were far, far worse. McCarthy was far worse. I disagree, 100%. The NSA is far more powerful, and far - FAR - more dangerous now than the FBI ever was under Hoover. If you don't think this is the case, I don't think you're really looking honestly at the situation. In the Hoover/FBI days, we had a chance - the Operation Snow Whites' and so on. Now, however, there is no such chance: the NSA has far, far too many safe-guards in place to protect itself, and has infiltrated - and controls, directly - too many so-called 'peace movements' and other groups that might have a chance at awakening the sheeple. We must be more diligent, and with greater resolve to fight back now, than ever before in history - because we are at the cusp of allowing a seriously evil influence over the world to have its will - whereas in the 60's and 70's, people were willing to stand up and fight, now hardly anyone will. At all.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  As I said the potential is worse, likely far worse, but right now it's not quite there (maybe?). Back in the worst days with Hoover they were actively targeting specific political activists and basically running black ops against them. We haven't reached that stage with NSA, as far as I can tell, though the potential is certainly there. Maybe you misinterpreted what I said, it shouldn't be an excuse to wait until things get worse before taking action. The fact that the potential is there should be enough.

a3n 13y ago

Weapons get used. Power gets used. Until 2013 it was possible to think that the NSA spying wasn't really pervasive, wasn't really against all Americans. Now we know better, but we still think that NSA blackmailing of politicians and others is just too out there, conspiracy theory. But the government has already done exactly that, and probably more. And they'll do it again. Dick Cheney's office outed a covert CIA spy for political revenge. Every overly powerful organization, whether government, corporate or just personal wealth, will be corrupted eventually, because they will inevitably attract corrupt people.

mikeash 13y ago

In the wake of Nelson Mandela's death, there were a lot of people who expressed the sentiment that he was not actually a great man, because he espoused violence, because he blew things up, etc. I've seen similar sentiments expressed about Dr. King. In short, he was a womanizer who does not deserve our praise. He is lauded for political purposes. It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. Nobody is perfect, and the more stuff somebody accomplishes, the less perfect they're likely to be. No hero will be without something like this to tarnish their image. By convincing the public that a hero should be perfect, they can hold their past transgressions over them in order to gain compliance, as the FBI tried to do here. They can control the narrative afterwards, by concentrating on the flaws of heroes they don't like, and ignoring the flaws of those they do. It certainly seems to have happened in politics, anyway. Few candidates with anything interesting to say make it to office, since they inevitably have something pointless but "scandalous" in their past. If they do, then the threat of exposure should work wonders for getting them to behave.

mpyne 13y ago
> It makes me wonder if the government embraces, and perhaps even plants, ideas like this. With full awareness that governments have done this, I really wish people would stop thinking that if a group of rational people oppose things done by one of our heroes, that it could only be as a result of a government sockpuppet. Rhetoric as a concept or tool is incredibly expansive, it's hardly limited to just government. And it wasn't that long ago that Che Guevara was insulting the USA during his speech to the UN for the Ku Klux Klan, the existence of which should readily demonstrate that the people themselves will erect biases and grudges of their own independent of (and often contrary to) government interference. The same government responsible for the agency that threatened MLK, also had to forcibly integrate segregated schools, and forcibly adopt so many other civil rights measures that are still debated today. But in any event if you have paid enough attention to politics (or at least American politics) it would be clear that having minor scandals is not only not a roadblock, but can often be used to great effect in a politician's career. If one thinks "the people" are too stupid to figure this out then would could possibly be the point of a democracy? Let people point out what they want about Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, or anyone else (especially if it's true!). People see the world through different lenses, one may worry more about what our hero does "when no one is watching for compliance" as a measure of integrity. Another may worry only about what the hero does in public as a measure of effectiveness. That doesn't make one or the other of these people a government plant, it just means that we're (wonderfully) different.

grecy 13y ago

That's one of the least nasty things they did... they've intentionally infected thousands of people with nasty diseases, overthrown democratically elected governments, assisted in military coups, cheated, lied and stolen for years and years.