What did you find most surprising and/or interesting about the findings of the committee?

The FBI has described COINTELPRO like this at their official website: https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro

The FBI began COINTELPRO—short for Counterintelligence Program—in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, it was expanded to include a number of other domestic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. All COINTELPRO operations were ended in 1971. Although limited in scope (about two-tenths of one percent of the FBI’s workload over a 15-year period), COINTELPRO was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons.

Because COINTELPRO was, of course, covert and meant to be kept secret, how and why do we know about these actions of the FBI? We know about COINTELPRO because of the work of many activists, politicians, and journalists. Also, Watergate led to congressional investigations that revealed the extent to which both the FBI and the CIA were engaging in questionable and sometimes illegal activities in surveillance of the American people.

What most Americans do not know is that one of the reasons that COINTELPRO was revealed was because of a small group of people who decided to break into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania to STEAL documents that might prove that the FBI was engaging in illegal activities.

So, you will consult two documents– the attached reading about the Church Committee and the below video about “The Greatest Heist You’ve Never Heard Of”

Then, answer the following questions:

QUESTION ONE: After reading about the Church Committee, what did you find most surprising and/or interesting about the findings of the committee? Explain your answer.

QUESTION TWO: Regarding the heist, why did the Raines family risk everything to break into the FBI office? Why and how was the heist successful? What did they do with the documents that they found?

QUESTION THREE: When William Webster took over the FBI, he said the previous illegal activities of the FBI and the CIA were wrong. However, he also said that even though those activities were wrong, it did not justify the illegal break-in at Media, PA. What do you think? Were the actions of the burglars justified? What are your thoughts about this whole affair?

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