Renewing the powers of COINTELPRO

A hat tip to ThugLifeArmy.com, via Davey D, and props for their great interview with U. S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney from Georgia. This basically supports my view that we are up against the same forces as before. The New York Times reported the other day that the NYPD (maybe others?) deliberately provoked fights and mass arrests during the Republican National Convention protests. One has to wonder if this was isolated; it may be that one would be naive to assume it was.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney - Some records are already released that throw doubt on the officially unsolved murder of Tupac and the police version of the death. It seems clear that Tupac, who came from a family of very militant Black Panther activists, would himself have been followed and surveilled if not attacked by the FBI and their counter-gang programs. In the past this sort of surveillance was called COINTELPRO or Counter-Intelligence Program and aimed at peace, civil rights and militant activists who were working for social change. It not only surveilled people but it infiltrated groups with informants and provocateurs, created fights within groups, spread rumors about leaders, and created the conditions that led to political assassination, framing and imprisonment or destruction of progressive organizations. Senator Frank Church and others held hearings in the 1970s that exposed and made illegal some of the excesses of the FBI, CIA and military intelligence agencies. Soon Church and others on his committee were voted out of office with the help of intelligence agency support for other candidates. Even before 9/11 ongoing programs against Central America activists and youth culture musicians and leaders that looked exactly like COINTELPRO were exposed. After 9/11 Atty General Ashcroft and others called to renew the powers of COINTELPRO and even tried to pretend 9/11 happened because the CIA. FBI and DIA had their hands tied behind their backs the the Church committee rules. If the released records reveal that federal, state and local government agencies and police were violating Tupac's rights or setting the stage for his murder, there should be an outcry for a full investigation, criminal charges, demotions or firings of intelligence agents involved, and a change in the power of intelligence agencies to continue these practices.

The highlighting in italics relates more to the concept of intelligence agencies controlling our elections. That is just scary to me.