Has J. Edgar Hoover’s Spy Program Been Resurrected?

The Bureau Apparently Now Targets MAGA Activists

Although the legacy media has buried the story, it turns out that over the last several years the Federal Bureau of Investigation has resurrected a hated and unconstitutional spying program once directed by the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. His program, called the COINTELPRO program, targeted Americans who committed no crime, but simply sought to express their political views.

Former President Richard Nixon directed Hoover to aggressively infiltrate and disrupt many political movements in the late ‘60’s and ‘70’s. This included the Vietnam War activists, the Rev. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders. They even spied on environmentalists, women’s rights groups and animal rights activists.

According to an exclusive Newsweek expose that was published three weeks ago, it now appears the ghosts of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover were resurrected by the Biden administration with a new expanded government spying and infiltration program based on political views. The FBI apparently redefined extremism to include those whom the administration determined hold unacceptable political views.

We now learn that during the Biden administration, the Bureau changed its domestic violence definitions from the "furtherance of ideological agendas" to "furtherance of political and/or social agendas." They report that it was a “gigantic departure for the Bureau.”

As Newsweek explained, “For the first time extremist groups worthy of surveillance and even infiltration could be so labeled because of their politics.” The FBI’s main target: Trump MAGA activists.

A review by its investigative reporters of previously unpublished FBI documents shows, “nearly two-thirds of the FBI's current investigations are focused on Trump supporters and others suspected of violating what the FBI calls "anti-riot" laws.”

Although I’m not a MAGA activist, I personally abhor any government spying program against its citizens. In fact, I was a plaintiff in a 1970’s leftwing legal lawsuit against the COINTELPRO program. The United States Supreme Court ruled in the case, called Hobson vs. Wilson, that the federal government’s political surveillance program was unconstitutional.

Under COINTELPRO the Nixon administration sent FBI agents and the DC police undercover agents to conduct surveillance of antiwar and civil rights activists. They even were directed to conduct what was later called “dirty tricks” or disruptions against activist organizations.

In the 1990’s, I filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to receive my FBI file from the bureau. It ran for hundreds of pages. All of it was innocuous information. And I was never charged with any crime.

But when we obtained documents during discovery under Hobson vs. Wilson, it was creepy to read their reports on public antiwar meetings I attended in the 1970’s. I was particularly upset to learn that over several years FBI informants spent time socializing with me and my friends, even hanging out in my apartment. Many times they also espoused weird, provocative and even violent ideas to me. They were provocateurs.

Once, one of the informants threw stones at D.C. Police during an antiwar demonstration that I attended in the nation’s capital. The riot never occurred. But it was unsettling to discover that this law enforcement official tried to spark a riot to discredit us.

Now, however, this type of spying apparently has been resurrected by the administration. In their view, MAGA views are extremist. They had to be met with the force of federal surveillance and infiltration.

Let’s pause for a moment and examine what happens when FBI Field Offices are officially instructed to develop a surveillance and infiltration program to spy on its citizens. We learned about this in documents uncovered during our discovery in Hobson vs. Wilson.

First, they have to covertly examine activist writings. Then they send in FBI agents or informants to attend public meetings. They follow activists. They befriend them. They assign agents to covertly monitor their movements.

In other words, FBI field offices activate a formal surveillance program for each “target.” These are active spy programs. They are not passive.

Under COINTELPRO, they also committed “dirty tricks” or tried to disrupt organizations.

At one time, the left opposed government spying. In my lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union and later the Center for Constitutional Rights took up the COINTELPRO case as both organizations loathed the idea of governmental spying on lawful Americans who were simply exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech.

Noam Chomsky, a fellow Substack colleague, appropriately decried the surveillance program eighteen years ago, saying in an interview, “COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police.”

But now it appears that the past has become the future. As Newsweek charged, “The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump's army of MAGA followers.”

The news organization concludes that the redefinition “was a subtle change, little noticed, but a gigantic departure for the Bureau. Trump and his army of supporters were acknowledged as a distinct category of domestic violent extremists, even as the FBI was saying publicly that political views were never part of its criteria to investigate or prevent domestic terrorism.”

This is the background upon which I read this Newsweek account. They revealed that in the last few years the FBI quietly changed the definition of people who are supposedly anti-government. Previously, people who were subversive were defined as "anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism.”  In governmental bureaucratize, these people were called “AGAAVE.”

Newsweek tells us the bureau decided to create a new subcategory called "AGAAVE-Other.” These are citizens who were a threat but do not fit into its definition as “anarchist, militia or Sovereign Citizen groups.” Their target was supporters of Donald Trump.

The news organization also told us that “Introduced without any announcement, and reported here for the first time, the new classification is officially defined as domestic violent extremists who cite anti-government or anti-authority motivations for violence or criminal activity not otherwise defined, such as individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party.”

Here’s where it gets to those MAGA activists. Newsweek says, “Though Trump and MAGA are never mentioned in the official description of AGAAVE-Other, government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former president's supporters.”

Where are the protests from the ACLU? Or from other progressive groups? Or from Democratic Members of Congress or its party leaders?

Their silence is damning.