AOL They were Snowden before Snowden, except no one ever knew who they were until now. Five of the eight burglars who ultimately helped take down J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI domestic surveillance machine have revealed themselves.
The burglars revealed themselves ahead of a new book released Tuesday detailing the daring raid in the midst of the Vietnam War era – ‘The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI.’
The group was formed by a Philadelphia professor who grew increasingly frustrated years of Vietnam War protests had little actual impact. After months of casing an FBI satellite office in Media, Pennsylvania, the eight broke in, stuffed thousands of pages of documents into suitcases and drove getaway cars to a farmhouse.
According to WSWP, the documents revealed widespread domestic surveillance on anyone Hoover considered a threat or dissenter – from an anonymous letter to Martin Luther King, Jr. threatening to reveal his extramarital affairs to interviews of college student war protesters.
Archived articles from 1971 show one document that read: ‘It will enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles and will further serve to get the point across there is an F.B.I. agent behind every mailbox.’
The burglars sent those documents to several journalists, including former Washington Post reporter Betty Medsger – the book’s author.
Despite the Nixon administration’s attempts to get the documents returned, Medsger wrote the first article detailing the FBI’s surveillance two weeks after the break-in.
During the mid-1970s, a Senate investigation revealed more FBI abuses and led to greater congressional oversight, though Hoover was dead by that point.
Knowing they could go to prison for years, two of the burglars – John and Bonnie Raines – even arranged for family members to take care of their three children if they were caught.
But they weren’t, though the eight never met again as a group. When the statute of limitations for filing charges expired and the FBI closed the cased, Medsger writes only one of the burglars was on the FBI’s final list of possible suspects.
John Raines told The New York Times that ‘It looks like we’re terribly reckless people. But there was absolutely no one in Washington – senators, congressmen, even the president – who dared hold J. Edgar Hoover to accountability.’
Three burglars chose to remain anonymous, despite the book’s release and no risk of prosecution. The Raines say they feel a kinship toward NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/01/07/1971-fbi-burglars-reveal-themselves-in-new-book/20802524/
Back then you didn`t have internet and stuff like now days to expose govt. corruption and wrong doings. They had to be physically on spot. Yes Angel, good article. I was going to post this but ya beat me to this one.
Here’s the problem. Back then, these revelations led to “greater congressional oversight”. Now look where we are. There really is only one way to stop this type of infection. It’s called decapitation.
Decapitation is not severe enough, maybe drawn & quartered in a public square in front of the Capital Building, however I would feel guilty putting horses thru that, maybe hit by rocket from their own created drones would be more appropriate!!!!! Whatever, the more severe the better!!!!!! Nothing will change till the Evilists of the world are stopped. The Professor & others involved should been awarded the Medal of Liberty, Freedom, Justice & Truth