Die Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI (englisch für etwa Bürgerkommission zur Untersuchung des FBI) war eine Gruppe von Aktivisten, die der politischen Linken angehören. Ihre einzige der Öffentlichkeit bekannte Aktion ist der Einbruch am 8. März 1971 in das Büro des Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Media, Pennsylvania, bei dem die Akteure über 1000 geheime Dokumente stahlen. Teile der Papiere wurden darauf an verschiedene US-amerikanische Zeitungen versendet, welche dann die aufbereiteten Informationen in der Regel partiell veröffentlichten. Die erste vollständige Veröffentlichung erfolgte 1972 durch ein Printmedium, das der War Resisters League nahestand. Diese Dokumente belegten eine Vielzahl von größtenteils illegalen verdeckten Operation des FBIs gegenüber politisch unliebsamen Gruppierungen, bekannt ist die Operation COINTELPRO, die vom Church Committee aufgearbeitet wurde. Im Januar 2014 erschien ein Buch der Journalistin über den Einbruch und die Aktivisten: „The Burglary: The discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret F.B.I.“. Darin erklärten vier der noch lebenden Mitglieder der Gruppe Details und erzählten die Geschichte der Gruppe aus ihrer Sicht. Im Rahmen der Pressevorstellung des Buches sprachen die vier mit der New York Times. Medsger war die erste Journalistin, die aus dem 1971 zugesandten Material einen Artikel verfasste, der in der Washington Post erschien. Die Taten sind seit 1976 verjährt. (de)
The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI was an activist group operational in the US during the early 1970s. Their only known action was breaking into a two-man Media, Pennsylvania, office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stealing over 1,000 classified documents. They then mailed these documents anonymously to several US newspapers to expose numerous illegal FBI operations which were infringing on the First Amendment rights of American civilians. Most news outlets initially refused to publish the information, saying it related to ongoing operations and that disclosure might have threatened the lives of agents or informants. However, The Washington Post, after affirming the veracity of the files which the Commission sent them, ran a front-page story on March 24, 1971, at which point other media organizations followed suit. "The complete collection of political documents ripped off from the F.B.I. office in Media, Pa., March 8, 1971" was published for the first time as the March 1972 issue of WIN Magazine, a journal associated with the War Resisters League. The documents revealed the COINTELPRO operation, and led to the Church Committee and the cessation of this operation by the FBI. Noam Chomsky has stated: According to its analysis of the documents in this FBI office, 1 percent were devoted to organized crime, mostly gambling; 30 percent were "manuals, routine forms, and similar procedural matter"; 40 percent were devoted to political surveillance and the like, including two cases involving right-wing groups, ten concerning immigrants, and over 200 on left or liberal groups. Another 14 percent of the documents concerned draft resistance and "leaving the military without government permission." The remainder concerned bank robberies, murder, rape, and interstate theft. The theft resulted in the exposure of some of the FBI's most self-incriminating documents, including several documents detailing the FBI's use of postal workers, switchboard operators, etc., in order to spy on black college students and various non-violent black activist groups. Some 40 years after their successful infiltration, some of the perpetrators decided to go public. In 2014, Betty Medsger's book The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret F.B.I. was released, which contains the burglars' description of the burglary and revealed the identities of five of the eight burglars. Filmmaker Johanna Hamilton also made a documentary titled 1971 (2014). (en)
Die Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI (englisch für etwa Bürgerkommission zur Untersuchung des FBI) war eine Gruppe von Aktivisten, die der politischen Linken angehören. Ihre einzige der Öffentlichkeit bekannte Aktion ist der Einbruch am 8. März 1971 in das Büro des Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Media, Pennsylvania, bei dem die Akteure über 1000 geheime Dokumente stahlen. Die Taten sind seit 1976 verjährt. (de)
The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI was an activist group operational in the US during the early 1970s. Their only known action was breaking into a two-man Media, Pennsylvania, office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stealing over 1,000 classified documents. They then mailed these documents anonymously to several US newspapers to expose numerous illegal FBI operations which were infringing on the First Amendment rights of American civilians. Most news outlets initially refused to publish the information, saying it related to ongoing operations and that disclosure might have threatened the lives of agents or informants. However, The Washington Post, after affirming the veracity of the files which the Commission sent them, ran a front-page story on March 24, 1971, (en)