COINTELPRO

With the Democratic and Republican national conventions -- and efforts to stifle dissent -- underway this week and next, here's a look back at how the U.S. government has tried to squash the right to protest in the past.   It's a collection of resources from the progressive think-tank Political Research Associates, on the FBI's COINTELPRO program. The archive details "how the FBI broke the law and undermined civil liberties in your state." The page for Massachusetts is here.

COINTELPRO stood for "Counter Intelligence Program" and consisted of a series of sometimes illegal efforts to monitor and disrupt dissident groups in the United States in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. In the words of J. Edgar Hoover:

[T]his program’s objectives are to seek out and neutralize the New Left not only on college campuses but elsewhere as well.

The archive is a joint project with the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, here's an online audio recording, Conventional Dissent: Free Speech in the Streets, from the National Radio Project on dissent at political conventions.

COINTELPRO is officially a thing of the past, but its spirit lives on. Attorney General Michael Mukasey is reportedly ready to approve new, secret powers for the FBI to spy on American citizens.