By the unanimous vote of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Martin Luther King Jr. -- in the wake of the 1963 March on Washington and the "I have a dream" speech -- was named "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of Communism, the Negro and national security."by KenI can't help thinking that the three stories below are related, that in fact while they involve three totally separate government entities -- the FBI with its "dangerous Negro of the future" Martin Luther King Jr., the NYPD with its "terrorist" mosques, and the constellation of federal tentacles that gather "intelligence" for the War on Terror -- they're essentially parts of the same story.In the third story, note that the Washington Post reporters are at pains to make clear that the documents from which their report derives, which come to us via leaker Edward Snowden, were handled with great discretion.
The Washington Post is withholding some information after consultation with U.S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods. Sensitive details are so pervasive in the documents that The Post is publishing only summary tables and charts online.
Nevertheless, we should bear in mind that we have this information only because of Edward Snowden. Our government doesn't believe we should know anything about how the $52.6B a year budgeted for national security is spent, or what we're getting for it. Any more than J. Edgar Hoover thought we should know about his personal war on Martin Luther King Jr., or the NYPD thinks we should know it secretly spies on whole mosques even in the absence of any indication of criminal activity.Is it any wonder that our "intelligence" community and its enablers go ballistic about the activities of someone like Edward Snowden? They have the temerity to aid and abet the secret-holders' apparent real No. 1 enemy: us.[I] MLK: AMERICA'S "MOST DANGEROUS NEGRO OF THE FUTURE"
FBI called MLK 'most dangerous Negro' in the U.S. after 'I Have a Dream' speechBy David FergusonThursday, August 29, 2013 7:51 EDTWednesday night on "The Rachel Maddow Show," host Rachel Maddow discussed the fact that not everyone in the U.S. government was happy about the March on Washington in 1963. The Federal Bureau of Investigation -- under the leadership of ultra-conservative cross-dresser and closeted gay man J. Edgar Hoover -- considered the civil rights marchers to be instruments of the global communist threat within U.S. borders.The FBI kept extensive records on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular, recording his phone conversations and keeping agents on a constant surveillance beat. In the days after his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, Hoover circulated an FBI memo that said, "In light of King's powerful, demagogic speech yesterday, we must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of Communism, the Negro and national security."Hoover sent that memo around Washington, the the White House and the Pentagon. By October of 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized unlimited wiretapping and bugging of the civil rights leader."Eight wire taps, 16 bugs," Maddow said, "his phones, his hotel rooms, his bedrooms. And they used the sound that they collected, the used the information they collected in those wiretaps to try to destroy Dr. King, both professionally and personally.""When he was awarded the Nobel Peach Prize," she continued, "J. Edgar Hoover personally convened a press conference in his office in which he personally called Martin Luther King a 'notorious liar.'"FBI intelligence chief Bill Sullivan reportedly assembled a compilation of recorded sounds of King having sex with women who were not his wife, wrote a threatening letter and sent the package to King at home."King," Sullivan wrote, "look into your heart. There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.""Your FBI at work," said Maddow. . . .
[II] NYPD: THESE MOSQUES ARE TERRORIST OPERATIONS (SHH!)
NYPD designates mosques as terrorism organizationsADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZOPublished: YesterdayNEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen "terrorism enterprise investigations" into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.The strategy has allowed the NYPD to send undercover officers into mosques and attempt to plant informants on the boards of mosques and at least one prominent Arab-American group in Brooklyn, whose executive director has worked with city officials, including Bill de Blasio, a front-runner for mayor. . . .
[III] HOW MUCH "INTELLIGENCE" DOES $52.6B BUY?(Courtesy of Public Enemy No. 1, Edward Snowden)
U.S. spy network's successes, failures and objectives detailed in 'black budget' summaryBy Barton Gellman and Greg MillerThursday, August 29, 1:02PM U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government's top secret budget.The $52.6 billion "black budget" for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses those funds or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.The 178-page budget summary for the National Intelligence Program details the successes, failures and objectives of the 16 spy agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, which has 107,035 employees.The summary describes cutting-edge technologies, agent recruiting and ongoing operations. The Washington Post is withholding some information after consultation with U.S. officials who expressed concerns about the risk to intelligence sources and methods. Sensitive details are so pervasive in the documents that The Post is publishing only summary tables and charts online."The United States has made a considerable investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks of 9/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and asymmetric threats in such areas as cyber-warfare," Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said in response to inquiries from The Post."Our budgets are classified as they could provide insight for foreign intelligence services to discern our top national priorities, capabilities and sources and methods that allow us to obtain information to counter threats," he said. . . .
SPEAKING OF EDWARD SNOWDEN'S BOUNTY:WE LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BIN LADEN HUNTThe Washington Post is also reporting today, drawing on these same super-hush-hush "black budget" documents, that "the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden was guided from space by a fleet of satellites, which aimed dozens of separate receivers over Pakistan to collect a torrent of electronic and signals intelligence as the mission unfolded," that the NSA was "able to penetrate guarded communications among al-Qaeda operatives by tracking calls from mobile phones identified by specific calling patterns," that CIA analysts "pinpointed the geographic location of one of the phones and tied it to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where an accumulation of other evidence suggested bin Laden was hiding," that "eight hours after the raid a forensic intelligence laboratory run by the Defense Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan had analyzed DNA from bin Laden’s corpse and 'provided a conclusive match' confirming his identity," among other details of the operation.*For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."
