

Contents

1. A brief explanation of “gang stalking”

2. America’s “deep state”

3. Crimes by U.S. law enforcement & intelligence agencies

4. Oversight of law enforcement & intelligence agencies

5. Published news reports ***

6. History: COINTELPRO, MKUltra, Red Squads, & the Stasi

7. The national & international scope of gang stalking

8. Investigation, Surveillance, & Harassment Tactics

9. Mobbing & workplace violence

10. Selection of targeted individuals

11. The organizational structure of gang stalking

12. Social conformity & obedience to authority

13. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) & gang stalking

14. Disinformation

15. The wall of silence which surrounds “gang stalking”

16. Shining a light on the cockroaches

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1. A brief explanation of “gang stalking”

Based on Google Trends data, the term “ gang stalking ” began appearing among online searches circa 2005. Coincidentally or not, that was during the post-9/11 expansion of America’s national security state activities, which included illegal domestic mass surveillance by the NSA, the use of torture at black site prisons by the CIA, the militarization of police departments, etc. In any case, an extensive review of relevant published news reports and other information suggests that the term “gang stalking” – and most, but not all, online references to it – is disinformation from the U.S. intelligence community, intended to obfuscate the nature of a set of real tactics sometimes referred to in the security industry as “disruption” operations – as in, disruption of the life of an individual targeted by public and/or private security operatives. It has nothing to do with criminal gangs – that’s the disinformation part. It does involve stalking though – intense, long-term surveillance and harassment, involving varying levels of criminality.

Most famously, the methods were used by communist East Germany’s Stasi (state police), who referred to the strategy as Zersetzung (German for “decomposition” or “corrosion” – a reference to the severe psychological, social, and financial effects upon the victim). Some self-proclaimed victims have described the process as “no-touch torture” – because the tactics generate minimal forensic evidence.

Tactics include – but are not limited to – slander, blacklisting, “mobbing” (intense, organized harassment in the workplace), “black bag jobs” (residential break-ins), abusive phone calls, computer hacking, framing, threats, blackmail, vandalism, “street theater” (staged physical and verbal interactions with minions of the people who orchestrate the stalking), harassment by noises, and other forms of bullying. In some cases, the harassment escalates to physical violence.

As for the scope of such activities in the US or other nations, I have no specific information or guesses. This website does contain links, however, to most of the important published English language news reports related to this subject – through 2018 anyway. For reasons I try to address in my accompanying analysis, it seems clear that some of the published media reports – and most of the websites about this topic – are disinformation. Their existence suggests that this form of police state social control is at least widespread enough that an effort is being made to discredit claims about its existence. The disinformation goal is to associate all reports of such crimes with conspiracy theory idiocy – rather than associating them with the well-documented history of crimes by rogue spy agencies, police agencies, and private security firms in America, dating back to the 19th century.

Stalking by corrupt cops, spies, and security goons is not only unethical, it’s also illegal under both federal and state law. It clearly violates, for example, the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unwarranted searches, the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to a trial, and the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” Such operations also violate similar laws in state constitutions. In addition, “stalking” is specifically prohibited by the criminal codes of every state in America.

Analysis of news and other information about intelligence agencies, police agencies, and private security-intelligence firms is aided by an awareness of the concept of a “deep state.”

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Theodore Roosevelt on the deep state

Theodore Roosevelt (U.S. President from 1901 to 1909), said this in an August 1912 speech:

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”

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Mike Lofgren on the deep state

In the 2014 TV interview and essay linked below, Mike Lofgren, a former congressional staff member, offers a sort of unified theory of the current U.S. power structure which attempts to explain the connections between Washington, Wall Street, the Pentagon, Silicon Valley, the intelligence community and law enforcement. This big picture view is helpful to understand U.S. national security and law enforcement policy – of which domestic counterintelligence operations are an element.

Other observers – for example, Peter Dale Scott – have written about the distinction between the formal elected government and the informal “shadow government” or “deep state” which shapes policies, so Lofgren’s views on this subject are not entirely unique, but he does an excellent job of explaining the concept. He also speaks with Washington insider experience, having spent nearly three decades as a congressional staffer, including serving on the powerful House and Senate Budget Committees.

Lofgren describes the deep state as a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state.

“There is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight.”

Mike Lofgren appeared on Moyers and Company in February 2014 to discuss his views on the deep state. Here is the video.

This webpage features an essay by Lofgren on the same topic.

Here is a webpage of reactions to Lofgren’s portrayal of the deep rot in Washington. They include comments such as this one by Heidi Boghosian, director of the National Lawyers Guild.

“The term Deep State aptly conveys how the private security industry has melded with government. It is soldered by plutocracy, perpetual war, reduction of industrial capacity, US exceptionalism and political malfunction. Lofgren is a credible and welcome interpreter of how these factors combine to exert control over us.”

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Noam Chomsky on the deep state

Political theorist, linguistics professor, and dissident, Noam Chomsky, has long been among the most influential critics of U.S. foreign policy, capitalism, and the establishment news media. Chomsky describes his political perspective as “anarchism,” which – as in this interview – he defines as follows:

“[Anarchism] covers a lot of ground, but the core principle comes straight out of classical liberalism and the Enlightenment, that any form of authority and domination has a burden of proof to bear; it has to demonstrate that it’s legitimate…If not, it ought to be dismantled. That’s anarchism.”

Naturally, such a view commits one to a harsh assessment of US spy agencies and their corporate associates – including the mainstream press outlets. This BBC interview from February 1996, which explores Chomsky’s views on the news media, shows his effectiveness at explaining systemic corruption. Also evident is his awareness of the particular threat to democracy posed by secret police agencies. Chomsky discusses the nature of press censorship in the US and the UK, noting that members of the news media – such as the interviewer – are chosen for their jobs, in part, because they’re perceived to be conformists. Starting at 16:00, Chomsky educates the interviewer about the FBI’s COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) scandal, which Chomsky characterizes as “vastly more significant than Watergate,” and which included “political assassination.” He describes the FBI as “the national political police.”

In a speech Chomsky gave in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2013, he explained that the standard view of capitalist democracy taught to American schoolchildren is essentially fictional.

“….Roughly 70% of the population – the lower 70% on the wealth/income scale – they have no influence on policy whatsoever. They’re effectively disenfranchised. As you move up the wealth/income ladder, you get a little bit more influence on policy. When you get to the top, which is maybe a tenth of one percent, people essentially get what they want, i.e. they determine the policy. So the proper term for that is not democracy; it’s plutocracy.”

Chomsky notes that this arrangement is not unique to America:

“Europe, incidentally, is much worse….[The general public has voted against the European Union’s economic model,] yet economic policies have changed little in response to one electoral defeat after another.”

According to Chomsky, America is essentially a one-party state, and the one party is the business party. He argues that this general power structure has been the same since the nation’s founding. Chomsky’s conclusion:

“The general picture is pretty grim, I think. But there are shafts of light. As always through history, there are two trajectories. One leads towards oppression and destruction. The other leads towards freedom and justice. And as always – to adapt Martin Luther King’s famous phrase – there are ways to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice and freedom…”

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Michael J. Glennon on the deep state

In October 2014, The Boston Globe published an article on the views of Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon regarding the deep state. If you think that things like voting and writing letters to your political representatives might help slow America’s mutation into a police state, you might want to re-evaluate how far things have already deteriorated.

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked.

Asked whether there was any hope of reining in the rogue elements of America’s national security apparatus, Glennon said this:

“The ultimate problem is the pervasive political ignorance on the part of the American people. And indifference to the threat that is emerging from these concealed institutions. That is where the energy for reform has to come from: the American people. Not from government. Government is very much the problem here. The people have to take the bull by the horns.”

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Michael Parenti on the deep state

Parenti, who received his PhD in political science from Yale University, is the author of 23 books and many articles (and is one of the few people who might have bested the journalist Christopher Hitchens in a debate). In a 1996 piece, Parenti described “the gangster state” (i.e., the deep state) this way:

“Today in the much vaunted western democracies there exists a great deal of unaccountable state power whose primary function is to maintain the existing politico-economic structure, using surveillance, infiltration, sabotage, judicial harassment, disinformation, trumped-up charges and false arrests, tax harassment, blackmail, and even violence and assassination to make the world safe for those who own it.

There exists a state within the state, known as the national security state, a component of misgovernment centering around top officers in the CIA, DIA, FBI, the Pentagon, and policymakers in the Executive Office of the White House. These elements have proven themselves capable of perpetrating terrible crimes against dissidents at home and abroad.”

Anyone who is curious about whether the various criminal rodents who perform the dirty work for the deep state ever take an interest in people such as Michael Parenti, who expose their criminality, should listen to the following. At 29:39 in this interview, Parenti is asked about the illegal domestic spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) which was revealed by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Parenti says that the feds are not merely engaged in surveillance, but are also engaged in overt surveillance (“harassment,” as he describes it) intended to intimidate Americans by making it clear to them that they are being spied upon – and that he has personally experienced it.

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Chris Hedges on the deep state

As a war correspondent, Chris Hedges – a Pulitzer prize winner and recipient of an Amnesty International award for humanitarian journalism – has witnessed state violence around the world, and by his own acknowledgement has been radicalized by what he has seen. He was also, essentially, forced to resign from The New York Times, for speaking honestly, in public, about the moral and strategic idiocy of the Iraq War.

For many years, Hedges has warned that America is governed by a corrupt, predatory elite, and that the U.S. is essentially a corporate oligarchy and a militaristic empire. He often reports on the signs of decay engendered by the nation’s corrupt power structures: social pathologies, infrastructure neglect, extreme inequality, illegal domestic spying, the militarization of policing, war crimes, lying by US intelligence agencies and their assets in the corporate press, etc.

One of the theorists who has influenced Hedges’ views on the corrupt nature of America’s politics is Sheldon Wolin (1922—2015), a writer and a politics professor at Princeton University. Here is Hedges, in a 2015 article at truthdig:

…Wolin lays bare the realities of our bankrupt democracy, the causes behind the decline of American empire and the rise of a new and terrifying configuration of corporate power he calls “inverted totalitarianism.”

…Inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism. It does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader but in the faceless anonymity of the corporate state. Our inverted totalitarianism pays outward fealty to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the iconography, traditions and language of American patriotism, but it has effectively seized all of the mechanisms of power to render the citizen impotent.

A September 16, 2019 column by Hedges offers a superb account of America’s deep state, and the grave threats it poses for the general public:

There are two forms of government in the United States. There is the visible government—the White House, Congress, the courts, state legislatures and governorships—and the invisible government, or deep state, where anonymous technocrats, intelligence operatives, generals, bankers, corporations and lobbyists manage foreign and domestic policy regardless of which political party holds a majority.

The most powerful and important organs in the invisible government are the nation’s bloated and unaccountable intelligence agencies. They are the vanguard of the invisible government. They oversee a vast “black world,” tasked with maintaining the invisible government’s lock on power. They spy on and smear domestic and foreign critics, fix elections, bribe, extort, torture, assassinate and flood the airwaves with “black propaganda.” They are impervious to the chaos and human destruction they leave in their wake.

… There are periodic glimpses of the moral squalor and ineptitude that define this shadow world, such as those provided by the 1970s hearings led by Sen. Frank Church and the leaking of photographs of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. But those who attempt to defy or expose the pernicious inner workings, including Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, are usually discredited, persecuted, silenced and sometimes “disappeared.” The invisible government justifies its secrecy and criminality as necessary in the face of existential threats, posed first by communism and later by Islamic terrorism. The ends always justify the means. Anything, no matter how immoral or criminal, is permissible.

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Russell Tice on the deep state

In this September 2013 article at truthout.org, National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Russell Tice addresses the core question about the deep state: Is the upper echelon of the American intelligence community running the country?

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George Carlin on the deep state

This 3-minute rant by comedian George Carlin captures some of the core points about the deep state.

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Mapping the deep state

A non-profit website called LittleSis – a play on Orwell’s “Big Brother” – tracks connections among those with power. Here, for example, is a map of corporate donations to police departments and organizations.

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A few more terms…

Counterintelligence is the detection and countering of threats posed by enemy subversion, espionage, and sabotage. Counterintelligence operations include surveillance (spying on enemies), sabotage (disruption of enemies’ activities), and disinformation (efforts to deceive enemies and – when it serves the objectives of the counterintelligence program – the public). A wide range of activities can qualify as counterintelligence operations, depending upon how a targeted person or group is deemed to be an “enemy,” and what activities and thoughts are deemed to be “subversive.” The FBI famously spied on Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, and even tried to blackmail him, on the grounds that his views were subversive.

Although some of the strategies and tactics associated with counterintelligence operations are used by private security personnel, for example, on behalf of corporate clients, they are most frequently used by government intelligence agencies. Here, for example, is a description of the organizational nature of counterintelligence, in a Wikipedia entry:

“In most countries the counterintelligence mission is spread over multiple organizations, though one usually predominates. There is usually a domestic counterintelligence service, usually part of a larger organization such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States.”

Uses of counterintelligence tactics by security personnel can be completely legal – for example, a government wiretap authorized by a legitimate search warrant. In other cases, the tactics are purely illegal – for example, “black bag jobs” (break-ins) and computer hacking by private investigators. Often though, the tactics are in a grey area of dubious legality. For example, depending upon the context, a “warning” can actually be a veiled threat. Similarly, if an agent or private investigator contacts a friend, relative, or associate of a targeted person, under the pretense of conducting an “investigation,” such contact can actually be an act of slander – the intentional destruction of the reputation and relationships of the target (even if it is difficult to legally prove).

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COINTELPRO (short for “Counterintelligence Program”) was a secret, illegal program run by the FBI from 1956 until it was exposed by civilian activists in 1971. The U.S. Senate’s Church Committee investigations in the mid-1970s found that, during the COINTELPRO era, FBI agents and their various accomplices systematically spied on, slandered, terrorized, blackmailed, and committed acts of violence (including murder) against American citizens who were deemed to be politically subversive by the FBI’s right-wing director, J. Edgar Hoover.

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Law Enforcement Intelligence Units (LEIUs) – also called Red Squads – are intelligence units within local police departments (especially urban police departments). In addition to performing legitimate law enforcement activities, such as infiltrating criminal organizations, LEIUs have been used since the late 1800s to spy on and disrupt groups which are viewed as subversive by corporations and politicians. In 1956, the same year the FBI initiated its COINTELPRO program, 26 Red Squads gathered in San Francisco and formed an organization for sharing confidential intelligence. They adopted the name Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit. In 2008, the organization changed its name to the “Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units,” but they retained the original acronym, LEIU. Because of its status as a private (although quasi-governmental) entity, the association’s files are not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Based on their history, their reported connections with U.S. intelligence agencies, their secrecy, their quasi-governmental status, their members’ skill sets, their national network of professional connections, their organization’s membership of both current and former law enforcement personnel, and anecdotal reports, LEIUs are very possibly the main source of the illegal spying and harassment referred to by such terms as “disruption” and “gang stalking.”

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Surveillance Role Players (SRPs) perform jobs whose nature the federal government chooses to keep secret from the American public. During the past decade or so, numerous job advertisements for SRPs have been posted by military contractors. From the advertisements, it is clear that the jobs involve some type of domestic intelligence operations, but the specific elements of the job are never described. America’s news media outlets have shown no interest in this topic, perhaps because it does not involve the Kardashians. Interestingly, the job listings specify that these are mostly part-time positions – which presumably would make it easier to conceal the jobs from neighbors and others who know the people performing such “work.” The job listings specify that applicants must have active secret clearances and counterintelligence training , although the stated education requirement is often just a high school diploma. Some of the ads note that an element of the job is to “coordinate with local law enforcement.”

Although most Americans are unaware of it, the U.S. has a huge supply of people with security clearances – over 5.1 million people as of 2013– almost a third of whom worked for private firms. Nearly one-third of the Americans with top secret clearances are private contractors, rather than government employees. Whether SRPs are engaged in stalking some of their fellow citizens will probably remain a mystery in the near future. People who like easy money – and who are afraid to violate their security clearances – are far more plentiful in America than individuals with the courage and integrity needed to become whistle-blowers.

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Disruption – in the parlance of counterintelligence agents – is a strategy for neutralizing an individual (or group) believed to pose a potential threat to the clients or members of a security agency. For example, if there is no legal basis for arresting and prosecuting someone, and assassination is not a legal or practical option, an alternative is a long-term campaign of intense surveillance and harassment. The goal – at least ostensibly – is to limit the person’s potential to create trouble; this is done by keeping him or her distracted, agitated, and preoccupied with various challenges and provocations, by undermining the individual’s social and professional relationships, and by otherwise interfering with the person’s life in various ways.

Unlike the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, “disruption” is a strategy, rather than a program – although there might currently be one or more secret programs which involve the strategy and (often) illegal tactics associated with disruption. In recent years, classified documents made public by National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden exposed that the U.S. government and its private contractors engage in illegal domestic mass surveillance, and lie about it. Additional revelations in recent years include news reports – and a U.S. Senate report – which showed that the CIA and its contractors torture people and lie about it. Such revelations, among many others, add plausibility to reports by self-proclaimed victims of organized stalking.

In some cases, as with blacklisting, the motive for disruption activities can simply be revenge by the people who initiated the process, rather than a belief that the target actually poses a threat. Similarly – and this applies to a lot of activities in America’s massive “national security” industry – the actual primary objective can simply be to justify paychecks for the various bureaucrats, contractors, and agents involved.

Although disruption operations can be born out of illegitimate motives, such as an informant’s desire for vengeance, or to fulfill de facto quotas – the harassment can, in effect, validate itself through provocation: If you terrorize and spy on someone over a long period, he or she is likely to eventually respond in ways which can be used to rationalize labeling the person as a potential threat.

“Disruption” operations often involve tactics which are illegal, but difficult to prove. These tactics include – but are not limited to – overt surveillance (stalking), slander, blacklisting, “mobbing” (intense, organized harassment in the workplace), “black bag jobs,” abusive phone calls, computer hacking, framing, threats, blackmail, vandalism, “street theater” (staged physical and verbal interactions with minions of the people who orchestrate the stalking), harassment by noises, and other forms of bullying.

Although the general public is mostly unfamiliar with the practice, references to “disruption” operations – described as such – do occasionally appear in the news media. In May 2006, for example, an article in The Globe and Mail, a Canadian national newspaper, reported that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) used “Diffuse and Disrupt” tactics against suspects for whom they lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute. A criminal defense attorney stated that many of her clients complained of harassment by authorities, although they were never arrested.

In November 2010, a classified U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks documented a discussion between a U.S. State Department official and the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), in which the CSIS director said the agency was “vigorously harassing” members of Hezbollah – an apparent reference to disruption crimes.

An article published by The Intercept in February 2016 explained that the FBI had adopted a system of measuring its counterterrorism achievements by counting the number of “disruptions” of terrorism threats the agency has supposedly achieved. As usual with matters involving the federal government’s primary secret police agency, when journalists inquired about the exact meaning of this statistical category, the FBI refused to discuss it:

“The FBI didn’t respond to emails asking basic questions such as what qualifies as a disruption, [or] why the number is so much higher than the bureau’s recorded arrests…”

As The Intercept article notes, the FBI’s definition of “disruption” is vague:

“A disruption is defined as interrupting or inhibiting a threat actor from engaging in criminal or national security related activity. A disruption is the result of direct actions and may include but is not limited to the arrest; seizure of assets; or impairing the operational capabilities of key threat actors.”

Regardless of the exact scope of official disruption programs (and non-sanctioned practices by private investigators and LEIUs), many points in The Intercept’s article are clearly relevant. For example, the following quotes are included from an ACLU report:

“The FBI’s overbroad and aggressive use of its investigative and surveillance powers, and its willingness to employ ‘disruption strategies’ against subjects not charged with crimes can have serious, adverse impacts on innocent Americans,”

“Being placed under investigation creates an intense psychological, and often financial, burden on the people under the microscope and their families, even when they are never charged with a crime,”

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Zersetzung (German for “decomposition” or “corrosion”) was the term used by communist East Germany’s infamous secret police agency, the Stasi, to refer to the long-term effects of “disruption” operations. A disruption strategy seeks to terrorize and socially isolate the victim, and to degrade his or her financial and emotional status – as well as inflicting the various physical effects of perpetual stress. Sometimes the word appears in the English language press; for example, in October 2004, The Sunday Times, a major newspaper in the U.K., reported that the intelligence agency MI5 uses disruption tactics to punish whistle-blowers who expose crimes perpetrated by the government.

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“ Gang stalking ” is a slang term for disruption operations. Although it appears frequently online, the term “gang stalking” – unlike the term “disruption” – virtually never appears in official documents, except in occasional quotes by non-officials. Very likely, the term was coined by U.S. intelligence agencies for the purposes of online disinformation. Disruption operations are not perpetrated by criminal gangs, so the term is possibly intended to obfuscate the nature of the spying and harassment. Another term which is widely-used to refer to the same counterintelligence tactics, but which is slightly less deceptive, is “ organized stalking .” As with the term “gang stalking” though – and the related term “ targeted individual ,” the term “organized stalking” primarily appears in websites, videos, and online comments whose purpose is to spread disinformation by discrediting legitimate reports of disruption operations.

In any case, the term “gang stalking” has gained traction. Even apparently-legitimate accounts of this form of spying and harassment often include the term. Whatever its origin and its defects, the term “gang stalking” has something of a foothold in online discussions, even though the subject remains mostly unknown to the general public. As far as I know, the term “gang stalking” has not yet found its way into any major published dictionaries.

Whistle-blowers are rare among the people who staff the giant pig trough that is America’s shadowy, bloated, post-9/11 security infrastructure. Also, the “code of silence” which prevails among corrupt law enforcement agents has deep roots. In addition, private investigators and other security contractors are subject to even less oversight than official enforcers. Consequently, the precise nature of the various programs and operations which make use of “disruption” crimes, is likely to remain obscure in the near future. Sometimes though, objective – if indirect – evidence hints at the expanding scope of abuses of power by the bureaucrats and thugs in America’s security industry. The following statistical trend could be an example of that, but it is impossible to make confident inferences from it.

Apparently, “gang stalking” began appearing among online searches circa 2005. The graph below was generated via the Google Trends webpage in May 2016.

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The Prevalence of Stalking by Multiple Perpetrators

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) crime statistics from a 2006 survey indicated that an estimated 445,220 stalking victims reported being stalked by 3 or more perpetrators. (Page 12 of the report has the relevant numbers: 13.1 percent of 3,398,630 victims reported such group stalking.)

DOJ Stalking Survey – 2006

Incidentally, that percentage is comparable to what appears in crime surveys in the U.K. – a nation with whom U.S. intelligence agencies have very close ties. A 1998 crime survey of England and Wales found that 12 percent of stalking victims reported being stalked by 3 perpetrators (page 25).

British Crime Survey – 1998

Possibly more relevant to organized stalking is the number of victims stalked by “four or more” perpetrators. In the British survey, that group was approximately 8 percent of all stalking victims (page 25). That would be approximately 1 percent (0.944 percent) of all adults aged 16 to 59.

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A Curiously Incurious Justice Department

An attorney, Keith Labella, contacted the National Center for Victims of Crime (which is funded by the DOJ) in October 2008 to inquire about the frequency of reports the center receives about organized stalking crimes. He was informed that they receive “thousands of calls per month.”

Notwithstanding the frequency of calls to their helpline, the center offered no guidance or referral to other agencies or organizations. Here is Mr. Labella’s affidavit about his inquiry.

Make of it what you will, but the U.S. Department of Justice never publicly discusses the issue of counterintelligence stalking – not even to dismiss it as nonsense.

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COINTELPRO Version 2.0

In a society as heavily-policed as America now is – a society whose National Security Agency is tracking everyone’s phone calls and Internet activity for example – it is inconceivable that tens of thousands or more cases of criminal stalking (as documented in the DOJ crime statistics) fail to appear on the radar of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Yet there is no mention of such crimes by the federal government anywhere except in those statistics.

The implication is inescapable: federal agencies are acquiescing in what is happening. Assuming the statistics are even roughly accurate, there is no other explanation; organized stalking (the monitoring and “disruption” of the activities of targeted individuals) is being perpetrated as part of a counterintelligence program.

And it is being done illegally – as it violates state laws (in every state) against stalking as well as the U.S. Constitution’s prohibitions against unreasonable searches and punishment without a trial. Stalking is also a violation of federal law (U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2261A).

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Under the Radar

How is it that the general public would not be aware of the re-emergence of COINTELPRO operations?

I address this question in more detail in the section titled “The Wall of Silence Which Surrounds Gang Stalking,” but here are the main factors:

(1) Covert Methods

The most fundamental explanation for the low-profile of gang stalking is that counterintelligence operations – by definition – are performed covertly. The FBI’s original version of Cointelpro remained undetected by the public until stolen secret documents were leaked to the press.

(2) Security Clearances

Law enforcement and intelligence agency personnel involved in counterintelligence activities are bound by secrecy oaths. This is also true of the vast industry of private contractors employed by those agencies. For example, job ads posted by security-intelligence contractors for “surveillance role players” (domestic spies) all require an active security clearance in addition to counterintelligence training.

Similarly, judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court which reviews legal issues about secret federal policies are also bound by secrecy oaths. That is also true of members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

(3) Whistleblower Protection Act Exemptions

Agencies such as the FBI are exempt from the Whistleblower Protection Act. Consequently, an agent who tries to reveal unethical behavior by the agency faces potentially serious legal consequences. Contractors of intelligence agencies are also not protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act.

(4) Legal Restrictions on Witnesses

Almost certainly, when an individual is targeted for subversion (“gang stalking”), the operation is portrayed to witnesses (neighbors, co-workers, etc.) as an “investigation.” In an investigation, law enforcement personnel can order witnesses to keep silent. For example, when the FBI issues an administrative subpoena called a “National Security Letter” the document has a gag order attached which prohibits the recipient from discussing it.

(5) Tactics Which Create Minimal Evidence

Subversion tactics used by the FBI include many tactics from the original version of Cointelpro, and some which were futher refined by East Germany’s Stasi. For the most part, the tactics are all chosen because they are known to be effective forms of “no-touch torture.” The idea is to destroy the victim psychologically and socially and financially by forms of criminal harassment which create minimal objective evidence from the perspective of witnesses and courts.

Victims’ accounts tend to be dismissed since their experiences sound like commonplace occurrences – because that is indeed what they are: strangers who are rude, neighbors who are noisy, businesses which deliver bad service, drivers who cut-off the victim in traffic, pedestrians who bump them as they walk by, etc. These are things which happen to everyone. But for gang stalking victims, these things happen constantly – which becomes a form of real psychological torture, the intensity of which must be experienced to comprehend.

(6) Ignorance

Americans are largely unaware of the history of well-documented relevant programs, such as the FBI’s Cointelpro operations and the CIA’s MK Ultra program – even though both were thoroughly investigated and exposed by Congress in the 1970s. Similarly, although many people have heard of the Stasi (East Germany’s secret police agency), they are not specifically familiar with the Stasi’s use of Zersetzung – which was a set of methods virtually identical to current gang stalking in America.

This is not surprising; nearly three-quarters of Americans do not know what the Cold War was about, and 29 percent cannot even name the vice president. Counterintelligence operations can thrive in an environment of such widespread ignorance.

Of course, even well-educated individuals are unlikely to recognize the connections between a local situation in which they are told that a neighbor or co-worker or business patron is under investigation and historical phenomena like Cointelpro and East Germany’s Stasi.

Still, it can only make things easier for an agency such as the FBI to recruit vigilante citizen volunteers and to conduct illegal operations without detection when they are dealing with a society in which 64 percent of the public cannot name the three branches of their federal government and a fourth of the people do not even know that the earth revolves around the sun.

(7) Cowardice, Laziness, & Incompetence in the Mainstream News Media

Organized stalking goes mostly undiscussed in the mainstream news media. There are some notable exceptions – most frequently in the local and alternative press. I review those in detail throughout this website, but as a rule, major corporate news agencies avoid discussing matters which the intelligence and law enforcement community do not wish to have discussed.

This silence in the press is largely the result of the kinds of self-censorship documented in sources such as Kristina Borjesson’s Into the Buzzsaw, and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.

Laziness in the news media should not be underestimated either. Often when the federal government is engaged in serious deception and crimes, the news media play no role in the disclosure until a whistle-blower drops a set of incriminating official documents about it in their laps – as happened with the Pentagon Papers, Cointelpro, and the NSA’s mass surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the news media’s cowardice as a factor in keeping modern Cointelpro operations off of the public’s radar. For perspective, one has to re-consider the reporting on crimes by U.S. intelligence agencies during the 1970s. A book by historian Kathryn S. Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government (1996), makes the case that Americans overestimate the boldness of the journalism during that period.

The following review of Olmsted’s book gives a sense of what really happened. With a few notable exceptions – such as reporters Seymour Hersh and Daniel Schorr – the news media generally had a loss of nerve at a critical moment in America’s history. As a result, we missed a golden opportunity to fully expose the deep corruption in the U.S. intelligence community, and implement serious reforms.

Conventional wisdom would have it that, in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, the nation’s press was emboldened to enter a new phase of investigative zeal. Olmsted, a lecturer in history at U.C.- Davis, provides an absorbing contrarian account of the extent to which, with a few singular exceptions, the press retreated from such zeal, in part intimidated by the discovery of their own potential power. Thus, four months after Nixon’s resignation, when New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh launched a series charging that the CIA, “forbidden by law from operating in the U.S.,” had engaged in massive domestic spying, his reports were greeted with skepticism and tentativeness in follow-ups by fellow journalists. (Hersh’s vindication came from CIA Director William Colby’s Senate testimony, in which he disputed only the characterization of wrongdoing as “massive.”)

Olmsted charts how Hersh’s story, along with a cautious but competitive exploration of FBI abuses by the Washington Post, resulted in two congressional investigations that also had the potential to break the code of deference previously accorded to organizations responsible for national security by both Congress and the press. Particularly compelling is the author’s account of how colleagues excoriated reporter Daniel Schorr when he went to the Village Voice with the confidential results of one of the investigations, after having been silenced by his own employers, CBS. This is a fascinating study of how, just months after Watergate, both press and Congress quietly retreated to the same silk-gloved handling of the CIA and FBI in the name of national security.

(8) Disinformation

Search results on the Internet’s largest search engine, Google, fluctuate wildly for particular words and phrases over time. Only people within Google know the exact policies and algorithms which determine those results, but the search results do provide a rough indication of the online presence of certain topics.

Typically, the list of websites generated by a search is the tip of an iceberg. Ten pages of website links will show the top 100 results, but the screen also displays a much larger number that indicates the number of references to the search term that were detected.

A Google query of the term “gang stalking” in October 2013 yielded over six million results.

As you begin to wade through the search results, you will mostly encounter websites filled with incoherent rubbish. Anyone even superficially familiar with counterintelligence will recognize this tactic; it is called disinformation.

This is another reason organized stalking has been able to remain mostly below the public’s radar. Disinformation is used to muddy the waters surrounding the topic wherever it is discussed online. The intent is to mitigate exposure of the operations.

Because of its central importance to counterintelligence generally – and organized stalking in particular – I explore the subject of disinformation at length in its own section of this overview and elsewhere in this website.

(9) Failure to Connect the Dots

If you view all of the mainstream press reports about domestic spying, counterintelligence activities, and gang stalking from the past decade, it is clear that something is going on. On the other hand, very few people see most of those reports – let alone all of them together and combined with the context provided by the analysis you are now reading.

If you browse through the “Published News Reports on Gang Stalking” section of this overview, you will see that the evidence grows every year that a government-sanctioned program of informants and domestic spying and organized stalking is an element of the current homeland security infrastructure. Unfortunately, very few civilians ever see that evidence all grouped together, and therefore they are very unlikely to realize what is happening.

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Lowering Requirements for Investigations

In 2008 the U.S. Department of Justice guidelines which govern FBI investigations were changed to create a new category of investigation called “assessments.” These investigations can be initiated with no evidence that any criminal activity has occurred, and the investigations can involve such intrusive measures as physical surveillance, recruitment of criminal informants, interviewing associates of the person being investigated and deploying undercover FBI agents.

The FBI’s internal rules were further relaxed in 2011 so that – without even opening an assessment – agents can begin searching commercial databases for information about the individual being investigated, and search through the subject’s trash.

Expansion of the powers wielded by the “surveillance state” – and the corresponding erosion of citizens’ civil liberties – has been occurring in the U.K. as well. Citizens of the U.S. should be mindful of that fact because a close relationship exists between the intelligence communities of both nations. Among the secret documents revealed by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, for example, were presentation slides about how the NSA assisted its British equivalent, GCHQ, in developing technology that was used to spy on citizens via their webcams.

In the same way that the U.S. government slashed some of Americans’ traditional rights by legislation such as the Patriot Act, in the U.K. the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) expanded the surveillance powers of the government in the name of national security. As far as I know, the members of Parliament did not hold much public discussion about how the U.K.’s intelligence agencies might want spy on a couple of million innocent citizens via their webcams.

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Exploiting a Government Program as a Private Weapon

The potential for abuse of power by members of private intelligence corporations and government agencies in all of this is enormous.

Here is an example of such abuse which was reported in the news media – partly because it was directed at members of the news media. One of the counterintelligence tactics which the federal government hires intelligence contractors to perform is spreading disinformation. Most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that systematically spreading lies is even a government contractor job which their taxes are funding, but they underestimate – despite President Eisenhower’s famous warning – the extent to which the U.S. government’s defense budget has become a pig trough for shady contractors.

If you criticize a comedian, you will likely become the target of a joke. Similarly, when a reporter and editor at USA Today investigated and reported on the U.S. propaganda industry in 2012, they were anonymously slandered by those same contractors.

This was the opening paragraph of their first report that apparently did not go over well with the businesses they were exposing:

“ As the Pentagon has sought to sell wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to often-hostile populations there, it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on poorly tracked marketing and propaganda campaigns that military leaders like to call “information operations,” the modern equivalent of psychological warfare.”

As a result of their reporting, this is what happened:

“Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names….”

“…Internet domain registries show the website TomVandenBrook.com was created Jan. 7 — just days after Pentagon reporter Tom Vanden Brook first contacted Pentagon contractors involved in the program. Two weeks after his editor Ray Locker’s byline appeared on a story, someone created a similar site, RayLocker.com, through the same company.”

The article notes that a proxy service was used to hide the identity of the owner of the websites, and a third website was registered to a non-existent address.

Slander is just one of the tactics used in organized stalking by counterintelligence operations. Any or all of the tactics – which are described in detail in a section of this overview – could be used as a weapon by people in the business.

In theory, an organized stalking operation against an individual could be initiated by anyone familiar with the tactics who has associates willing to participate. Perpetrators with financial resources could easily employ private investigators, for example, and others with relevant technical skills to wage a sophisticated operation against someone for revenge or intimidation.

Someone with connections to current or former law enforcement or intelligence agency personnel – or military personnel with a background in intelligence – could mount a very serious campaign against a victim without even (officially) involving government agencies in the initial stages of the investigation and harassment.

In a tactic called “baiting” a surveillance operation can selectively capture evidence of a targeted person responding to harassment. That evidence could then be used to justify the initiation of more formal scrutiny by a government agency.

At whatever point at which it becomes useful or necessary, the perpetrators can – officially or unofficially – turn over to the government counterintelligence personnel whatever they have gathered to have the individual targeted more formally. For example, they could contact a “Terrorism Liaison Officer” (TLO) – a government or civilian operative entrusted with hunting for “suspicious activity.” More on TLOs in section 10 below (“The Organizational Structure of Gang Stalking”).

In essence, organized stalking tactics (and a national counterintelligence program which uses such tacics) could easily be exploited – and probably are – as a weapon against individuals who are disliked for any reason by someone who is either a member of the community of intelligence/security firms, law enforcement agencies, and intelligence agencies. Similarly, being a member of the FBI-corporate alliance called InfraGard (discussed in detail below) could create a perfect opportunity to have someone blacklisted.

Being associated with the national counterintelligence program of organized stalking (“Cointelpro 2.0”) is like having a cousin who is in the Mafia.

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Allegations of Stalking by Private Organizations

Ku Klax Klan initiation ritual – Georgia, 1946

Deception is a major element of counterintelligence programs. Consequently, all discussion of COINTELPRO-type stalking has to be viewed skeptically. Allegations that the ongoing criminal harassment of targeted individuals is simply an activity by one or more vigilante groups is a case in point.

It is inconceivable – especially with the modern surveillance state – that the Justice Department and the other federal intelligence agencies are unaware of exactly what is happening. Their silence about the issue means that they acquiesce in it, whatever the specific operational structure might be.

That said, it is also clear that there is a “snitch culture” element to organized stalking – not just a bureaucratic machine. Perpetrators of gang stalking crimes rely upon a degree of informal support from sadists and useful idiots. Also, there is a long history of non-governmental organizations perpetrating very serious crimes against their fellow citizens. In addition, such organizations – for example, the Ku Klux Klan – have historically included members of the political and law enforcement community. So the involvement of private groups in organized stalking cannot be categorically dismissed, even though the core of the activity has to be state-sanctioned.

Gang stalking tactics are sometimes alleged to be used by certain fraternal orders, such as Freemasons (a “mafia of the mediocre” – Christopher Hitchens, chapter 2 of his memoir), and by various religious groups such as Scientologists and Jehovah’s Witnesses – for example, to control or punish current or former members. See for example, this March 15, 2013 article in the Brisbane Times.

I have no first-hand knowledge of the use of organized stalking by religious groups, but it does seem plausible – especially if you agree with America’s second president, John Adams:

“There is a germ of religion in human nature so strong that whenever an order of men can persuade the people by flattery or terror that they have salvation at their disposal, there can be no end to fraud, violence, or usurpation.”

In the case of Scientologists, there is reportedly a policy called “Fair Game,” under which the church allegedly uses aggressive tactics toward individuals and groups it perceives as its enemies. The practices – as described in this 1990 Los Angeles Times article, apparently include some tactics associated with organized stalking: “psychological warfare,” “dirty tricks,” and “harassment.” Reportedly, the Fair Game policy also sometimes involves employing detectives, former police officers, and criminals:

“Teams of private detectives have been dispatched to the far corners of the world to spy on critics and rummage through their personal lives–and trash cans–for information to discredit them.

During one investigation, headed by a former Los Angeles police sergeant, the church paid tens of thousands of dollars to reputed organized crime figures and con men for information linking a leading church opponent to a crime that it turned out he did not commit.”

Instances of “cause stalking” and stalking by religious cults presumably account for only a very small portion of the numerous incidents in the aforementioned crime survey statistics. It is true however, that members of religious cults (and cult-like fraternal organizations) are – by definition – easily manipulated, so they could serve in some cases as “useful idiot” vigilantes for others whose motivations they don’t even comprehend.

That is perhaps true for most of the general public since most people are completely unaware of the existence of any domestic counterintelligence operations – past or present – and would be unlikely to suspect that what they are being told might be disinformation and manipulation as part of a modern American version of the Stasi.

One group which is sometimes mentioned as a source of organized stalking perpetrators – probably as disinformation in most cases – is

the ancient fraternal order of Freemasons. Mentioning the organization often brings to mind tin-foil hat conspiracy theories. It should be noted, however, that mainstream news reports also include allegations about the group. Specifically, there are claims that the Freemasons’ network

is exploited to abuse the power of its members.

This June 2013 article in The Independent revealed that a leaked secret report from British law enforcement authorities found that many law firms, wealthy individuals, and large corporations hire private investigators to conduct illegal spying for them. The article mentioned one of the ways sensitive information was obtained:

[The report] found private investigators to be experts at “developing

and cultivating useful relationships” through “socialising with law enforcement personnel.” One particular method identified was to become a member of the Freemasons, which has been repeatedly

linked to corruption in the police and judiciary.

A December 2018 article by Zach Dorfman at Politico recounted an example – from 1979 – of “a private spy ring” operating in America. In the case described, local and federal law enforcement officials were feeding information to a private, right-wing political organization. Dorfman provided some historical context:

“Private spy rings can be traced back all the way to the 1920s,” says Darren Mulloy, a professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University and an expert on radical political and social movements, “or even back to [Allan] Pinkerton’s detective agency at the end of the 19th century.” The tradition picked up during the 1950s, Mulloy says, reportedly with the likes of anticommunist groups like the American Security Council and the John Birch Society.

Such groups “perpetuated conspiracies by gathering so-called intelligence in an effort to discredit people to try and link them to grand and dastardly schemes,” Seth Rosenfeld, author of Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power , told me. “So, whether it was a communist conspiracy then, or a ‘deep state’ plot now, these are attempts to undermine people who are dissenting from the powers of the moment.”

In 1979, a congressman, Larry McDonald, established an organization called Western Goals, as “his own private intelligence agency.”

…McDonald was a militant cold warrior and talented zealot who built his own mini-deep state—a foundation that worked with government and law enforcement officials to collect and disseminate information about supposed subversives.

… According to contemporary news reports, individuals working for local or federal law enforcement would provide Western Goals with derogatory—and potentially illegally acquired—intelligence information about perceived radicals or groups.

Apparently, the spying continued after it was exposed and legally banned:

In January 1983, the Los Angeles Times reported that a veteran officer with the LAPD’s intelligence-gathering arm named Jay Paul was found to be illegally storing 180 boxes of LAPD materials running 500,000 pages in length, including confidential files, in a garage behind his wife’s law office in Long Beach. The files—political dossiers about individuals and groups such as civil rights organizations—weren’t supposed to exist anymore; a 1975 city law had required the destruction of six tons of these types of records.

Unfortunately, Dorfman’s article does not address the essential question – namely, what is the current scope of such domestic spying – legal and illegal – by corrupt local and federal law enforcement personnel, the 17 US intelligence agencies, and the numerous private security-intelligence firms?

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Rise of the Police State

More than 5.1 million Americans had security clearances in 2013 according to a report by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 3.6 million of the clearances were confidential or secret, and 1.5 million clearances were top secret. Almost one-third of those top secret clearances belong to contractors rather than government employees.

Although the budget for U.S. intelligence activities is mostly kept secret, it is clear that the monitoring of American citizens is taken seriously by their government. This is especially clear after revelations in 2013 about the scope of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Equally clear is that the U.S. justice system aggressively polices and prosecutes its citizens: the U.S. has one of the very highest per capita incarceration rates in the world.

A common – and accurate – critique of the modern U.S. government is that it has become unbalanced by the massive expansion of power and secrecy in the executive branch.

A related problem is that the now-vast network of federal agencies (whose officials of course are non-elected) operate with minimal accountability. In many cases they effectively create their own laws.

This is true to some extent in all agencies since they issue and enforce regulations, but the potential to be corrupted by power is infinitely greater in law enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA – which operate mostly in secrecy.

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The Threat to American Democracy Posed by the Spying Industry

“In the councils of government, we must guard against

the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought

or unsought, by the military industrial complex.”



– President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Even Eisenhower was corrupted by the kind of power he warned against. As President, he authorized CIA-backed coups in Iran and Guatemala. In Iran, a democratically-elected prime minister was overthrown by the CIA (and its British counterpart MI6), and replaced by a monarchy. The CIA also trained the repressive police force used to maintain the dictatorship. Similarly, in Guatemala, the CIA overthrew a democratically-elected president and installed a military dictatorship. In both cases, the motives were corporate greed and the desire for U.S. government hegemony.

In addition to the extreme violations of the Constitutional and state rights of the particular individuals targeted for organized stalking, the current counterintelligence program poses a threat to democracy itself, since it can be used against anyone who dares to question the legitimacy of the government’s authority.

The FBI’s original COINTELPRO operations were illegal and disturbing abuses of power; the modern version is similarly corrupt, and it is supported by the now-vast network of powerful secretive agencies and contractors armed with much more powerful technology.

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Spying on Americans: a lucrative business for security contractors

The huge (and largely secret) federal budget for intelligence activities and homeland security supports a large industry of private contractors who provide technology and services for surveillance, investigations, security, and various intelligence functions. About 70 percent of America’s budget for intelligence activities goes to private contractors, according to a 2012 report from the Director of National Intelligence.

The collusion between corporations and the federal government in the area of domestic surveillance is inherently dangerous. This July 2013 article in the Atlantic posed the issue this way:

“Government and corporations are both capable of terrible things. To have them colluding with one another in secret, inexorably arranging things so that there’s disincentive for disagreement among them, is terrifying. The people can fight Big Government. The people can fight Big Finance. The people can fight Big Tech. Could the people fight them if they’re all working together with secret law on their side?

Booz Allen Hamilton is paid handsomely to spy on us for the government, then pours campaign contributions back into that same government, protecting their powerful financial incentive

to have the surveillance state expand, something that is already

a bipartisan cause.”

Political support for a Stasi Big Brother police state in the U.S. is partly rooted in hawkish views about law enforcement and anti-terrorism strategy, but it is mostly rooted in greed. There will always be a long line of contractors seeking to cash-in. They all want to be IG Farben (sort of the gold standard of war pigs).

When Congress voted in July 2013 on whether to rein-in the NSA’s domestic surveillance program which tracks Americans’ phone calls and emails, House members who voted to continue the surveillance received twice as much campaign finance money from the military and intelligence industry as those who voted to dismantle the program.

Americans are not normally permitted to know how much of their money the federal government spends on spying. NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden changed that.

Among the secret documents he revealed was the 178-page “black budget” for the 2013 fiscal year. That year’s slush-fund contained $52.6 billion. You can buy a lot of traitorous Stasi rodents with that kind of money.

Also be aware that a lot more money is sloshing around in the federal pig trough which might be getting funneled into spying activities. Many U.S. intelligence operations are conducted under the authority of the Pentagon – for example, those of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Pentagon spending is notoriously difficult to keep track of. Even the U.S. Government Accounting Office says that U.S. Department of Defense spending is “unauditable.”

Defenders of Constitutional liberties are up against a powerful and well-financed industry of parasites. This May 2013 article in The New Yorker describes a “bureaucratic empire” of entities built around the homeland security industry:

“When the Washington Post surveyed that empire, in 2010, it counted more than three thousand government organizations

and associated private companies working on counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence, in ten thousand locations across the United States.”

Frontline produced a fascinating documentary in April 2013 about the secretive agencies and corporations which make up the modern military and law enforcement industrial complex. The program is called “Top Secret America – 9/11 to the Boston Bombings.”

The whole thing is interesting, but if nothing else, watch the set-up (minutes 3 to 6) and the five minutes or so in the middle (minutes 27 to 32) about journalists uncovering the massive shadowy industry of private intelligence firms.

The Washington Post articles upon which the documentary was based were the product of one of the most thorough investigations of the American police state. More than a dozen journalists spent two years investigating the vast network of agencies and corporations performing secret homeland security operations. This was their conclusion:

“The top-secret world the government created in response to

the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

Tom Engelhardt, who teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, described the expansion of the national security complex this way:

“It has essentially merged with a set of crony outfits that now

do a significant part of its work. It has hired private contractors by the tens of thousands, creating corporate spies, corporate analysts, corporate mercenaries, corporate builders, and corporate providers for a structure that is increasingly be coming the profit-center of a state within a state.”

How deep is the trough?

A January 2019 article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone examined the accounting rules used to obfuscate federal spending on intelligence activities. Here is Taibbi’s description of the guidelines that had been recently adopted:

…an announcement by a little-known government body called the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board — FASAB…essentially legalized secret national security spending. The new guidance, “SFFAS 56 – CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES” permits government agencies to “modify” public financial statements and move expenditures from one line item to another. It also expressly allows federal agencies to refrain from telling taxpayers if and when public financial statements have been altered.

…I spent weeks trying to find a more harmless explanation for SFFAS 56, or at least one that did not amount to a rule that allows federal officials to fake public financial reports.

I couldn’t find one.

…The FASAB ruling adds a new and confusing wrinkle to what little we know about levels of spending in the intelligence community. Officially, the fiscal year 2019 appropriation is $81.1 billion, which breaks down to $59.9 billion for the National Intelligence Program, along with $21.2 billion for the Military Intelligence Program.

…the real answer for how big a share of national spending belongs to the intelligence community is probably “God only knows.” [emphasis added]

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Barrett Brown on the Role of Private Security-Intelligence Contractors

As I am updating this (in March 2014), journalist Barrett Brown is in jail facing charges related to his role in exposing information leaked by hackers who obtained internal emails from private intelligence firms, such as Stratfor and HB Gary.

Activities revealed in those leaked emails included things such as plotting to discredit journalist Glenn Greenwald and critics of the Chamber of Commerce by spreading lies about them.

In other words, at least some of these numerous secret firms engage in the kind of actions which the CIA might perform against foreign enemies – but they do so on behalf of corporate interests.

Here is an excellent article by Barrett Brown on this topic published in the Guardian in July 2013.

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Job Ads for Gang Stalkers?

On August 21, 2013 Drudge Report linked to a brief article posted the day before on InfoWars about a job announcement posted in San Diego. The job – advertised on Craigslist – was for a part-time position with an intelligence/security contractor firm as a “Surveillance Role Player.”

As I explain in detail in the “Organizational Structure” section of this overview, these job listings are numerous. They are mainly found on the websites of defense contractors. You can locate them easily by performing an online search for “surveillance role player job.”

Clearly these jobs are for some type of domestic spying (there are no foreign language requirements, for example). All of the job listings specify that applicants must have active secret clearances and counterintelligence training.

I have so far been unable to locate any mainstream news reports that might shed light on this issue, but multiple indications suggest that these could be jobs for gang stalkers. I re-visit this critical issue in section 11 of this overview (“The Organizational Structure of Gang Stalking”).

Here is an example of one such job listing:

Click on image to enlarge.

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Law Enforcement & Intelligence Agencies’ Support of

a Corporate Agenda

Collusion between corporations and the federal law enforcement/intelligence community is not limited to companies in the spying industry. This subject was explored in depth in a May 2013 report from the Center for Media and Democracy, called Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter-Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.

That report describes two organizations which facilitate that partnership:

“There are two primary domestic public-private intelligence sharing partnerships at work at the federal level: InfraGard and the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC).

InfraGard is a public-private intelligence sharing partnership managed by the FBI Cyber Division Public/Private Alliance Unit (PPAU). As described by the FBI, Infragard is an “association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States.” There are 86 Infragard chapters nationwide. These Infragard chapters serve as representatives of private sector “stakeholders” in many of the nation’s fusion centers.

DSAC is a public-private intelligence sharing partnership between the FBI, U.S. DHS I&A and several of the nation’s leading corporate/financial interests. Some of these corporate/financial interests comprise the DSAC Leadership Board. The DSAC Leadership Board consists of 29 corporations and banks, including several entities that have been the subject of OWS protests/criticism. Corporate/financial interests active in the DSAC Leadership Board include: Bank of America, MasterCard, Citigroup, American Express, Barclays, RBS Citizens, 3M, Archer Daniels Midland, ConocoPhillips, Time Warner and Wal-Mart. Along with DSAC chairmen from the FBI and U.S. DHS I&A, DSAC is co-chaired by a representative of these private sector interests– currently Grant Ashley, vice president of global security for pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.”

Artist’s rendering of an InfraGard member

The March 2008 issue of The Progressive featured an article about this creepy corporate spy club. It seems that InfraGard’s communications with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security can be kept hidden from the public, as they are covered by the “trade secrets” exemption of the Freedom of Information Act.

Apparently mindful that the public will be naturally suspicious of the organization’s legitimacy, InfraGard’s website explains that members must carefully manage the image presented to the public:

“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”

For those wishing to join this elite secretive alliance between the FBI and the corporate sector – to learn their secret handshake and to gain the power of being able to name an employee as a suspicious person to be targeted by federal goons, you “must be sponsored by an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.”

Those who are deemed worthy of membership in the InfraGard partnership are given ID cards and enjoy privileged access to information and direct communication with the FBI.

In a 2009 TV program, Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, interviewed Matthew Rothschild, senior editor of the Progressive about InfraGard. Ventura also confronted a member of InfraGard regarding the partnership’s obvious potential for abuse of power. The relevant section begins 25 minutes into this video clip.

Note: if the video becomes unavailable at the above link, and you want to search for it, this is the information: Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, Episode #4, “Big Brother” – originally broadcast on December 23, 2009.

The existence of programs like InfraGard, along with the FBI’s infiltration of groups like Occupy Wall Street, and the plotting by intelligence firms to wage a disinformation-slander campaign against critics of the Chamber of Commerce (also discussed in this overview), all suggest that activist and hacker Jeremy Hammond is correct in his assessment of the current U.S. law enforcement industry personnel – namely, that they are “the boot boys of the 1 percent, paid to protect the rich and powerful.”

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A Gang Stalking Organization Chart

Victims of organized stalking can only speculate about the exact nature of the shadowy network of perpetrators arrayed against them.

That speculation is made more difficult by the fact that the people who are overtly and covertly watching them and perpetrating various acts of harassment are of different classes of perpetrators with different motivations and have different connections (and often no connection) to the victim.

For example, the street-level perpetrator (“perp” as cops say) is typically someone who appears to be a rough-looking homeless or near-homeless ex-con type.

Their interactions with the target require no technical skills; the perp is just following some simple instruction – for example, to bump into the victim, or to make some specific creepy comment, or to harass the victim at his or her residence by making various noises.

Such participants in the stalking of course would not be told anything about who they are ultimately working for; in some cases perhaps they are simply paid a small sum of cash by a person who approached them on the street to perform a single act of harassment. In other cases, they might be ex-con’s who have been recruited/coerced/paid to function – technically – as “criminal informants.”

At a slightly higher level in the stalker food-chain (among those who interact with the victims) are people who appear more clean-cut and are often carrying a cell phone – presumably to communicate with their handlers.

Some of the intermediate-level participants are apparently recruited because of their relevant technical skills or because their jobs afford them access to facilities and information relevant to the operation – such as phone technicians, security guards, and landlords.

At the level above them are the people who actually orchestrate the operation. Based on my own observations, analysis, speculation, and various material I’ve read (which is included or linked in this website), these people are presumably employed by various intelligence contractors who are ultimately overseen by federal law enforcement and/or intelligence agency personnel.

The active support – or at least approval – of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies would be necessary for such activities to occur without attracting interference from the massive homeland security infrastructure now in place.

The agencies, corporations, & individuals involved in organized stalking

Historically, counterintelligence crimes against Americans in the U.S. have been perpetrated by three main entities: (1) “red squads” (Law Enforcement Intelligence Units of local police departments), (2) Private Intelligence-security firms such as Pinkerton (now Securitas), and (3) the FBI.

Today, you can probably add the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to the list. The most authoritative journalism on the subject – such as that of George O’Toole in the late 1970s – also shows connections between LEIUs and the CIA. Technically of course, the CIA is not supposed to be preying on Americans, but anyone who has read about MK Ultra knows that is a purely theoretical boundary.

Similarly, anyone who has not been living in a cave since June 2013 knows that the NSA is deeply involved in unconstitutional domestic spying. And all those agencies – plus others – have access to the nationwide system of data “Fusion Centers,” so there is no way that everyone from local cops (especially those in LEIUs) to the U.S. Attorney General is not in the know about organized stalking.

Other players in the overall process include Terrorism Liaison Officers (TLOs) who help choose some of the targets, corporate partners such as members of InfraGard and DSAC, and Threat Assessment Teams in various civilian organizations.

Lastly, the perps include a type of person famously used by East Germany’s Stasi – the civilian snitch. Stasi agents referred to such a person as an Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter – unofficial collaborator. Although the street-level thugs used in gang stalking harassment are sometimes apparently recruited from the ranks of criminal informants, many are just un-paid civilian minions who will do almost anything to please someone in a position of authority – for example, under the guise of assisting a “neighborhood watch” program or an “investigation.”

Who sanctions all of this? In the case of the FBI’s Cointelpro crimes under J. Edgar Hoover, some of the operations were approved by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Presumably, the DOJ signs-off on everything today also (or at least knowingly acquiesces in it). The same might be true of the U.S. judiciary’s “Star Chamber” – the secret FISA Court.

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Precedence for Organized Stalking of Dissidents

The conspiratorial criminality involved in organized stalking might seem far-fetched if not for the fact that the U.S. government has been caught doing such things before. Context provided by an awareness of documented crimes – past and present – by government agencies is critical for evaluating the plausibility of claims about ongoing counterintelligence operations in the U.S.



3. Crimes by U.S. law enforcement and

. intelligence agencies

“When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

– Richard Nixon in a 1977 interview with David Frost

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Attitudes of Government Officials About the Law

Although scandals such as Watergate and Iran-Contra occasionally break into the public’s consciousness, most Americans are unaware of the criminality which routinely occurs at the upper levels of government.

The same government officials who oversee America’s domestic surveillance and law enforcement programs often have a very casual attitude about their own obligation to obey the law.

In a Senate hearing in March 2013 the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was asked “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper said they did not.

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s subsequent revelations proved that Clapper was lying to Congress – which Clapper himself was forced to acknowledge. A typical American citizen would be prosecuted for perjury if he or she lied to Congress; Clapper obviously has no such concerns.

As a practical matter, intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement agencies exist in a mostly secret and politically-protected realm outside of the laws that bind the rest of us. They know they won’t be punished for their crimes.

The political establishment is similarly unconcerned. Since the intelligence and law enforcement community enjoys virtually unconditional support from both major parties, neither party has to worry about negative political consequences for its role in creating domestic surveillance programs which violate the Fourth Amendment.

In April 2013 WikiLeaks published a searchable database of more than 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic and intelligence documents from the mid-1970s which had been declassified. The documents included a revealing transcript of a discussion involving then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

When a Turkish official suggested that the U.S. arrange to supply military hardware to Turkey – in violation of a U.S. Congressional arms embargo – Kissinger joked about the illegality:

Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I’m afraid to say things like that.

We’ll make a major effort.

For the average American, violating federal laws would be a serious matter; for government officials like Kissinger it is literally a joke.

In an August 2013 National Review article, conservative columnist John Fund quoted an intelligence official who alluded to the pervasiveness of such arrogance and deception:

A veteran intelligence official with decades of experience at various agencies identified to me what he sees as the real problem with the current NSA: “It’s increasingly become a culture of arrogance. They tell Congress what they want to tell them. Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein at the Intelligence Committees don’t know what they don’t know about the programs.” He himself was asked to skew the data an intelligence agency submitted to Congress, in an effort to get a bigger piece of the intelligence budget. He refused and was promptly replaced in his job, presumably by someone who would do as told.

Such behavior at the federal level sets the tone for law enforcement agencies lower down the food chain. I address this issue also in the section of this overview about the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

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The Erosion of Trust in the U.S. Government

“Turns out I’m really good at killing people.”

Comment by President Obama – from Double Down

– a behind-the-scenes account of the 2012 presidential

race by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilmann

An April 2014 Rasmussen poll found that more than twice as many American voters regard the federal government as a threat to their rights than those who view the federal government as a protector of their rights.

The poll found that 54 percent of voters considered the federal government to be a threat to individual liberties. Only 22 percent viewed the government as a source of protection of individual liberties. The remaining 24 percent were undecided.

Two of the major reasons trust in U.S. government officials has eroded are: (1) the massive expansion of power and secrecy of the federal government – especially the executive branch – has predictably led to abuses of authority, and (2) access to information via the Internet has made it harder to keep such abuses secret.

That’s the good news for targets of organized stalking. The bad news is that – as a practical matter – many people still naïvely assume that anyone who seems to be associated with law enforcement should be absolutely trusted – as seen in this ABC TV show segment.

Organized stalkers (and other criminals) can easily exploit that fact to recruit accomplices by persuading them that they are assisting an investigation or a neighborhood watch surveillance program. This common tendency of blind obedience toward authority figures is such an important element of organized stalking that I address it in detail in its own section of this overview.

Evidence of this sheep-like deference to law enforcement authority figures was on display in January 2014 a jury in the southern California city of Fullerton decided that it was OK with them that their local police department beat to death an unarmed mentally-ill homeless man who posed no risk to anyone. They were not persuaded by the mere fact that the murder had been captured on surveillance camera video.

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The Prevalence of Government Corruption in the U.S.

A 2013 Gallup poll found that 79 percent of U.S. residents believed that corruption was widespread throughout the government in America.

Admittedly, this is a measurement of the perception of corruption, rather than corruption itself, but corruption is inherently difficult to measure, and public perception is an important indicator.

Now imagine the depth of corruption in those corners of America’s government which operate mostly in secret with minimal oversight, such as the intelligence and law enforcement industry.

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The Frequency of Crimes Perpetrated by U.S. Government Agencies

You don’t have to visit an obscure blog these days to find complaints that America is becoming something of a police state. But America’s government doesn’t just engage in secret invasive surveillance and aggressive policing – it also engages in crimes.

That’s not my opinion – that’s what the federal government itself says. For example, the CIA constantly commits crimes according to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, IC 21 (April 9, 1996) – as explained in chapter 6 of Into the Buzzsaw.

The Congressional report cited therein by John Kelly (whose book Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize) states that “several hundred times every day” officers of the Clandestine Service (CS) of the CIA “engage in highly illegal activities.”

Part of the blame for the American public’s ignorance of crimes by federal agencies lies with the mainstream media, which routinely avoids or downplays news that would upset the political establishment. On the other hand, even when good reporting does occur, it often fails to penetrate the public’s consciousness.

On the November 21, 1993 episode of the CBS news show 60 Minutes, a former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) stated that the CIA had colluded with the Venezuelan National Guard to smuggle a ton of pure cocaine into the U.S. That revelation – and other reports of CIA involvement in the illicit drug trade – seems to have minimal impact on the assumption that Americans should trust the nation’s intelligence community.

By the way, if you want to see that moment of the 60 Minutes episode, it is included in this documentary by WhoWhatWhy on counterintelligence. That segment begins at minute 29.

In an August 2013 article, Reuters revealed that – as a matter of official policy – a secretive unit within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) instructs law enforcement officers in various agencies to lie about the origins of their investigations.

Some cops don’t need to be told to lie. The subject of crimes by police officers is generally under-reported in the mainstream corporate news media – especially on national TV news, but to evaluate the plausibility of widespread acquiescence in gang stalking by local police officers it is helpful to consider criminality by police generally.

This review of crimes by Chicago police officers published by the University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Political Science is illuminating. Browse through the list of convictions of police officers on pages 24 to 47 of this report. The list is in alphabetical order by the officers’ names, and covers the past half-century. Keep in mind: these were just the crimes that were discovered and prosecuted.

The crimes range from bribery and extortion to torture and murder. Gang stalking would be like jay-walking for the cops on this list.

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Crimes Perpetrated Under Authority of the FBI

Law enforcement agencies in America make extensive use of criminal informants in their investigations, and in many cases authorize criminals to commit crimes when an agency believes it furthers its goals, as reported for example in this August 2013 article in USA Today.

“The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at

least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly-disclosed documents that show just how often the nation’s top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime.”

The FBI report from 2011 which USA Today obtained via the Freedom of Information Act does not reveal the nature of the crimes:

“The report does not spell out what types of crimes its agents authorized, or how serious they were. It also did not include any information about crimes the bureau’s sources were known to have committed without the government’s permission.”

A document released in December 2013 showed that informant crimes authorized by the FBI increased another 5 percent in 2012 to 5,939 crimes.

Sometimes the FBI uses cops to perpetrate crimes too. During the original COINTELPRO era, for example, they arranged for police to assassinate two young members of the Black Power movement. On December 4, 1969 in Chicago 14 police officers raided an apartment and killed two members of the Black Panther Party – Fred Hampton and Mark Clark – while they were sleeping.

Noam Chomsky in an interview on Democracy Now! in February 2011 noted that the assassination barely showed up on the radar of the American public:

“…one of the events was a straight Gestapo-style assassination

of two black organizers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, literally.

I mean, the FBI set up the assassination. The Chicago police actually carried it out, broke into the apartment at 4:00 in the morning and murdered them. Fake information that came from the FBI about arms stores and so on. There was almost nothing about it. In fact, the information about this, remarkably, was released at about the same time as Watergate. I mean, as compared with this, Watergate was a tea party. There was nothing, you know?”

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Illegal Spying by the FBI

Of course, the most well-known and well-documented crimes by the FBI occurred during the COINTELPRO era, and I devote an entire section to that later in this overview. I will just point out here that despite the extreme secrecy in which the agency operates, evidence continues to emerge of ongoing criminality. No doubt these reports represent the tip of an iceberg.

A report released in January 2011 by the non-profit watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) revealed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which suggested widespread civil rights violations in FBI investigations.

“[The documents show] serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant.”

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FBI Whistle-Blowers

Most Americans are unaware that the FBI is exempt from the Whistleblower Protection Act. If anything, the agency deserves extra scrutiny because of its history of domestic spying done for political reasons.

An October 2013 article in Reason described the FBI as a “dangerous” domestic spy agency. The author, J.D. Tucille, explains not only how the FBI is able to mostly keep its agents from revealing the agency’s crimes, but also why the abuses tend not to be investigated very aggressively by the press:

“Never hesitant about flexing its muscles to target dissenters and whistleblowers, the FBI….is more dangerous than ever.”

“Exempted from the Whistleblower Protection Act, the FBI freely retaliates against employees who attempt to call out wrongdoing. As a result, it’s rare for FBI employees to speak out. That culture lends itself to a willingness to target whistleblowers in other agencies—and journalists.”

Tucille quoted from the September 2013 report by the ACLU – Unleashed and Unaccountable: the FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority. That report noted examples of the FBI spying on journalists, such as this:

“In 2010 the Inspector General reported the FBI used an illegal ‘exigent letter’ to obtain the telephone records of 7 New York Times and Washington Post reporters.”

A more high-profile case of spying on journalists was reported in May 2013, when it was revealed that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors of the Associated Press.

Famous Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein said on May 14, 2013 on MSNBC that he believed that the intention of the AP records seizure was “to intimidate people who talk to reporters.”

Mike German

Mike German was a decorated FBI agent who specialized in counter-terrorism. He left the agency after 16 years, when he became a whistle-blower. He had discovered that fellow officers were violating wiretapping regulations. When he reported that to his supervisors, his accusations were ignored, and his career was effectively frozen. Apparently, his experience was not unique in an agency which values secrecy more than ethics.

After leaving the FBI, German served as a senior policy counsel at the ACLU. He is now with the Brennan Center for Justice.

Mike German is one of the guests on this Democracy Now! interview together with an individual who was targeted by the FBI for being a political dissident. The individual was subjected to intense investigation for years – despite having no criminal record, apart from trespassing incidents related to political protests.

At 2:06 in the video of this interview journalist Amy Goodman asks Mike German to explain the FBI’s legal authority to perform the “assessments” which, as I mentioned in the introduction above, are essentially investigations that can now be launched against an individual without any evidence that the individual has committed a crime.

This April 2014 interview with Mike German is also worth watching. He suggests that much of the FBI’s threat assessment role should be taken over by Congress, since the agency has a natural tendency to exaggerate the threat of terrorism. German also states that the FBI is now more powerful than at any time since the Cointelpro era.

Ted Gunderson

A high-level FBI official who retired after a full career with the bureau, the late Ted Gunderson, claimed that the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO operations, which lasted from 1956 to 1971, re-emerged in a more sophisticated form a decade or so later, as what is now commonly referred to as “gang stalking.” Gunderson’s testimony is complicated however, for several reasons, as I explain here in my full discussion of COINTELPRO.

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War Crimes by Sociopaths in U.S. Intelligence Agencies

Journalist Douglas Valentine has written extensively about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including a book called The Phoenix Program which details the CIA’s Operation Phoenix in the Vietnam war. That program, which is largely unknown to the American public even today, involved torture, assassinations, and the murder of civilians – including women and children – on a large scale.

For anyone who is curious about Operation Phoenix, I recommend this article which Valentine wrote for CounterPunch magazine in May of 2001 in which he explains both the nature of the war crimes committed and how those crimes were whitewashed by the establishment press.

Writing for that same magazine in September 2013, Douglas Valentine made the following observation about the CIA. No doubt this also applies to many agents in other U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies as well.

“Despite the popular portrayal of the CIA as patriotic guys and girls risking everything to do a dirty job, the typical CIA officer is a sociopath without the guts to go it alone in the underworld. They gravitate to the CIA because they are protected there by the all-powerful Cult of Death that rules America.”

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How Far Will U.S. Officials Go in their Criminality?

An instructive example of the extremes to which federal agencies sometimes go is the CIA’s secret MKUltra program. I describe MKUltra in some detail in section 6 below, so I will just note here that it involved performing experiments (including psychological and physical torture) on American citizens. No one was punished for his participation in that program – which lasted two decades, and the head of 