Earlier this month, the FBI decided to upload its 141-page file William R. Powell, author of The Anarchist Cookbook, to its website. If you’re unaware, the 1971 book — written by Powell during his first year at Windham College in Vermont — is basically an instruction manual for how to commit crimes. As the FBI’s file on Powell puts it, “The main part of the book is divided into four chapters: Drugs; Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance; Natural, Nonlethal and Lethal Weapons; and Explosives and Booby Traps.”

Needless to say, it is not the sort of book that one actually takes instruction from, or even necessarily reads. It’s a book that rebellious teenagers own because it seems like a cool thing to have around. However, that didn’t stop the FBI — by then concerned about mass anti-Vietnam protests as well as the actions of left-wing groups such as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers — from freaking out about the book as well as its author. He and his publisher were both surveilled, and the FBI began (unsuccessfully) looking into legal justifications for banning The Anarchist Cookbook’s sale.