Patriot's Glossary: December 2007 Archives
From Matthew Rothschild's You Have No Rights:The Church Committee hearings (named after Senator Frank Church of Idaho) in 1974 and 1975 revealed widespread FBI spying on political dissidents. One of the FBI's most notorious counterintelligence programs was called COINTELPRO, which infiltrated and disrupted the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement, among other groups. In response to the revelations President Gerald Ford had his attorney general, Edward Levi, draw up guidelines to limit such activities in the future. The 1976 Levi guidelines prohibited the FBI from investigating the First Amendment activities of individuals and groups that weren't advocating violence. And, mindful of the role of FBI agents provocateurs in the 1960s, the guidelines outlawed the disruption of groups and the discrediting of individuals engaged in lawful First Amendment activities. Domestic spying could occur only when there was "specific and articulable facts" that indicated criminal activity.
Under the Reagan administration and that of Bush Senior, these guidelines were loosened somewhat. Then came Ashcroft.
Continue reading The Patriot's Glossary ~ The Levi Guidelines ~ Suspended by Ashcroft.
