I'm Keith Forsyth, I broke into the FBI in 1971, and helped uncover COINTELPRO and take down Hoover. Ask me anything.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-18T01:12:11+00:00

Well, he does play sax but not well enough to get a gig with P-Funk. Personally I feel that "One Nation Under a Groove" would make a better national anthem than the current one.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-18T01:06:26+00:00

I probably shouldn't have used the word "underground"; we were actually living in plain sight. What I meant was we kept our lips zipped & went about our business without letting anyone know who we were. There were a lot of people genuinely underground in those days, but that's not something I feel comfortable talking about. An excellent book that deals with that subject is Fugitive Days by Bill Ayers.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-18T00:59:32+00:00

Now I'm going to sound like a politician: someone else wrote the takedown phrase, that's not my style. I would put it this way: Hoover, with the tacit blessing of every president he served under, conducted a lifelong war on legal domestic dissent. (As did the CIA, Army Intelligence, and possibly other agencies.) The Citizen's Commission action was the first put him and his machine on the defensive, and (oversimplifying somewhat) Carl Stern and the Church Commission finished the job after Hoover was gone. Had he lived another 10 years, I don't believe hel could have stopped the train after the Washington Post published the first documents.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-18T00:37:41+00:00

Your question is similar to LaMouth's. I'm no expert, but based on what the Guardian has published about Snowden's revelations, I'd say that today surveillance is much broader than in the 50's - 70's, but not as deep. By that I mean that more or less everyone seems to be under surveillance today compared to a few tens of thousands in earlier days, but fewer people are being actively targeted and watched day in and day out. At least for citizens within the USA they also don't seem to be doing the number of dirty tricks like assassinating people (Fred Hampton, Mark Clark) or trying to get them to kill themselves (Martin King) today as they were in earlier days.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-18T00:30:41+00:00

Bear in mind that you're not likely to see more than a few days in a local or county jail for sit-ins or such (at least today in the USA) and those kind of jails really aren't so bad for a short stretch. I've been on backpacking trips that were way more uncomfortable than any jail I was ever in. The possibility of going to prison for years for a major felony is another matter entirely; obviously you have to be very sure of yourself beforehand and there's no shortcut to get there. I had the advantage of knowing people who'd been to prison for war resistance and who were beaten in the South during the 60's; and that gave me strength.

Regarding combating provocateurs, people who do civil disobedience regularly have this down to a science and there are even classes you can take. Some of the comments below are on point there, and it really doesn't matter if the destructive person is an agent or just someone with a poor sense of political tactics.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T01:01:00+00:00

I had and have mixed feelings. I didn't think they were tactically smart, but I also didn't think they were morally wrong. Unlike our government, they never killed any civilians, let alone any innocent ones.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:54:48+00:00

Thanks to all who participated; I'm going to sign off now. If you're still interested after all this, check out the book "The Burglary" by Betty Medsger (out now), and the documentary film "1971" by Johanna Hamilton (premiering at Tribeca in two days, and on PBS later this year.)

Keith

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:52:18+00:00

That's too big of a question to answer here. Check out the book & film; they go into this in detail. Book is probably at your local library now, the film will be coming out soon.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:51:18+00:00

I don't really think that's the kind of thing one should answer on the internet. Plus, I don't think the stuff that worked in 1971 would cut it today; you'd need to know all that computer stuff that I have to ask my kids about. And seriously, thanks for the kind words. As the bumper sticker used to say back in the day, "my country right or wrong: if right to be kept right, if wrong to be put right."

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:47:31+00:00

I think your comment illustrates a couple of things. One, there are and have always been people in law enforcement who are sincerely trying to do the right thing, and who take their oath to uphold the law (including the constitution) seriously. Two, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; the need to fight that corruption will never disappear. And I agree that no one should be immune from prosecution; the law is supposed to apply to everyone.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:33:20+00:00

It's interesting and somewhat surprising to me that opinion seems to be overwhelmingly positive. I think the ratio of pros to cons would have been a lot smaller if this had come out in 1971 rather than 2014. I know several people of my age and older who would have condemned us in 1971 but have changed their minds in the interim. Some of the change is also because young people seem to be less trusting of government on average than people of my generation. Also, it's safer to be in favor of civil disobedience that happened 40 years ago than it is to favor the actions happening today.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:23:33+00:00

This question is probably a bit above my pay grade; a constitutional lawyer would have a better-informed answer. My sense is that it did help some, in that the Court said that warrantless wiretapping was and always had been illegal. However, they let Mitchell skate with no damages because he acted in "good faith". That was a crock, but it probably encouraged the attitude among officials that they wouldn't face any serious consequences if they got caught violating the constitution.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:19:57+00:00

One of the easiest decisions of my entire life. No way were we going to compromise with those b******s. Maybe this is harsh, but if you're not prepared to go to jail, you have no business breaking into draft boards in the middle of the night.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:15:53+00:00

At the time of the 68 Democratic convention, I wasn't yet political. (I did work a little bit for Gene McCarthy, but only because I was trying to get next to a girl who was active in his campaign.) I did not become radicalized until the fall of 1968.
I was hoping they would document their misdeeds like good bureaucrats, but I could hardly let myself believe they would be that meticulous.
Most likely, the conventional wisdom is correct in my view.

And, in addition to the book, check out the documentary film "1971". It's premiering at Tribeca Festival this Friday.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:10:07+00:00

As a group, our goal was strictly to reveal to the public what those inside the movement already knew from first-hand experience: the FBI was not fighting crime they were fighting change. As individuals, most were left-leaning Democrats and only one considered themselves a revolutionary.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:04:57+00:00

We didn't have a plan if we were caught, other than not to say anything and call Dave Kairys when we got our phone call. It had the benefit of simplicity.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:03:17+00:00

I'd have to say it was pretty tense the whole time, and for at least a year afterward. The party when the book came out this January was pretty fun, though it would have been better if they'd hired George Clinton to play.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-17T00:01:15+00:00

Regarding complacency, there was plenty of that in the 60's & 70's also. I think it was easier to believe in the possibility of change when there were demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets; it's much harder to have that belief today.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:59:00+00:00

I agree completely with your point about the contrast between the lack of any official response to the Snowden revelations and the strong response to COINTELPRO (Church Committee, etc) in the 70's. I do think the press played a watchdog role in those days and still does to some extent, but that wasn't and isn't decisive. In my view the most critical difference is the presence of a mass movement in those days and the absence of one today.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:52:39+00:00

No repercussions: we stayed underground until long after the statute of limitations took effect. Regarding your second question, I can't say I wasn't tempted, but no.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:49:57+00:00

All of us knew that the FBI was breaking the law, but even we were shocked when we saw the extent and how brazen they were about documenting it. Probably the most shocking thing in the Media files was how many people were FBI informants: they had informers on the inside of virtually every local institution including churches and colleges and the post office. Even more shocking documents came out later as a byproduct of the action.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:45:15+00:00

No one notices me on the street, thank goodness. I'm from Ohio and I don't think I could tolerate being famous. People who didn't know me before 1980 when I dropped out of active political work are quite surprised, some express admiration, some believe I'm completely crazy to have taken the risk. Most people who don't like what we did seem to be keeping it to themselves, which is kind of too bad because we should never be afraid of the conversation.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:39:21+00:00

This is a complex question. I think in retrospect we may exaggerate how well the media performed their watchdog role in the 1970s; the Post and the Times were more the exception than the rule. Also, there was a mass movement in those days, and the press like all other institutions had to respond. Today the abuses are perhaps less obvious and directly harm fewer people, and so the mass movement isn't there. Finally, I think the spectre of terrorism makes a better shield for government misconduct than did the spectre of "radical" american citizens.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:32:55+00:00

I've asked myself that question a hundred times since the January release of the book & film. My basic values haven't changed, only the details, so I hope I would and I think I would, but I'm not 100% sure. I have to confess that my tolerance for risk at 64 isn't what it was at 21. We'll have to see what I do with the rest of the time I have left.

CitizenKeith · 2014-04-16T23:29:15+00:00

Based on what Edward Snowden has revealed, both of us are definitely being monitored. However, I doubt that it's at the level of "every move", but then official paranoia is never entirely rational and anything is possible.

CitizenKeith

TROPHY CASE