The Counter Intelligence Program may be an unfamiliar agency to some, but its actions are even more unknown. It is the FBI’s secret program that was used to attack and undermine radical opposition to the United States government. The program was created in the 1960s and still affects U.S. citizens today. COINTELPRO is tyranny that needs to be left in the past and recognized for what it has done to American history.

COINTELPRO’s main focus is to attack and undermine minority groups. White hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan functioned as a patsy to show that the FBI was after all radical groups.

But underneath the surface, white hate groups were given covert aid funds and information as long as they attacked the groups that COINTELPRO targeted. These targets were often forced or convinced to blame themselves and each other for problems COINTELPRO created. This leaves history racked with distortion and falsehood based on COINTELPRO’s tyranny.

The media has displayed the FBI and other agencies as the “good guys.” Knowing that the FBI was, at its early development, a racist government agency, would be shocking to American nationalism. But in reality, they are like the Mafia, and they want to keep power away from radical minority groups.

Because of recent terrorist attacks on American soil, the government has stepped up national security and political repression. An example is the Patriot Act that was formed back in October 2001. This act can allow government agencies to violate any form of its citizens’ privacy.

That means police or FBI agents can enter a person’s home and search it without a warrant. History shows that these government agencies treat their legal restrictions as borderlines they can pass through when they please. Government agencies can violate restrictions by abusing human rights for convicted felons and criminals, torture Iraqi prisoners and take bribes.

Government agencies have developed more deceptive domestic actions as the system grows. According to Thetalkingdrum.com, government agencies are adopting the mantle of an equal agency by hiring women and minorities to effectively undermine a wider range of political targets. Local police have similarly upgraded their system in the same way to gain a better status among the people of America. I’m not saying the people who are hired are deceitful. I’m saying that those in charge of the departments have ominous motives in using these people in the wrong way.

Talkingdrum also states that the CIA has continued to use university professors, journalists, labor leaders and others to mold U.S. public opinion. If this was true, it would be a major issue that has misled people into supporting the government’s wars, arrests, school funds and laws.

It is sad to know that our country that was based on freedom is not completely truthful. Many rights have been violated. There have been unlawful and unconstitutional attacks, which the government has made on groups that have an opposite opinion on this nation’s rule. But if you look at how the government runs the nation, history isn’t repeating itself. It’s just transforming with the same motive.

Jeremy Porter is a communications major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].