FBI

How Bob Dylan Ran Afoul of the FBI

by Aaron J. Leonard

The combination of alcohol and unconsidered remarks about Lee Harvey Oswald in the wake of the Kennedy assassination helped ensure that the FBI opened a file on the singer. 

FBI Releases Bill Russell's File, Which Includes Allegation of Betting Against Own Team

The Bureau's file on the late NBA star demonstrates their suspicion of the civil rights movement and disdain for politically engaged Black athletes. It also contains a memo alleging Russell placed a significant wager against the Celtics as player-coach, although many known facts and lack of follow-up make that allegation doubtful. 

LBJ was Hoover's Co-Conspirator in the FBI's War on King and Civil Rights

by Jonathan Eig and Jeanne Theoharis

Americans have been taught to think of J. Edgar Hoover's efforts to discredit and destroy Dr. King as the work of a singular, personal animus. Recently declassified documents show that President Lyndon Johnson was well aware and supportive of Hoover's efforts, demonstrating the wide resistance of the establishment to challenge. 

Michael Kazin on J. Edgar Hoover, and Beverly Gage's Acclaimed Biography

by Michael Kazin

The signal contribution of Gage's book is not to examine Hoover's ideology or the details of his personal life, but to show how the FBI director built power and broad support, among even liberal Americans, for intrusive surveillance and repression of activists. 

Beverly Gage: When J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left, Liberals Helped Him

by Michael Brenes

Liberals enamored of Hoover's performance professionalism and efficiency, plus his fervent anticommunism, allowed many powerful liberals to remain on board with the repression his FBI unleashed against the political left. 

Beverly Gage on J. Edgar Hoover—Enemy of Democracy

Beverly Gage's book explains the FBI director's longevity not to dark arts of blackmail and secret-keeping, but to a more straightforward and disturbing explanation: many Americans shared Hoover's reactionary views and liked how he cracked down on dissenters. 

Ernie Lazar, Who Amassed Archive of FBI Documents, Dies at 77

"Through sheer perseverance and patience, Mr. Lazar became a kind of Zen master of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, a provision enacted in 1967 that allowed the public a centralized way to request unclassified government material."

Released FBI File Shows Extent of Government Spying on Aretha Franklin

Beverly Gage says the surveillance was par for the course under J. Edgar Hoover's leadership, when Black figures with any suspected links to civil rights or militant politics was a target.

Republicans Expected to Grill Biden's National Archivist Nominee in Retaliation for Mar-A-Lago Warrant

Despite the fact that she currently leads the White House Historical Association and has no connection to the National Archives, Colleen Shogan can expect a tough nomination fight as Senate Republicans pick up Donald Trump's grudge over the enforcement of presidential records law. 

Trump is Attacking the Most Conservative Agency of the Government

by Garrett M. Graff

The embedded conservatism of the FBI is so severe that Democratic presidents have never felt politically entitled to name a fellow Democrat to lead the Bureau. Trump's attacks on the FBI as part of a liberal "deep state" are ludicrous.

Reasons to Defund the FBI—That Have Nothing to Do with Trump

by Alex S. Vitale

The FBI's history of repression and service to the powerful should override any fleeting satisfaction liberals feel about the search warrant the Bureau served at Mar-a-Lago. 

The Islamophobia of Domestic Security and the Capitol Insurrection

by Juan Cole

Perhaps if the FBI hadn't been spending the last 20 years spying on American Muslims the organizing of white Christian nationalists leading to to the January 6 assault on the Capitol would't have been an apparent surprise to the authorities. 

Exoneration of Convicted Malcolm X Killers Shows FBI Needs to be Held Accountable

"Were the real killers working with the FBI? And is that why the FBI withheld the information? What does it say that the only witnesses who placed Aziz and Islam at the scene of the crime were FBI informants?"

Did the FBI Fail to Investigate Civil Rights Killing Cold Cases?

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2008 authorizes the FBI to prosecute surviing suspects in acts of racist terrorism. It's not clear that they have exercised this power vigilantly. 

Marquette's Athan Theoharis Used Hoover's Secret Files to Document the FBI's Illegal Actions

"Theoharis' research proved or verified many episodes of FBI skullduggery, including multiple instances of Sen. Joseph McCarthy enlisting the FBI to seek sexual or political dirt on government officials and workers, even President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself."

FBI Releases File On Suspicions Raised About Kurt Cobain’s 1994 Death

Fans who doubted the official story that Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain's death in 1994 was a suicide had requested investigation by the FBI, which declined. 

Revolution is Illegal: Revisiting the Panther 21 at 50

by Orisanmi Burton

"To revisit the history of the BPP is to experience the rhyme of history. Yet, the refrain is not a pleasant one."

Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton

by Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher

New documents shed further light on the involvement of the FBI in the 1969 assassination of Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, who is the subject of the new film "Judas and the Black Messiah." 

What the FBI Had on Grandpa

by Molly Jong-Fast

"I never considered my grandfather to be a danger to the republic, but J. Edgar Hoover disagreed." The FBI surveilled writer Howard Fast extensively, though, as he wrote in his autobiography, "the eleven hundred pages detailed every—or almost every—decent act I had performed in my life."

Malcolm X's Family Releases Letter Alleging FBI, Police Role In His Death

The family of the late leader released a letter they claim shows the involvement of a NYPD detective in a conspiracy to assassinate Malcolm X.