Speaker 1: From UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Greetings everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back. My name is Max and I am Ben
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today,
Speaker 1: we're looking at something that's pretty dark. It's a part
Speaker 1: of the American past, and it encompasses a lot of
Speaker 1: different groups, um, but one in particular. Right we are
Speaker 1: talking about the famous co in tell pro Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: This is one of those things that was once called
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory and later emerged, surprise, surprise, to be
Speaker 1: a factual conspiracy spanning decades. And what we'd like to
Speaker 1: do today is talk a little bit up how this came,
Speaker 1: about what it was, how it affected both the United
Speaker 1: States and the world, and uh, maybe we'll end on
Speaker 1: a question about what happened to it? Right, Yeah, where
Speaker 1: did it go? Oh? Man? What what dark humor? We
Speaker 1: already have at the beginning gallows or here? Um? All right,
Speaker 1: so co intel pro uh counter intelligence on the part
Speaker 1: of the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation here in
Speaker 1: good old us of a UM, the thing is that
Speaker 1: this was an act of political repression, right, yes, and
Speaker 1: it was a way to keep tabs on political groups
Speaker 1: that were completely legal inside the US that the FBI,
Speaker 1: headed by Jedger Hoover, believed could be a threat to
Speaker 1: the country. Now what kind of threat existential? Physical? Right,
Speaker 1: kind of argicles, ideological? Yeah, it varies, but the one
Speaker 1: that we're gonna be focusing on today or the threats
Speaker 1: are the physical threats that? Okay, yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that's fair. So a little bit of background cointelpro you're
Speaker 1: probably wondering, is this another overly awkward government acronym? Uh?
Speaker 1: Kind of but not really because it's it stands for
Speaker 1: counterintelligence programs, So thank goodness, it's not like changing one
Speaker 1: intelligent new I can't do that. But but the point
Speaker 1: being here that it was an active UH surveillance and
Speaker 1: repression program UH seen as vital for the national security
Speaker 1: of the United States. And of course, national security is
Speaker 1: everybody's favorite boogeyman, depending on which political generation you live in. Well,
Speaker 1: so it's a boogeyman, and it's also the thing you
Speaker 1: can just mention if you want to convince someone that
Speaker 1: it's something is important. Yeah, I wish I could start
Speaker 1: using national security just on my own personal thing for
Speaker 1: some extra swag, but unfortunately I'm not a nation yet.
Speaker 1: One day many yeah, maybe one day. But uh so,
Speaker 1: the FBI, as we know, has engaged in similar acts
Speaker 1: way way back in its time of inception, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, the early nineteen hundreds. Another example that
Speaker 1: isn't quite cointelpro but it's a very similar operation would
Speaker 1: be the FBI surveillance of suspected communists during the two
Speaker 1: Red Scares of US history. That's right, there were two.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, I'm just I feel like maybe we
Speaker 1: need to go ahead and do a whole another episode
Speaker 1: on that as well. I think that deserves its own research. Um,
Speaker 1: if you'd like to hear more about the Red Scare
Speaker 1: one and then it's Red Scare Redo, let us know
Speaker 1: and we will make a whole audio episode on that.
Speaker 1: And uh I also did a guest host spot with
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class on the Red Scare,
Speaker 1: so you can tune in to hear some of that.
Speaker 1: It's a deep cut, you guys. It's an oldie, but
Speaker 1: a goodie. So we know that there were these different
Speaker 1: methods for combating people who would challenge the status quo
Speaker 1: of the nation. These could be people like communists or
Speaker 1: anarchistra other political dissidents. These could also just be labor
Speaker 1: movements and unions. Um So during the Truman and Roosevelt
Speaker 1: years we start to see things that are more direct
Speaker 1: predecessors of cointelpro around the thirties. But what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Cointelpro in its most well known form, officially began in
Speaker 1: ninety six in August, and it was to stop the
Speaker 1: communist communists. Man, you don't like capitalism, that everything that
Speaker 1: we do is based on this one idea of the
Speaker 1: set of ideas. So, uh, the kind of stuff they
Speaker 1: would do, uh seems to range from mean spirited middle
Speaker 1: school or pranks like anonymous phone calls you know quit, well,
Speaker 1: you you know quit? You read commie yeah, two unnecessary
Speaker 1: audits or unnecessarily thorough audits, government harassment and attempts to
Speaker 1: infiltrate these groups and of course turn them against one another.
Speaker 1: And something I never really thought about, ben is that
Speaker 1: just the act of infiltrating a group one time and
Speaker 1: then making it known that that group has been infiltrated
Speaker 1: can create such dissension inside a group even if you
Speaker 1: didn't really do use that infiltration for any means other
Speaker 1: than to expose that it's been infiltrated. It just that
Speaker 1: idea creates such suspicion amongst group members. Uh. It creates
Speaker 1: uh yeah, just that idea of oh wait, now, if
Speaker 1: that guy was an infiltrator or an FBI agent, then
Speaker 1: oh my god, who is this person I've been speaking with? Right?
Speaker 1: And it removes credibility for outside groups or outside observers
Speaker 1: who might be future supporters of a group. Uh. So, well,
Speaker 1: let's brackett the idea of communists as a threat to
Speaker 1: the U S. I agree, It's a different show. Um,
Speaker 1: we won't cover today. Let's look at the one of
Speaker 1: the huge problems here, which is that shortly after um,
Speaker 1: the inception of the modern co intel pro guy named Hoover,
Speaker 1: who some of our listeners may have heard of, uh, decided,
Speaker 1: you know who is also a threat to America as
Speaker 1: it stands today, Uh, black leaders, black people in general, because,
Speaker 1: as we can tell, Hoover at this time is a
Speaker 1: fan of the racist ideology prevalent in the United States,
Speaker 1: at least it seems to be from the memos that
Speaker 1: have been Uh, I guess he classified in the kay
Speaker 1: you're being very fair, Matt, I'm trying to be fair.
Speaker 1: You are being very fair, and I'm sorry. Um, clearly
Speaker 1: I am pro civil rights. No, I'm kidding, O kidding,
Speaker 1: I I am joking. I am joking. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're being fair with the treatment of Hoover because
Speaker 1: all we know is um the stuff left over in
Speaker 1: the documents that, as far as we know, we're authored
Speaker 1: by him. Right. Yeah, he was obviously afraid because again
Speaker 1: he was head of the FBI at this time, and
Speaker 1: he was obviously afraid of in what he called an
Speaker 1: uprising um basically an overthrow of the status quo of
Speaker 1: the time. Right, he pictured a revolution, yes, and after
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three he started saying, Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 1: Is the primary focus or the primary um, the potential
Speaker 1: leader of a violent revolution or a violent revolution, which
Speaker 1: is which is strange when you think about it, because
Speaker 1: one of the huge differentiating factors between Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: and other similar leaders like Malcolm X was that Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Jr. Uh clearly advocated UH non violent revolution,
Speaker 1: you know, similar to Gandhi, similar to other organizations seeking
Speaker 1: equality around the world. And in the FBI and memos,
Speaker 1: it actually states that Martin Luther King Jr. Would be
Speaker 1: the supreme leader of this UH of the black nationalist
Speaker 1: movement if not for what they called his liberal leanings,
Speaker 1: his non violence right. They specifically called it his white
Speaker 1: liberals something right. I think we have a quote, and
Speaker 1: while we're checking that out, let's just go ahead and say,
Speaker 1: off the top, a little bit of a disclaimer, UH,
Speaker 1: Cohen Hell pros illegal activities during this time we're conducted
Speaker 1: in secret, were conducted without government oversight outside of the FBI,
Speaker 1: And we're incredibly racist with this sort of veneer of
Speaker 1: um concern for social social upstanding. But it's just the
Speaker 1: same way that you would hear people use other euphemisms
Speaker 1: in sadly enough, the modern day to disguise UH, huge
Speaker 1: racist tendencies. So we are going to be talking about
Speaker 1: some very ugly things in US history, to say the least.
Speaker 1: So so I'm just gonna give you this is a
Speaker 1: partial quote from the the memo about the the counterintelligence program,
Speaker 1: and this is referring to black nationalists hate groups. This
Speaker 1: is what they called them, Black nationalists hate groups. And
Speaker 1: this is part of the goals in one of these memos,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna read this to you, um, please
Speaker 1: forgive me, like thank you for that caveat Ben. But
Speaker 1: here we go. This is goal number two, to prevent
Speaker 1: the rise of a messiah who could unify and electrify
Speaker 1: the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been
Speaker 1: such a messiah. Cole and he is the martyr of
Speaker 1: the movement today. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, and Elijah
Speaker 1: Mohammed all aspire to this position. King could be a
Speaker 1: very real contender for this position should he abandon his
Speaker 1: supposed obedience to white liberal doctrine. And then in uh,
Speaker 1: and then it just says non violence, uh in quotation marks.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's uh. It's strange when we think
Speaker 1: about this, because this sounds like it is something that
Speaker 1: could be written by a hate group like a white
Speaker 1: power group. Today. However, um, this the stuff that comes
Speaker 1: out of the FBI at this time is sadly in
Speaker 1: line with a lot of other official government documentation and position.
Speaker 1: So when they say that there are these radical black
Speaker 1: hate groups or whatever, what, what they're focusing on are
Speaker 1: things like the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee and Stokely
Speaker 1: Carmichael the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Yeah, which they sund
Speaker 1: like some bruisers, right, but they actually started program in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, nineteen sixty seven, UH, and the FBI called
Speaker 1: it co Intel pro Dash Black Hate. So it focused
Speaker 1: on the Christian Leadership Conference, the Non Violent Coordinating Committee,
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King himself, and the offices. UH. Twenty three
Speaker 1: different FBI offices around the States were instructed to disrupt, misdirect, discredit,
Speaker 1: or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalists hate type
Speaker 1: organizations UM and the biggest to the right. Yeah too,
Speaker 1: because there was a growing movement at the time and
Speaker 1: they were just saying, you know, chop the head off,
Speaker 1: you know. Not well they didn't. They didn't literally put
Speaker 1: down in words anything about causing violence. Again these against
Speaker 1: any of these leaders. They only were talking about undermining
Speaker 1: their leadership, right, more of a nippet in the bud, Yes,
Speaker 1: nippet in the bud, the kind of thing. And at
Speaker 1: the same time this is interesting. At the same time,
Speaker 1: they were working too to partner with other government agencies
Speaker 1: in the case of wide scale civil unrest. I mean
Speaker 1: riots that eat up a city and stuff. But one
Speaker 1: of the one of the subtext of the secret co
Speaker 1: Intel pro operations that I find so fascinating is that
Speaker 1: a lot of this kicked into gear when Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King was began speaking about uh, social inequality and financial inequality.
Speaker 1: So the large speech that made him that made Dr
Speaker 1: King number one on Hoover's Okay, we're a family friendly show,
Speaker 1: so i'll call it a hit list, but that's alright,
Speaker 1: short list of people that he considered a threat um.
Speaker 1: One of the big speech that set this off was
Speaker 1: came from his nineteen three March on Washington for Jobs
Speaker 1: and Freedom, and that sounds so dangerous, doesn't it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it could be to the status
Speaker 1: quo at the time. But the the other thing was
Speaker 1: the Poor People's Campaign, which was the idea to occupy Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And an idea that might sound familiar to
Speaker 1: some of our listeners who might have been involved in
Speaker 1: the occupy movement. So all of this goes on, and
Speaker 1: there are other players that we're going to meet too,
Speaker 1: of course, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party
Speaker 1: and the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party,
Speaker 1: UM are definitely much more UM, let's see, much more
Speaker 1: likely to consider violence as a mean to an end.
Speaker 1: And depending on the members or the sections of what
Speaker 1: you go to for some of these groups, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: the Nation of Islam does have clearly racist elements. And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't feel comfortable making a blanket statement
Speaker 1: about the Black Panther Party because I do believe that
Speaker 1: there is a difference between saying, you know, you can
Speaker 1: be a black nationalist and not be a racist person. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that is I I think we might get
Speaker 1: some hate mail for that, but I can defend that
Speaker 1: statement and to be fair. At the same time, co
Speaker 1: intel Pro has putting some resources into monitoring white hate groups,
Speaker 1: specifically the Ku Klux Klan just a little bit. What
Speaker 1: was it about? Yeah, yeah, UM, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: funding was going towards monitoring uh black what they call
Speaker 1: black hate groups. And as we find later when the
Speaker 1: Church Committee from the U. S. Senate investigated co intel Pro, UH,
Speaker 1: they found that Cointelpro in some ways began because the
Speaker 1: FBI was UM felt the FBI felt stymied and UH
Speaker 1: they felt like they were too constrained by the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court going, hey, you can't go out and beat the
Speaker 1: crap out of people because they don't, you know, want
Speaker 1: they don't agree with the current setup of the government. Uh.
Speaker 1: But interesting story. The public would have never known about
Speaker 1: co intel pro or it would have stayed a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory where it not for one particular moment in history,
Speaker 1: one particular crime. Yes it was. There was a crime,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna learn about that right after we get
Speaker 1: back from a quick word from our sponsor. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. And you know, like every every show, we
Speaker 1: have ads and we just hope you will take into consideration. Uh,
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Speaker 1: always listening. Brought to you by and we're back. So
Speaker 1: uh now it's time to talk about how John and
Speaker 1: Jane Q Public ever learned of CO and t L
Speaker 1: pros weird racist campaign. To begin with, well, it's a
Speaker 1: funny story, actually really interesting. Small group of activists calling
Speaker 1: themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI. They decided
Speaker 1: they're in Philadelphia and there is a small FBI office
Speaker 1: that is lightly guarded, and they believe that there is
Speaker 1: information being held at the FBI um of illegal activities, essentially,
Speaker 1: And these are just kind of regular citizens, like you said, Ben,
Speaker 1: These aren't career criminals or no, not not criminals at all, terrorists.
Speaker 1: These are much more likely to be students, academics and
Speaker 1: such and uh, there's one PhD in there. And well,
Speaker 1: they decided on the night of the Fight of the
Speaker 1: Century in quotes the nine bout between Muhammad Ali and
Speaker 1: Joe Frasier, they thought, well, hey, everybody's gonna be listening
Speaker 1: on their radios or preoccupied on their television jans, this
Speaker 1: is a great night to go and do some nefarious stuff,
Speaker 1: nefarious to an extent. So they broke into the small office.
Speaker 1: One guy was a lock pick, by the way, um,
Speaker 1: and they took just a ton of files and they
Speaker 1: proceeded to disseminate those files to various publishers and journalists.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's how we found out about it, just
Speaker 1: because a small group of people decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're going to go in there and see what the
Speaker 1: heck they're up to. And let's be clear, we are
Speaker 1: not we're we're not able to say that this is
Speaker 1: something people should ever do themselves, because it was committing
Speaker 1: a crime. Still, they were absolutely committing. To correct, we
Speaker 1: would not have uncovered the great deal of other crimes
Speaker 1: perpetrated by the government had these people not committed a
Speaker 1: crime themselves. In the aftermath of this, Uh, the public
Speaker 1: goes bananas. Yeah, and this once upon a time, conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories spread around by members of these various groups, including
Speaker 1: anti war advocates. Uh, let's not forget that the FBI
Speaker 1: also was focusing on people who were against the war
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, for example. And so this comes to light
Speaker 1: and what what is that from this, we see congressional investigations,
Speaker 1: and these investigations conclude that the tactics employed by the
Speaker 1: FBI and the programs that they were running are no
Speaker 1: ifs ands or butts illegal so illegal just so against
Speaker 1: the law. But then also the church committees report on
Speaker 1: this emerged with some interesting instances of other, um, other
Speaker 1: breaches of privacy, often the request of presidents. So let's
Speaker 1: just walk through the presidents real quick. I'm ready, okay, um,
Speaker 1: if you had if one of your favorite presidents is
Speaker 1: from or earlier, just to get ready to know they're
Speaker 1: not perfect. Um. Alright, So Roosevelt, President Roosevelt won the
Speaker 1: FBI to UH keep track of citizens who are sending
Speaker 1: telegrams to the White House against his national defense policy. UM.
Speaker 1: Truman got insider information on Roosevelt's UH staffing, UM his
Speaker 1: staff aids and how he would arrange meetings with them.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower got reports on any UH contacts like friends of
Speaker 1: foreign officials who they hung out with when they hung
Speaker 1: out Washington, which you know a lot of these you
Speaker 1: can understand. If the abilities there, someone's going to use it.
Speaker 1: UM the UH. Kennedy wire tapped a bunch of people, UM,
Speaker 1: including some law firms UM and UH the US and
Speaker 1: his brother Robert F. Kennedy also UH listened into an
Speaker 1: FBI wire tap on Dr King. I know President Johnson
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson, who did all kinds of ridiculous stuff as well,
Speaker 1: also had the FBI check up on his opponent in
Speaker 1: the election. UH. And of course President Nixon had all
Speaker 1: sorts of wire tapping adventures that we could probably cover
Speaker 1: in a different podcast, and he himself found himself You know,
Speaker 1: attached to a recording on the phone several times. Yep, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess it. I don't know. Is it a lesson?
Speaker 1: Maybe tappers become the tapped. If you live by the tap,
Speaker 1: you should die by the tap. I don't know. That
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Yeah, that's just a bad quotation. But
Speaker 1: with this, what what this means is that the program
Speaker 1: was exposed. And these kind of things only thrive in
Speaker 1: darkness an obscurity. Yeah. The only the only way you're
Speaker 1: ever going to find out about it if someone decides
Speaker 1: to use go by their conscience and leak it out.
Speaker 1: I mean really, it's It's kind of brings us back
Speaker 1: to whistleblowers again and the importance of that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and also the danger to these organizations like the FBI
Speaker 1: of whistleblowers and the n s A and why they're
Speaker 1: so terrified of people like Edward Snowden and I. You know,
Speaker 1: I have to ask you before let's take a sidebar,
Speaker 1: before we finish the co intel part or get to
Speaker 1: what I think is the most exciting part of this podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: I have to ask you do you think that people
Speaker 1: who uh, people who as you said, follow their conscious
Speaker 1: working for the government or any government and disclose these secrets.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they should be immune to the
Speaker 1: laws for violating that agreement? It's very strange, it should be.
Speaker 1: It's it's such a tough area because you've you've got
Speaker 1: to be beholden to law. Law has to stand no
Speaker 1: matter what. If we live in a just society. Um.
Speaker 1: But if but if a group, a group that you're
Speaker 1: working for is breaking the law and you're you're aware
Speaker 1: of it, but nobody else is aware of it, and
Speaker 1: you come out, I think I think there should be
Speaker 1: some kind of immunity there. Okay, here's my thing. If
Speaker 1: you are whistle blowing for a private organization that is
Speaker 1: breaking the law, let's say, um let's let's say that
Speaker 1: some you find out that some fast food company is
Speaker 1: uh skirting hygiene laws putting illegal additives in. You blow
Speaker 1: the whistle. You're probably gonna get fired. Why would you
Speaker 1: want to keep working there? And there are protections for
Speaker 1: you and in government organizations or those affiliated with government
Speaker 1: organizations when you sign the oaths of secrecy or the
Speaker 1: n d A s and all that other stuff, which
Speaker 1: means non disclosure agreement, then I believe that people should
Speaker 1: if you're if you're following your conscience, you should be
Speaker 1: fully prepared for the ramifications or consequences of the actions
Speaker 1: that you agree to, Like it's a process that you
Speaker 1: agree to originally. And we could have some maybe some
Speaker 1: of our listeners will write in and say, well, there
Speaker 1: they you don't know what you're agreeing to. It's a
Speaker 1: pig in a poke because you don't know what you're
Speaker 1: keeping secret in tift you sign it. But the idea
Speaker 1: of UM, the the idea of blanket immunity for anyone
Speaker 1: who follows their conscious that the problem with that is
Speaker 1: that people's conscious or moral decisions don't always follow the
Speaker 1: same compass. Sure, sure they all vary. And and also
Speaker 1: if that was true, then yeah, there would be so
Speaker 1: many whistleblowers because come on, man, capitalism is based on
Speaker 1: the exploitation of of something, right I mean, And so
Speaker 1: if you're if everyone was following their conscience, yeah, nothing
Speaker 1: would ever get done. There would be no industry. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's very interesting because you and I have
Speaker 1: You and I have had this conversation often and outside
Speaker 1: of work or when we're off the air, and one
Speaker 1: of the questions that we ask each other is are
Speaker 1: we approaching a future wherein secrets will be impossible? And
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's a powerful question, but it's
Speaker 1: also a question for another day. And but it kind
Speaker 1: of brings us to the last part of this episode,
Speaker 1: which is, as we approached this future where secrets don't
Speaker 1: exist anymore, and we're getting closer and closer to that edge,
Speaker 1: what the heck happened to this co Intel program? Does
Speaker 1: it still exist and it or did it just morph?
Speaker 1: Did it change a little bit into something else? What
Speaker 1: do you think? Ben? Personally? I think that it never
Speaker 1: really stopped. There's absolutely no reason nor compelling consequence large
Speaker 1: enough to prevent people from continuing to use this ability.
Speaker 1: In fact, as the leaks by both Julian Osandra and
Speaker 1: Edwards Snowden show, UH, the technology has increased and the
Speaker 1: intent has also become more focused, more clarified. Uh. The
Speaker 1: idea of national security UM, whether or not you are
Speaker 1: I or anyone thinks it's a valid or invalid thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: the point is that the idea has enough support there
Speaker 1: that it gets us to uh some some frightening edges.
Speaker 1: So I think that not only do things like cointelpro
Speaker 1: continue and there is proof that you know, these things
Speaker 1: do continue, maybe not in a huge unified way, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of monitoring infiltration clearly continues. Um. The scary
Speaker 1: thing is for me it six siding and frightening is uh,
Speaker 1: how how far along has technology pushed these original aims?
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that the days of having to
Speaker 1: physically go to a telephone line, physically put a wire
Speaker 1: in to listen to someone. Uh, those days are long gone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is That is something that we didn't even really
Speaker 1: talk about too much. Is the methods used for these
Speaker 1: co intels under the information Um, and I don't mean
Speaker 1: to swing way back, but just as some context for
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, you would you if you
Speaker 1: wanted to say, listen into somebody's conversations they were having
Speaker 1: in a hotel room, let's say in a motel somewhere,
Speaker 1: the you would have to get the room next to
Speaker 1: adjacent to the room of the person you're trying to monitor,
Speaker 1: put a microphone up against the wall, or somehow plant
Speaker 1: a microphone in that room before they rent the room out,
Speaker 1: or I mean there's it was very difficult, or you'd
Speaker 1: have to catch them on a phone conversation in order
Speaker 1: to get actual evidence. Yeah, there's uh there's a guy
Speaker 1: named Brian Glick who wrote a book called War at Home,
Speaker 1: and in War at Home, Glick talks about for umbrella
Speaker 1: methods that the FBI would use during co and telpro
Speaker 1: and one of these courses infiltration. So you know, you're
Speaker 1: I know, I always use the Vegan co op as
Speaker 1: an example, So you're you're the Vegan coop, right, and
Speaker 1: guys are uh so angry that, um, it's difficult to
Speaker 1: grow heirloom produce right because of all the pesticides used
Speaker 1: in large agricultural concerns and income. Some guy, you know,
Speaker 1: Falcon and he came from Portland's or something, and he's
Speaker 1: super cool. You know, he's cool. It turns out he's
Speaker 1: been working for the FBI the entire time, not Falcon Alkin.
Speaker 1: And then there's uh so that's one infiltration, another one
Speaker 1: psychological war fair. I would also count this as propaganda,
Speaker 1: So this would be misinformation like sending out getting the
Speaker 1: letter head of whatever group you're upset with, and then
Speaker 1: sending out baked publications like I always I always enjoy
Speaker 1: reading a news story, um where the news is coming
Speaker 1: from an anonymous source or an official who asked not
Speaker 1: to be named of the company or the department, because
Speaker 1: that that kind of that always makes me think that
Speaker 1: someone got the soft go ahead, the soft green light. Uh.
Speaker 1: So the next one would be legal harassment. This is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about when we said, UM, people getting
Speaker 1: audited every year on the dot um without necessarily being
Speaker 1: shady or false, arrest um, wrong, wrongful imprisonment um. And
Speaker 1: then another one, of course, one of the more dangerous
Speaker 1: would be illegal force uh, which which is kind of
Speaker 1: a vague term, but that means stuff like partnering with
Speaker 1: local law enforcement to do break in a raid on
Speaker 1: a house. No, no warrant searches is one of the
Speaker 1: big ones. Nowidation really that's yeah, it all all, all,
Speaker 1: all three of the everything except for UM. I think
Speaker 1: the propaganda stuff goes back to intimidation and maybe propaganda
Speaker 1: as well. Psychological warfare also includes directly addressing people. It's
Speaker 1: a dirty, murky realm. It is infiltration, it is and
Speaker 1: you know, we have to stop back. We have to
Speaker 1: step back for a second here, UM, and I have
Speaker 1: to ask you the question, and then we also have
Speaker 1: to make a statement after this. So here's the question. That.
Speaker 1: Do you think Coentel Pro or something like it continues. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think obviously, I think anyone who's paying attention to
Speaker 1: the news lately, just the technology. The technology makes it
Speaker 1: so easy. Now, why wouldn't you, like you said earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, if if you have access to a technology
Speaker 1: that makes with the presidents that you have the ability
Speaker 1: to get I'm going to use this word. I know
Speaker 1: this is kind of a bad word, but gather information.
Speaker 1: It's so easy to do it now that why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you So? Yeah, it's if we look at these capabilities
Speaker 1: is sort of the Lord of the Rings analogy, a
Speaker 1: ring of power. It's very, very difficult to throw that
Speaker 1: kind of ability away, and for some people it's impossible.
Speaker 1: But uh, that's that's a pretty crappy comparison, of course. Um,
Speaker 1: one thing I would say, or maybe it's not too
Speaker 1: much of a bad comparison, because you can be invisible,
Speaker 1: can as you said, gather information. I like it. I'm
Speaker 1: on board. I'm back on board with it. But the
Speaker 1: biggest thing that is whether or not it's whether or
Speaker 1: not the infiltration techniques are being used and the you know, um,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of groups that are being uh,
Speaker 1: you know, their doors are being pushed in by a
Speaker 1: local police or something. There are groups who have made
Speaker 1: we've made claims about stuff like this. Uh. We have
Speaker 1: to be very careful with this too, because it's no
Speaker 1: secret that often, often both both sides of these equations
Speaker 1: can tell wildly different stories. You know. There are examples
Speaker 1: of people who said that the um f d A
Speaker 1: came and confiscated all of the raw milk that a
Speaker 1: small farm was creating. Um, and it comes out that
Speaker 1: there was an outbreak of disease and it wasn't just
Speaker 1: this farm, it was everything in a certain risk area
Speaker 1: or something like that. I'm not saying that there's a
Speaker 1: right wrong, but I am saying there are two ways
Speaker 1: about it. And then I feel that it would be
Speaker 1: remiss for us to make this this statement. Um, don't
Speaker 1: do it. Let me get my soapbox. Oh yeah, if
Speaker 1: we did not make this statement, we would be remiss.
Speaker 1: Thank you mann. Good save um, so, let me get
Speaker 1: my audio soapbox. Here. Probably hear me stepping up on it,
Speaker 1: and here we go. We are not saying that governments
Speaker 1: are inherently evil. We are not telling anybody that, you know,
Speaker 1: big brother is going to come and just steal things
Speaker 1: to make your life inconvenient, like just your left shoes
Speaker 1: or something. But what we are saying is that it
Speaker 1: is clearly proven that cointelpro as with the co Intel
Speaker 1: pro pro proper, actually did occur and probably would have
Speaker 1: continued had it not been for someone committing a crime.
Speaker 1: This is a very heavy moral question, you know, um,
Speaker 1: and it's one that comes back up again in the
Speaker 1: modern day with Edward Snowdon. I read an interesting conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory recently met that said, um, Edward Snowdon as a
Speaker 1: Russian operative, um and that he was deep cover, which
Speaker 1: doesn't make too much sense given his age. But um,
Speaker 1: I've been reading a lot of Edward Snowden conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: and I heard, uh one that said that he was
Speaker 1: working for Russia and that the secrets he's quote unquote leaked,
Speaker 1: we're not really true at all, and it's Russian propaganda. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: our our government certainly hasn't done a great job of
Speaker 1: dispelling They have not. They have not. And then another
Speaker 1: one I read was that um was that he had
Speaker 1: Edward Snowden had a green light from Washington and from
Speaker 1: Langley to go public with this, whoa to try and
Speaker 1: start descent amongst them? I don't know, the World War
Speaker 1: three will come along and then there wasn't any evidence
Speaker 1: of this at least that I could find. But you know,
Speaker 1: right in and and uh, let us know what you think. Well,
Speaker 1: it's see, it's so crazy, man, because in the world's
Speaker 1: again these murky world of just spying and and secret information.
Speaker 1: Who the heck? Who do you trust? Ben? Who do
Speaker 1: I trust? Who can you trust? Um? No trust no one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to wonder about you and Noel. Honestly, Well, look,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about an old later. We'll have a
Speaker 1: little sidebar. He's always listening. He's always got these headphones on.
Speaker 1: I swear you can hear every word that I say. Alright,
Speaker 1: so uh before here, Well, thee last thing, one last thing.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're interested in the Citizens Commission to
Speaker 1: Investigate the FBI and that whole story, please check out
Speaker 1: The Burglary Colon The Discovery of Jed gro Hoover's Secret FBI.
Speaker 1: It's a book written by Betty Metzker and it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I put a little clip of it in our episode
Speaker 1: about coin tel pro Um when I think they were
Speaker 1: on democracy Now. It's a fascinating book. It's really good read. Um,
Speaker 1: check it out if you're interested. Oh and less, do
Speaker 1: you think that we are being a direct source of misinformation?
Speaker 1: And maybe you're saying no, man, Co and tell Pro
Speaker 1: that's crazy talk. You can go to the FBI dot
Speaker 1: gov website directly check out the thing they have called
Speaker 1: the vault where they admit what the Congressional investigation found
Speaker 1: in CO and tel Pro. That was a mental exercise
Speaker 1: to phrase that that carefully, wasn't it. That is interesting
Speaker 1: that they're like, yes, we will admit to what this
Speaker 1: one congressional committee said was true. And you know that's
Speaker 1: probably that's probably the way you have to do it.
Speaker 1: And as always before we in the podcast, we always
Speaker 1: want to go straight to the learn more with with you, Matt.
Speaker 1: You always have a source for us to learn more from,
Speaker 1: and thank you for doing that, by the way, And
Speaker 1: then we like to read listener mail. All right, we've
Speaker 1: got got a couple today. So um, First, we we've
Speaker 1: been getting some ghost stories. Remember we get the ghosts
Speaker 1: really good one. Yes. Uh so first I was thinking
Speaker 1: we could go to a government related thing and then
Speaker 1: we'll do one ghost story, all right. So uh, Tiffany
Speaker 1: w writes to us, um, I believe Tiffany is just
Speaker 1: from the Internet. She doesn't say where she's from. So
Speaker 1: Tiffany says, Hi, guys, I'm writing to request to show
Speaker 1: about nine eleven and Ben Lauden. Uh heh, Tiffany says,
Speaker 1: A cousin of mine recently posted to Facebook this. I
Speaker 1: feel bad for Ben lauding our government through nine eleven
Speaker 1: on him. He denied it, But if you did that
Speaker 1: to America, wouldn't you brag about it? Don't believe me?
Speaker 1: Watch loose Change nine eleven, which is loose change is
Speaker 1: a thing that you and I hear about a lot.
Speaker 1: It's one of the first things I ever saw in
Speaker 1: the Conspiracy realm uh So, Tiffany continues, it was such
Speaker 1: an inflammatory post. He got quite defensive when the folks
Speaker 1: on his friends list tried to debate this with him.
Speaker 1: I would like to know more about this topic. I
Speaker 1: know it's controversial and it's a touchy subject, but it
Speaker 1: might be a good idea to educate folks about this
Speaker 1: topic and the theory surrounding it. I'm in a man
Speaker 1: A few words, all right, Um, yeah, we'll take a
Speaker 1: look at especially if other listeners are interested in hearing it,
Speaker 1: or there's something you want us to talk about related
Speaker 1: to ben La and nine eleven. Let us know our
Speaker 1: last email, the one that is related to ghosts. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at it and I'm realizing it's probably a little
Speaker 1: too long to read on on this show right now.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can great, Yeah, it was great. Uh. It
Speaker 1: comes from a friend of ours named Nick. Uh and
Speaker 1: Nick wrote into tell us about a paranormal experience he
Speaker 1: add on set on Saturday in December nineteen, two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, which remains the worst day of his life. Uh. Nick,
Speaker 1: we hope you're listening. We want you to know that
Speaker 1: we were big fans of this story, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we should save this for when we do another
Speaker 1: entirely listener mail episode. That'd be great. We just read
Speaker 1: the entire story. Yeah, we can make a make a
Speaker 1: day of it. Yeah, let's do it. Let's put that
Speaker 1: the vault, all right, So everybody is gonna have to
Speaker 1: hold on for Nick's ghost story. But we've been receiving
Speaker 1: some other great ghost stories and uh, we would like
Speaker 1: to read some of them on the air in the future.
Speaker 1: So if you have a story for us, please write
Speaker 1: to us and let us know. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter, you can
Speaker 1: find us on Oh what wait, big news. We have
Speaker 1: our very own website now it's w w W dot stuff.
Speaker 1: They don't want you to know dot com. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all true. We have a website. It's crazy. If you
Speaker 1: guys want to support what we're doing here, the best
Speaker 1: way to do that is to go to our website.
Speaker 1: You can watch all of our videos there. You can
Speaker 1: listen to all of these podcast episodes. Um easily clickable.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have blogs coming. Uh. And we also want
Speaker 1: to know if we should start a forum. We've been
Speaker 1: looking into it. We don't want to start it unless
Speaker 1: you are into it and something that you would be
Speaker 1: interested in doing. Uh. Being able to talk with the
Speaker 1: other listeners in this community directly. Uh inside, Yes, and
Speaker 1: in the future are that forum can really serve as
Speaker 1: our future episode kind of the machine that creates our
Speaker 1: future episodes where we have people discussing certain topics and
Speaker 1: then I think it's gonna be huge if you guys
Speaker 1: are interested. Every every really good episode we do is
Speaker 1: not originally our idea comes from a listener. It comes
Speaker 1: from someone like you in the audience. So let us
Speaker 1: know what the next big idea is. Let us know
Speaker 1: what we should cover. Let us know what you think
Speaker 1: about CO and Tell and about ghosts, and what we
Speaker 1: should say or look into, at least about Osama bin Laden.
Speaker 1: You can emails directly. Our address is conspiracy at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com. Oh and don't forget to order your CO
Speaker 1: and telephone by heading on down to the street and
Speaker 1: waving your arms around. Please note, by listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: you have legally agreed to the in terms of service
Speaker 1: anti your sport go and help hope. For more on
Speaker 1: this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit test tube dot com
Speaker 1: slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on
Speaker 1: Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.