Declan McCullagh
Sun, 09 Jun 2002 23:22:29 -0700
[I just got back to SF after spending the last five or so days in Big Sur. I'm slowly catching up on email. Photos to follow, of course. --Declan]
--- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/06/09/MNCFLEADIN.DTL Secret FBI files reveal covert activities at UC Bureau's campus operations involved Reagan, CIA Seth Rosenfeld, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, June 9, 2002 _________________________________________________________________ Under the guise of protecting national security, the FBI conducted wide-ranging and unlawful intelligence operations concerning the University of California that at different points involved the head of the CIA and then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, The Chronicle has learned. According to thousands of pages of FBI records obtained by The Chronicle after a 17-year legal fight, the FBI unlawfully schemed with the head of the CIA to harass students, faculty and members of the Board of Regents, and mounted a concerted campaign to destroy the career of UC President Clark Kerr, which included sending the White House derogatory allegations about him that the bureau knew were false. The FBI, in contrast, developed a "close and cordial" relationship with Reagan, who made campus unrest a major issue and vowed to fire Kerr during his 1966 gubernatorial campaign. And after he was elected, the FBI failed to report that Reagan falsely stated on a federal security clearance form that he never had been a member of any group officially deemed subversive, an omission that could have been prosecuted as a felony. The FBI later secretly gave Gov. Reagan's administration information it could use "against" protesters. The disclosure of the FBI activities concerning the University of California during the 1950s and 1960s comes as the bureau has been granted wider authority and more resources to conduct domestic intelligence activities, and as President Bush seeks to create a new Department of Homeland Security. Experts said the FBI and CIA's past activities involving the University of California provide a cautionary tale about potential dangers to academic freedom and civil liberties. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------