Shava Nerad: > Have you looked for information specifically on COINTELPRO and the civil > rights movement? It might not be indexed under surveillance (a good deal > of the activity was sabotage and harrasment, too) but having grown up under > the FBI's eye, it's hard to imagine there isn't literature. > > Part of the problem with scholarship on the surveillance in that generation > is the conditioning to not speak out on the part of many subjects (for many > reasons),
There is a tendency to blame victims who have been violated for that violation, as though it were somehow their fault. To admit rape traditionally has been a source of shame. I think we see something similar (not the same, obviously) with being put under surveillance. For instance, here in Chile I am under intense physical surveillance by the Chilean secret police. Why? Presumably because the FBI or CIA has asked them to babysit an American dissident in exile (me). Have I committed any crime? No. Do I have anything to be ashamed of? No. Will I continue to speak out on surveillance issues and against American imperialism in the region? Yes. And yet for many, to admit being under surveillance is risk people thinking you're a criminal, e.g. "Well the US gov't doesn't persecute people for political speech [LOL], so he must have done something wrong, so he probably deserves it." Let's be clear: being put under surveillance is to be condemned, Kafka-like, to live in an open-air prison. It's time people stepped forward and spoke openly about this abuse. I for one will not remain silent. Jens -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
