Documents: FBI trailed leader of 1960s Free Speech Movement

[struggle4progress]

10-10) 16:43 PDT BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) --

FBI investigators trailed a 1960s student protest leader for more than a decade despite having no evidence he broke any federal laws, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Hundreds of pages of FBI files, obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, showed that investigators collected personal information about Mario Savio, including documents on his marriage and divorce, without a court order. The FBI also obtained copies of Savio's tax returns in violation of federal rules.

According to the files, the FBI feared the Free Speech Movement that Savio helped lead at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 would spread to other college campuses across the country.

The movement started in response to the college's ban of political activity on campus. Savio led a massive sit-in in December 1964 to protest the move, resulting in 800 student arrests. <snip>

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/10/10/national1943EDT0582.DTL


If * "wins" again (and I don't see how he could, fairly), we'll need to remember the lessons of the past as as we face serious government repression when organizing against the next wave of Bushista power grabs ...

[bluestateguy]

1. COINTELPRO

and it's making a comeback and most people won't realize it until it's too late.

[struggle4progress]

2. People will have a hard time believing it but once they understand ...

... there will be widespread rage.

[TaleWgnDg]

3. correction: there were not too many of us, protesters, back in

the 1960s and 1970s who did NOT have a dossier file at the FBI. Anybody here look into whether the feds have a file on you? your wife? husband? how about your kid? father? mother?

Seriously.

The feds were OUT-OF-CONTROL then. Many say same is true, now, too.



. . . . . . . . . .

[Southpaw Bookworm]

4. My ex's mother always wondered

If she had a file. Her husband in the 1960s was not only a folk musician but also a university professor. She was likewise involved in that scene, as well as working for civil rights and such. (they were in Atlanta at the time.)

Is there a way of finding out this stuff?

[knowbody0]

5. TODAY'S LIKE A BAD DREAM COME TRUE

we realized back then that the revolution would not be televised, nor would it be starring natalie wood or steve mcqueen, most of us carried on watching hippies turn into yuppies all the while dreaming of the possibilities of truth and democracy sigh

[Moderator]

6. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=895202