How Thieves Stole Top FBI Secrets And Changed History
How Thieves Stole Top FBI Secrets And Changed History
The FBI is famous for protecting Americans, but that doesn’t mean their security is invulnerable. Watch how a group of criminals infiltrated the FBI, and stole classified files.
Throughout history, we’ve heard lots of stories about daring robbers looking to steal a load of money to get rich. Yet today, we’re going to examine a time when the heist wasn’t about cash. Instead, it was about getting proof of the illegal activities conducted by the intelligence agencies in the United States. These activists in 1971 believed they were being unjustly monitored due to their protests against the Vietnam war. Yet when they got the proof after breaking into an FBI office in Media, Philadelphia, they had no idea how extensive the surveillance was. They had to tell journalists and newspapers across the country just how deep it went.
On top of this story and how the group pulled off the theft, we’re going to chat about the aftermath. We look at the formation of the Church Committee to examine the extent the FBI, CIA, and other agencies went to. We also explore the phrase COINTELPRO and how NBC’s Carl Stein found what it went. As well as how Martin Luther King and Muhammed Ali fit into this dark initiative. We look at the activists themselves and their history. Such as John and Bonnie Raines. For decades, the thieves remained anonymous. There’s also the journalist that broke the original story on the leaked documents. The Washington Post’s Betty Medsger. Finally, we discuss Edward Snowdon. When he leaked the NSA information during 2013. How much the NSA reforms cost and what it tells us about the case in the 70s.
