Fergie's Tech Blog

Offbeat: The Spies of Texas

Having lived for several years in Austin, I still track with news from the area.

This is one of the more interesting pieces that I've read from Central Texas in a few weeks...

Thorne Dreyer writes on The Texas Observer:

During the Sixties and Seventies, a number of government agencies had significant overlapping domestic surveillance programs.

According to former military intelligence officer Christopher H. Powell, who now teaches constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College, U.S. Army Intelligence had a network of 1,500 agents dispersed throughout the country and maintained files on more than a million American citizens. The IRS was involved in “counter-subversive” intelligence operations, had massive files, and shared them with other agencies. The CIA conducted significant domestic spying, targeted SDS, SNCC, the Black Panther Party, and a number of other organizations and had a substantial campus presence with agents among the faculty and administration.

Texas was no exception.

posted by Fergie @ 11/20/2006 03:58:00 PM