

Martin Luther King Jr. was wiretapped - ghosh
http://sub.garrytan.com/martin-luther-king-jr-was-wiretapped-and-sent-an-anonymous-letter-from-j-edgar-hoover-encouraging-him-to-kill-himself
martin luther king jr was wiretapped and sent an anonymous letter from J hoover encouraging him to-kill himself
======
hooande
This story needs some historical context. This is pointed out in the blog
post, but the main reason for wiretapping King wasn't his civil rights
advocacy, but his communist leanings. This in no way excuses or apologizes for
the dirty tricks used by the federal government against a non-violent
protestor. But this should make sense to students of US history.

Communism was the absolute defining political issue of the 20th century in
America. Today communism seems like a failed political ideology, a cute thing
that hippies like along with pot and drum circles. But in the 50s and 60s
communism was the most evil thing imaginable, like aids spreading terrorists
who block cell phone signals. Hoover in particular had spent his entire life
fighting communism and saw it as the greatest threat our country had ever
faced. Many of our parents or grandparents had nuclear bomb drills in
elementary school, ducking and covering under their desks to protect
themselves from the communist threat. Growing up like that, you can imagine
the fear and rabid hatred that people had for the ideology.

This isn't a story of "Evil US government subverts wiretapping power to go
after peaceful protestor". This is a case of the government executing the will
of the people at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back their actions
seem evil, but in historical context the FBI was doing exactly what they were
supposed to be doing: fighting communism with everything they had. It may
sound silly to us, but back then that was the only fight that mattered. The
FBI and the public didn't see it as wiretapping a private citizen, but as a
part of a decades long political struggle.

Recently on HN people have been acting like the government can dominate the
world through wiretapping. As if the NSA can find out a few secrets and people
will bow their heads and be silent. Government wiretapping found a true dirty
secret involving MLK and threatened to reveal it if he didn't change what he
was saying. Did he stop? _No_. Did he slow down for a single second? _Fuck
no_. True political reformers aren't cowed by blackmail and intimidation. As
long as we have leaders like Martin Luther King, democracy will live forever.

~~~
gruseom
_the main reason for wiretapping King wasn 't his civil rights advocacy, but
his communist leanings_

What communist leanings? My understanding is that he had none, and that this
was just made up by people who disliked King for other reasons. A bit of
Googling corroborates this [1], but if there's evidence I'd be curious to hear
it.

If King's "communist leanings" didn't exist then they could hardly have been
"the main reason for wire-tapping him" or indeed the reason for anything at
all. Something non-existent can't provide any "historical context" either.

I think the context you're trying to draw leads in fact to the opposite
conclusion. "Suspicion of communism" then equals "suspicion of terrorism" now,
and what the story shows is how easily these powers become abused. "Suspicion
of X" is a self-confirming charge after all.

Edit: I also think you're really stretching things to argue that Hoover going
after King was "the government executing the will of the people".

1\.
[http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp](http://www.snopes.com/history/american/mlking.asp).
The email circular at the top of that page indicates the quality of thinking
among some people who like to believe in King's "communist leanings". Thanks
to Google I've just learned that there's a whole world in which this is still
a thing:
[http://www.martinlutherking.org/thebeast.html](http://www.martinlutherking.org/thebeast.html).

~~~
thaumasiotes
If Iraq's WMDs didn't exist they could hardly have been the main reason for
invading, yes?

~~~
gruseom
Sure, I guess the distinction is between "WMDs", which couldn't cause a war
because they didn't exist, and false beliefs about them, which did exist and
were (arguably) one of the reasons.

------
tptacek
Yes. This times 100. Prior to (I think) '68, there was no federal prohibition
on wiretaps of any sort. Think about that before you say that the USG has
never respected the 4th Amendment less than it does today.

~~~
iamdave
Who cares how long it’s been going on, you need to take severe umbrage that at
multiple points in our nation’s history the Government has taken the 4th
amendment out back and beat it with a lead pipe. The difference is now, a
court is _allowing them to get away with it_. That’s a scary proposition,
because before you know it, it’ll be you going outside for some love taps from
the FBI. And after that, it’ll be your kids. You don’t trade Constitutionality
for antiquity. It’s wrong now, just as much as it was wrong then because if
you found out about it then, you'd have been just as mad about it as you are
now.

~~~
rayiner
The problem is the "slippery slope," "it always gets worse," "the government
is hopelessly broken," ranting that has become pervasive on HN lately. In the
middle of the last century, the Supreme Court allowed the federal government
to put tens of thousands of japanese americans in internment camps, including
U.S. citizens. In the early 2000's, the same court said that even non-citizens
caught in Afghanistan fighting against the U.S. had certain due process and
habeas rights as long as they were on U.S. soil.

~~~
rdl
It seems like punctuated equilibrium with a slight downward slippery slope --
it generally gets worse (due to investigators pushing the limits little by
little) until legal decisions or technological changes push back and make big
changes one way or another (not always for the better).

~~~
timr
_" It seems like punctuated equilibrium with a slight downward slippery slope
-- it generally gets worse."_

Istanbul has been in the grips of a military crackdown of a peaceful protest
about a _park_. In Syria, something like 90,000 people have died fighting an
authoritarian regime, with no end in sight. In Iran, people won't even vote in
the election (where voting is compulsory) because they know that the elections
are rigged. On the other side of the coin, in the UK, you're subject to
government surveillance in every public space. It's a trade-off, and the
choices aren't as clear as you might believe if you limited your knowledge to
what you read on Reddit and HN.

My point is that you have to be pretty cynical to suggest that the USA --
where we let the Occupy protesters linger in front of federal buildings until
they were nothing but _de facto_ homeless encampments -- has been on an
endlessly downward slippery slope. We live in one of the most free and
privileged countries on earth, and it's important to keep a sense of
perspective on these things.

I don't necessarily like that the NSA is tracking phone calls, but I'm also
keenly aware of the fact that they aren't dragging people out of their homes
in the middle of the night, and that we don't have cars exploding daily in New
York City. All things considered, we have it pretty damned well.

~~~
rdl
My point was that things get worse steadily at a pretty slow rate, day over
day, and then occasionally there are big shifts for the better (or for the
worse), generally in the form of legal decisions or major tech changes. The
overall trend might even be net positive (especially for women/minorities in
the US over the past 100 years, if not white males).

There's not a monotonically nondecreasing level of freedom, though.

It's like 100 98 98 97 96 130 (ITAR limited) 125 120 120 119 90 (Patriot) 89
88 140 (default to HTTPS) 135 135 133 etc.

~~~
timr
_" There's not a monotonically nondecreasing level of freedom, though."_

Well, if we do nothing but maintain the current level of freedom, we're doing
pretty well, historically speaking.

That said, I don't think we're on a downward slope at all -- that's just
techno-nerd catastrophic thinking. The problem is that technology races
forward and allows new forms of communication, our sense of _entitlement_
increases, as does the power of _anyone_ (governmental or private) to be
intrusive. It's a constant battle against change itself, not necessarily
against the surveillance state.

For example, the supreme court said that phone call metadata was collectable
without a warrant in the 70s. The fact that Reddit just became aware of this
fact is not a fundamental change in reality, or an example of things getting
worse -- it's just an indication of how technology has changed this
generation's expectations of what "privacy" means.

~~~
rdl
You can't deny that CALEA, PATRIOT, FAA, the NDAA, CIA's black site and gitmo
programs, drone warfare, drone warfare against US citizens overseas, etc.
weren't steps back.

While ssh replacing rsh, SSL-by-default, no crypto export restrictions for
(almost all) commercial software, certain legal decisions (mainly in the 9th),
etc. were steps forward. This is all independent of what reddit/hn people
generally know about the situation.

"auto-updating" client software and the cloud have advantages and
disadvantages at the same time.

~~~
timr
_" You can't deny that CALEA, PATRIOT, FAA, the NDAA, CIA's black site and
gitmo programs, drone warfare, drone warfare against US citizens overseas,
etc. weren't steps back."_

I can't? Most of those things don't affect US citizens. Drone warfare arguably
saves lives (you'd rather that we send soliders to do the same things?). The
other things present vague, hypothetical risks (when they present risks at
all), and tangible, quantifiable benefits.

Look, I'm not saying that I agree with everything that's in the Patriot Act,
or that I think that the US government should have a blank check to bomb
citizens via remote-controlled helicopter. But when you _look at the actual
risks to citizens_ , you find that they're pretty theoretical. The people who
are objecting the loudest usually have the least reason to object (which is,
ironically, part of the problem -- organizations like the ACLU have
traditionally had a very tough time proving harms to citizens, and as a
result, their lawsuits keep getting tossed).

But if you're going to push me to be the devil's advocate, I can _quite
comfortably_ go to the argument I made before: we don't have cars blowing up
(or people walking into cafes with bombs strapped to their chests) in our
cities on a regular basis, and we manage to achieve that level of safety
without needing the intrusiveness of the security state of even a
"reasonable", western democracy like Israel. Empirically, then, we're doing
OK. A lot of the teeth-gnashing going on here is breathless exaggeration from
people who have such peaceful lives that they have literally _nothing better
to worry about_.

~~~
wavefunction
When did we ever have cars blowing up on a regular basis. I get your point
about general life in America being OK, but that is only because many people
turn a blind eye to the evils that our government is doing in our name that
work against us in the longer view.

There are short-term benefits that you're talking about, but long-term costs
that you seem to be ignoring as well.

------
jivatmanx
"In 1964, after Hoover called King the most "notorious liar in the country" in
a press conference, a package was sent to King in the mail, a package the
House select committee ultimately traced back to the FBI. "

What I find most amazing about this story is that the House would actually do
something to serve as a check on executive power.

~~~
tptacek
You mean like they did when they prevented Obama from shutting down
Guantanamo?

~~~
mh-
no, I believe he was talking about a house committee investigating actions by
the executive branch.

you're thinking of politicking.

~~~
tptacek
Oh so you mean like the Fast & Furious investigations? Or the Benghazi
hearings? Or, I don't know, the impeachment of Bill Clinton?

------
karissa
Forget wiretapped. He was assassinated in a conspiracy with 'unspecified
governmental agencies.'

"...the jury ruled that Loyd Jowers and others, including unspecified
governmental agencies, were all part of the conspiracy to kill Martin Luther
King Jr.[3][4]"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr).

------
coldtea
> _Martin Luther King Jr. was wiretapped_

Well, DUH, of course he was. Even minor players in the civil rights movement
were wiretapped. And tons of others besides. And those findings were used to:
to blackmail, to plan police reactions, to spin, etc.

Also check:

[http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-us-vs-john-
lennon/](http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-us-vs-john-lennon/)

~~~
pstuart
That's all they were intended for.

------
lifeguard
"Some of those forces are ones that burn crosses"

An evil chapter in the FBI's history.

