Group Of Burglars Who Broke Into FBI Office In 1971 And Were Never Caught Come Out

Wow!

I was too young to remember hearing about this way back then but this is fascinating.

This disparate group of eight people staked out an FBI office and then broke in and took every document they could lay their hands on, stuck them in suitcases and disappeared into obscurity until now.

They sent copies of FBI files documenting domestic spying and official documents signed by J. Edgar Hoover himself ordering the bureau to harass Anti War protesters to newspaper outlets and were responsible for the very first public knowledge of an acronym nobody had ever heard of and were not find out until years later what it stood for;

COINTELPRO.


Burglars Who Took on F.B.I. Abandon Shadows

PHILADELPHIA — The perfect crime is far easier to pull off when nobody is watching.

So on a night nearly 43 years ago, while Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier bludgeoned each other over 15 rounds in a televised title bout viewed by millions around the world, burglars took a lock pick and a crowbar and broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation office in a suburb of Philadelphia, making off with nearly every document inside.

They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups.

The burglary in Media, Pa., on March 8, 1971, is a historical echo today, as disclosures by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden have cast another unflattering light on government spying and opened a national debate about the proper limits of government surveillance. The burglars had, until now, maintained a vow of silence about their roles in the operation. They were content in knowing that their actions had dealt the first significant blow to an institution that had amassed enormous power and prestige during J. Edgar Hoover’s lengthy tenure as director.

There is much, much more at the link and I highly recommend you read it all because it is flat out amazing!