Surveillance and Political Repression
Surveillance is the mass collection, recording, and analysis of various information on a designated person or a group of people with the intention of governing, tracking, targeting and influencing those being surveilled. After World War II, multiple nations with sought after natural resources were fighting for their independence from their colonizers. The power struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States, known as the cold war, made these nations vulnerable to both world powers. In order to ensure the nations allied with the U.S, the FBI and CIA developed programs that would target these populations by creating puppet governments and leading coups. On the domestic front of the cold war the FBI developed a surveillance program called COINTELPRO in 1956, where the government used surveillance systems in order to keep an eye on a certain groups of US citizens. The 1960s and 1970s showed a rise in anti-racist and anti-imperialist organizing both domestically in both the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement. Organizations targeting anti-black racism, such as the Black Panther Party and the formation of Black Student Unions at universities were characterized by the FBI as threats to national security. Racial psychology, institutionalized justification for racism, was used in order to brand national resistance as a hate-based fanaticism and extremist violence.
This program was created in order to address the “radicalization” of marginalized groups, mainly targeting Black Civil Rights and Black Power activists who were agitating for systemic reforms. This happened in tandem within the nation’s imperialist agenda in multiple formerly colonized regions fighting for their independence. Given these regions had resources valuable to their colonizers, the U.S. had specific interests in retaining bilateral connections with nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America in order to have access to these assets, such as cheap oil in the Middle East. The U.S. government’s concern about decolonization abroad lead policies of surveillance and political repression at home by the FBI and CIA. These policies were rooted in anti-black racism and established that the White race was not responsible for the white supremacist system in the United States.The FBI and CIA identified modes of anti-racist and anti-imperialist work and began surveilling, incarcerating, policing and at times using military style groups such as SWAT to enforce the nation’s overall prerogative. Members of the Black Panther Party were systematically targeted by the FBI and the police. Targeting methods included false criminal accusations, mass incarceration, police raids on private property and in some cases targeted killings.
Muslims, particularly Black Muslims, were also systematically targeted through the FBI implementation of psychological warfare, personal intimidation, destruction of social and family networks, illegal assassinations and detentions. The similar types of surveillance tactics to the COINTELPRO program were applied internationally, notably in the United States’ involvement in Iran in the 1950s by arresting and detaining human rights activists while instituting a puppet government.
U.S. surveillance and political repression are still in practice today, especially after the events of 9/11. Muslims in the U.S. and outside were targeted by the state and detained for suspicion of being tied to terrorist groups, such as in the case of Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai.As Junaid Rana details in “Policing Kashmiri Brooklyn,” Syed was targeted through the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program which surveill Muslim communities through informants in Mosques, connections to the local police and wiretapping. Palestinian activists, especially those participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, are also being surveilled by the U.S. government and are being targeted by governments in the Middle East due to their work. Academics and students participating in BDS activities are often the targets of surveillance and harassment by organizations and policy groups associated with pro-Zionist narratives.
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Nation of Islam: FBI COINTELPRO: THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WAR AGAINST DISSENT
Rana: Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora
Marcou: Police History: How SWAT Got Its Start
Alexander: "The Color of Justice
Darden and Thomas: Detroit: Race Riots, Racial Conflicts, and Efforts to Bridge the Racial Divide
Johnson: Black Religion, the Security State, and the Racialization of Islam