Wiretapping In Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

An Illinois Democrat named Barack Obama looks like he still has a chance to be the 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate (especially if white U.S. anti-war women voters and most African-American voters refuse to vote for former Democratic President Bill "Lewinsky/Yucaipagate" Clinton’s wife in the remaining 2008 Democratic presidential primaries) . But under Illinois Democratic Party rule in Chicago, the Chicago Police Department was allowed, historically, to use wiretapping methods to violate the democratic rights of U.S. anti-war activists. As Frank Donner noted in a chapter titled “Chicago: The National Capital Of Police Repression,” which appeared in his 1990 book Protectors Of Privilege: Red Squads And Police Repression In Urban America:

“…A Cook County Grand Jury convened to determine whether the police had violated the law.

“On Nov. 10, 1975, the grand jury issued a report, `Improper Police Intelligence Activities,’ strongly condemning the red squad: `The evidence has clearly shown that the Security Section of the Intelligence Division assaulted the…constitutional right to privacy.’ The panel heard considerable testimony from several police witnesses that they were aware that electronic surveillance was used to gather intelligence information. In addition to illegal electronic surveillance, police officers admittedly engaged in burglaries, thefts, incitements to violence, destruction of mailing lists, and other criminal acts, because `they believed it their duty.’”

(Downtown/Aquarian 8/14/96)

Next: Remembering Philip Agee’s 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded “NGOism”