Five of the eight young men and women who stole files from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, in March 1971, have now come forward. The statute of limitations has run out--they can no longer be prosecuted.
What a favor they did for our country. J. Edgar Hoover’s paranoia and his efforts to stifle anti-war dissent were exposed to the press and to the American public. The F.B.I.’s Counterintelligence Program (or Cointelpro) was revealed as an attempt to destroy lives and ruin reputations of innocent Americans.
Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, later held hearings on the F.B.I.’s abuse of power. The Church Committee’s final report said this: “Too many people have been spied upon by too many government agencies, and too much information has been collected.” Not much has changed in the past 40 years.
Incidentally, the F.B.I. had over 200 agents assigned to the Media burglary. None of the eight burglars were ever caught.
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