Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI

Common card · No. 377867

The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI was an activist group in the United States during the early 1970s. Their only known action was breaking into the field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) located in Media, Pennsylvania on March 8, 1971, and stealing over 1,000 classified documents. Disclosure of these files led to public scrutiny of surreptitious FBI activities and several reforms. None of the eight perpetrators was ever arrested or involuntarily identified. Following the burglary, selected documents were mailed anonymously to several US newspapers, exposing numerous illegal FBI operations targeting First Amendment-protected activities of U.S. citizens. Most news outlets initially refused to publish the information, saying it related to ongoing operations and that disclosure might have threatened the lives of agents or informants. The Washington Post, after confirming the authenticity of the files, ran a front-page story on March 24, 1971; other media organizations...

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