-
“Writers Under Surveillance”: MuckRock’s first book highlights the surveillance of America’s authors
We released the first in our MIT Press series, “Writers Under Surveillance,” two years ago today.
-
Spice up your office Slack with J. Edgar Hoover’s handwritten notes
Recently, we received our 1500th submission to the Great Hoover Hunt project, which aims to catalog all of the handwritten notes from longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover in the Bureau’s files. To commemorate the occasion, we put together a collection of some of Hoover’s choicest bureaucratic broadsides, ready to be copy-pasted into your office’s Slack debate over who forgot to pick up more toner.
-
J. Edgar Hoover’s lieutenant was not impressed with the FBI Director’s “X-Files” cameo
Recently, in response to Emma Best’s 2017 FOIA request for files on former Federal Bureau of Investigation Deputy Associate Director Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, the FBI released an additional 137 pages. As fellow MuckRock user Paul Galante was quick to point out, those new pages include a 1998 letter by DeLoach to one of the producers of the “X-Files,” offering his thoughts on the script of the fifth season flashback episode “Travelers.” To put it mildly, he was not a fan.
-
Here’s what you’ve found in the Mueller Report so far
Yesterday, we loaded a redacted version of the Mueller Report into our crowdsourcing tool and asked for your help in finding what is - and isn’t - in the release. The response was overwhelming, with hundreds of submissions from just the past 24 hours. We wanted to highlight a few of the finds so far, and we’ll have a more in-depth analysis next week.
-
Join MuckRock this Thursday as we discuss “Scientists Under Surveillance: The FBI Files” at the MIT Press bookstore
In the Boston area? Join MuckRock’s JPat Brown, Beryl Lipton, and Michael Morisy this Thursday, April 18, as they discuss their latest book “Scientists Under Surveillance: The FBI Files” at the MIT Press bookstore as part of the Cambridge Science Festival.
-
Senator James Eastland’s allegations about “Red spy rings” debunked by his own aide in FBI file
As part of a recent push to clear their FOIA backlog, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has released 30 pages of new documents on Senator James Eastland, adding to the 521 previously released pages. Among the new documents is a remarkable one-page memo suggesting that Eastland’s public assertion about “Red spy rings” were the result of the Senator confusing New York Times reporters with spies.
-
Ernie Pyle’s brief FBI file documents the Bureau’s often tempestuous relationship with the press
Ernie Pyle, the legendary journalist and war correspondent who died in Japan at the end of World War II, had a typically complicated relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
-
The FBI feared that “Seven Days in May” was bad for America
A memo uncovered in Ronald Reagan’s Federal Bureau of Investigation file reveals the FBI’s concerns that the 1964 film “Seven Days in May,” which depicted an aborted military coup of the U.S. government, would be used as Communist propaganda - and was therefore “harmful to our Armed Forces and Nation.”
-
Remembering the burglary that broke COINTELPRO
On the 48th anniversary of the break-in at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Media, Pennsylvania field office, reporter Betty Medsger reflects on the role of whistleblowers in the pursuit of truth and government transparency.
-
The FBI considered planting a story painting “Ramparts” as anti-Semitic in response to CIA exposé
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO investigation of Ramparts magazine appears to have been sparked by a combination of their exposés on Central Intelligence Agency, their contacts at press outlets like the Soviet-controlled TASS, and their interviews with foreign leaders and officials. The Bureau described these interviews as placing the Ramparts reporters as being “under the guidance of Egyptian propaganda and intelligence personnel” and felt that “the average reader” would see the resulting article as “pro-Nasser, anti-Israel and anti-U.S.” For the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office, this perception created an opportunity for the Bureau to sow dissent among Rampart’s staff, subscribers, and donors.