If You Care About Government Surveillance, Watch 1971 Tonight on PBS

Huffington Post ^ | 5-18-2015 | Chris Weigant

[Citizen Zed]

Everyone who cares at all (one way or the other) about government surveillance should watch the documentary 1971 tonight, on the PBS show Independent Lens.

Everyone who has an opinion on the Edward Snowden revelations should watch this film. Everyone who has an opinion on the USA PATRIOT Act should tune in.

I say all this, mind you, before I've even seen the film. Full disclosure: I'm not being paid or compensated for this plug in any way, either. But I know that however the subject matter is handled by the director, it is significant enough and important enough to pay attention to. I rarely strongly recommend a film sight unseen. In fact, I rarely venture to recommend any film at all (it's not generally what I do). But in the case of 1971, I do so because I already know the story it is going to tell. This story is not only a fascinating piece of American history few today even remember; it's also very germane to the current public debate about government surveillance.

What happened in the year 1971 that was so important? A burglary. No, not the one at the Watergate -- that was a completely separate event which wouldn't take place until mid-1972. This burglary took place in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in the town of Media, when the local office of the FBI was broken into and all the secret files were stolen (this was 1971, so they were all paper files). The significant ones were then leaked to the media by the burglars (which was the whole point of the burglary). A whopping 40 percent of the secret files covered domestic political surveillance and investigations of political activity (with a 100-to-1 slant towards investigating liberal organizations over conservative ones).

[Citizen Zed]

Liberals are criminals. The FBI should be watching them.

[Gaffer]

Yes. I’m going to put that on my calendar - fer sure.

A Huffpo blogtwit who spoke with another “journalist” who HAD to go all the way back to 1971 to try and relate SNOWDEN and his government-of-now revelations.

Why 1971? No, not Watergate. But it’s about the FBI and burglary, secret files and surveillance - ALL UNDER Richard Milhouse NIXON! You guessed it, it’s those damned Republicans.

The Huffpo blogtwit hasn’t even SEEN what he’s begging us to watch for cripe’s sake.

Yeah....I’m gonna key that into my DVR record schedule, right next to “Baking Cookies with Hillary Clinton.”

[I feel so dirty, almost as having been sexually violated to get what additional info I could about this by actually going to HuffPo.]

[Buckeye McFrog]

I think the cross-dresser was still running the FBI in 1971. He never had much regard for civil liberties. Including those of his bosses.

[Gaffer]

You have to realize that Cross Dresser Hoover meme can’t be used in today’s inclusive liberal agenda except to say that it is okay. This is about Nixon as a Republican, implying transferred blame against Republicans, period.

You can’t hit up Obama’s NSA, FBI, DHS directly. It has to be via a circuitous and tortured trek through anything Republican on which to lay blame.

[Old Sarge]

This is about Nixon as a Republican, implying transferred blame against Republicans, period.

[Boogieman]

“A whopping 40 percent of the secret files covered domestic political surveillance and investigations of political activity (with a 100-to-1 slant towards investigating liberal organizations over conservative ones).”

Well, liberal organizations were at least 100 times more likely to be engaged in supporting militants and revolutionaries....

Can anyone think of a single “right wing” revolutionary or militant group that committed an act of political violence in the 60s-70s? Just one?

[PLMerite]

” A whopping 40 percent of the secret files covered domestic political surveillance and investigations of political activity (with a 100-to-1 slant towards investigating liberal organizations over conservative ones).”

Liberal. You mean like the Weather Underground and the SDS?