Spy Back: How to View Your NSA or FBI File

On my return to college after the military in the 90's I had the chance to go to some lectures, at the lectures were activists from the 60's and 70's who were members of civil rights and other activist groups, one was the late ex Black Panther, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) who died a few years after this lecture and the other one of the daughters of Malcolm X and there were some others that I do not recall.

There were documents produced there that were described as FBI files from the time of CointelPro, it seems like back then before the FOIA act you could not get your records until a certain time period had elapsed or something.

Anyhow, a lot of people are acting very surprised about the current intelligence programs, but some of the things I got to see and read during these lectures was very interesting and unbelievable, I can't remember the details but I remember at that time many people in attendance were in awe of what could be gathered.

It's funny you do not hear this word CointelPro mentioned at all today in the light of these scandals, because they did a lot of illegal things to spy on citizens and many times people not even involved were caught up in them.

CointelPro was in full effect gathering information on U.S. Citizens even suspected of involvement, I would imagine that this sort of information gathering really got a huge start back then to grow into the beast that exists today under different names and agencies.

One more thing, I seriously doubt that if you are actively being investigated for anything, even if you get a copy of the file, there are things that are probably censored or classified that would not be included, in other words you will not get the full truth if you are on an open case of investigation.