The FBI and the Shattering of Students for a Democratic Society

The collapse of SDS is an ugly moment that stands in 1960s history as a train wreck. The most prominent student organization confronting the Vietnam War and racial injustice was reduced to tatters; a critical instrument for meeting the challenges to come was no more. Unfortunately, the story of its destruction has largely revolved around the particular political actors and their conflicts - especially the emergence of the Weathermen - effectively ignoring the FBI's not inconsequential role.

While in the end, the FBI was not mainly responsible for the destruction of the group - by 1969 its leadership and most committed members broadly speaking were far more radical, divided and sectarian than the wide-open, ultra-democratic organization they were part of could tolerate - the Bureau did play a critical role. In practical terms, it unleashed a flurry of initiatives against these young radicals: sophisticated initiatives to exacerbate real political divisions in order to set groups and individuals against one another, the use of the media for vilification and fractious ends, a sophisticated (for its time) technology to surveil and snoop, and the extensive deployment of informants with the aim of disruption, disorientation and the supplying of the intelligence to be used to undermine this highly influential organization.

Things since the spring of 1969 have changed in dramatic ways. Today, it is possible for law enforcement and government spies to carry out sophisticated snooping with keystrokes and mouse clicks; the proliferation of laws leveled against offenders high and low serve as ubiquitous leverage to "flip" "offenders" into informants, and the media, while open to far more people, is at the same time a much more ready instrument to target protest and dissent - whether or not an FBI agent is whispering in anyone's ear. This is the place we have arrived at, not from nowhere, but from measures and methodologies - many tried and true and still in play - honed in their execution during earlier times.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26558-the-fbi-and-the-shattering-of-students-for-a-democratic-society