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THEY'RE WATCHING... It's not paranoia if they're actually out to get you. And in the 60s and 70s, new CIA papers show the agency really was out to get the anti-war movement:
The C.I.A. undertook a domestic surveillance operation code-named Chaos that went on for almost seven years under Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Mr. Helms created a Special Operations Group to conduct the spying. A squad of C.I.A. officers grew their hair long, learned the jargon of the New Left, and went off to infiltrate peace groups in the United States and Europe. The agency compiled a computer index of 300,000 names of American people and organizations, and extensive files on 7,200 citizens. It began working in secret with police departments all over the United States.[...]One document, entitled “Foreign Support for Activities Planned to Disrupt or Harass the Republican National Convention” in 1972, lists the Beatles singer John Lennon, “a British subject,” as someone who had given money to a protest group.Remember that next time the government assures you that if you're not doing anything wrong, you won't fall into the net of their latest, awesomest, surveillance program.--Ezra Klein