By Deji Olukotun
The Huffington Post - 01/19/2014
Would MLK approve of Obama's proposed surveillance reforms?
As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it's worth remembering
not only King's activism, but also the actions by our own government to
suppress his vision. His achievements despite abuses by American state
power become all the more remarkable and implore us to prevent such
repression from happening once more.
King attracted millions to his human rights campaigns -- and invited
the watchful gaze of the FBI as a result. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
spent significant resources monitoring King's movements and
eavesdropping on his communications. In one especially lurid episode,
agents sent King an anonymous note castigating him for his extramarital
affairs and implying that he should commit suicide. Journalist and
author Betty Medsger chronicles Hoover's obsession in her gripping new
book The Burglary: the Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI:
"Hoover's attitude toward King can be described as a nearly savage
hatred... The plot involved office break-ins, use of informers, mail
opening, wiretapping, and bugging of King's office, home, and hotel
rooms."
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