COINTELPRO (short for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and, at times, illegal projects conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. The program was active from the 1950s to the 1970s and targeted many groups, including the Civil Rights Movement, the American Indian Movement, the feminist movement, and the anti-war movement. Created in 1956 to respond to the perceived threat of communism in the United States, it quickly expanded to target a wide range of political groups and activists. The FBI used various tactics to disrupt and discredit these groups, including wiretapping, infiltration, blackmail, and false imprisonment. One of the most well-known tactics used by COINTELPRO was "black propaganda," which involved using forged documents and false information to discredit and disrupt political organizations. The FBI also used infiltrators, known as ...