Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI operated COINTELPRO, a covert surveillance and counterintelligence program that targeted political dissidents, especially left-wing organizations and participants in the U.S. civil-rights movement. The program monitored individuals and groups for political reasons, rather than limiting investigative powers to lawful, proportionate public-safety objectives. Its activities restricted political expression and implicated fundamental privacy and civil-liberties protections.
The abuses became the subject of the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee investigations in 1975–1976. Those hearings documented extensive domestic-surveillance misconduct and helped drive reforms intended to impose greater legal controls, oversight, and accountability on intelligence agencies. COINTELPRO remains a central example of how government surveillance can be converted into a tool for suppressing dissent when judicial review and transparency fail.
