The documents revealed that the work of farm labor organizers, including Cesar Chavez and political organizers like Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, was viewed by the agency as a threat.
President Joe Biden leaves office in less than a week. With time running out to implement any significant policy agendas, there is one relatively small action his administration can take that would have an outsized impact on his legacy:
Make the FBI publicly release any materials about the surveillance of the Latino civil rights movement.
On Christmas Eve, the CIA quietly released 55 documents confirming long-held suspicions of Latino civil rights pioneers that the agency was monitoring them and their communities in the 1960s and 1970s.
According to the released documents, Latino civil rights activists were monitored as part of the CIA’s Operation Chaos, a domestic espionage program that targeted American citizens and dissidents. The operation’s watchlist included more than 300,000 persons and organizations. The documents revealed that the work of farm labor organizers, including Cesar Chavez and political organizers like Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, was viewed by the agency as a threat.
Latino students were also caught in the surveillance dragnet when the agency infiltrated student groups in California, Arizona and Colorado to keep tabs on Mexican American student activists.
The CIA even had an agreement with the University of Arizona to monitor students who made demands for Mexican American studies classes.
The only reason we know all of this is because in March, two members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, sent a letter to CIA Director William J. Burns and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray requesting the release of any materials about surveillance of the Latino civil rights movement.
The CIA seems to have complied with the request to the extent possible; the FBI has not.
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