Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States — the federal holiday marking the birthday of the civil rights leader who was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968 at the age of 39.
I want to write about King, and about something that is not discussed enough in the annual commemorations: the fact that the United States government surveilled him systematically, tried to destroy his marriage, and — in a letter the FBI sent him anonymously in 1964 — apparently attempted to drive him to suicide.
What the FBI Actually Did
The FBI's COINTELPRO programme, which ran from 1956 to 1971, conducted surveillance of civil rights leaders, Black nationalist organisations, communist groups, anti-war activists, and a range of others deemed to be threats to the American social order.
King was one of its primary targets. The FBI bugged his hotel rooms, recorded his phone calls, and compiled dossiers on his private life. J Edgar Hoover personally considered King a dangerous subversive and approved operations designed to discredit and undermine him.
The anonymous letter sent to King in 1964 contained recordings of his extramarital affairs and suggested that suicide was his best option before the information was made public. It was one of the most grotesque abuses of state power in American history.
King won the Nobel Peace Prize that same year.
Why This Matters Now
The surveillance apparatus that was used against King was technically illegal by the standards of its time. COINTELPRO was shut down in 1971 after congressional investigations exposed its scope.
But here is what I want you to notice: the infrastructure that enabled it was not dismantled. It was upgraded.
The NSA's mass surveillance programmes revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013 represented a quantum expansion of the state's capacity to monitor its citizens. The Patriot Act authorised surveillance capabilities that the COINTELPRO era FBI could only have dreamed of. The legal framework for those programmes was classified. The oversight was minimal.
I am not claiming that the current US government is systematically targeting political opponents the way COINTELPRO targeted King. I am observing that the technical capacity to do so is greater than it has ever been, and the history of what happens when this capacity exists should make anyone thoughtful about whether they want to depend entirely on the goodwill of whoever happens to be running the government.
King's Actual Argument
King's greatness was not his personal virtue, though he had genuine courage. It was his argument.
He argued that America had made promises — in the Declaration of Independence, in the Constitution, in the amendments passed after the Civil War — that it had not kept. He was not arguing against America. He was arguing for America to become what it claimed to be.
That argument — hold the state to its own stated principles — is one I find deeply compelling, regardless of the political context in which it is deployed.
The state claims to protect your rights. Hold it to that claim. The state claims to be governed by law. Hold it to that claim. The state claims to respect your privacy. Hold it to that claim.
And, where possible, build structures that do not depend on the state's goodwill for their protection.
Work with Sebastian
Privacy, surveillance, and the structural protection of your rights across jurisdictions — this is part of what I think about in building structures for clients. If this dimension of the conversation is important to you, let's include it. Book a consultation.