Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

The first is intelligence collection-such as infiltrating groups with informants,wiretapping or opening letters. The second is dissemination ofmaterial which has been collected. The third is covert action designedto disrupt and discredit the activities of groups and individuals deemed athreat to the social order. These three types of "intelligence" activity areclosely related in the practical world. Information which is disseminatedby the intelligence community or used in disruptive programs has usuallybeen obtained through surveillance.23Furthermore, the same techniques may be used for more than one goal simultaneously.Surveillance has its obvious uses in collecting information, but conspicuoussurveillance may also be used to harass the target breed paranoia andfeelings of persecution, and so on. Likewise, informants can supply information,but they can also be used to disrupt a group's organizing efforts---engaging inroutine sabotage, provoking rivalries and in-fighting, and encouraging illegal(especially violent) activities that can discredit the organization.The specific strategies and techniques involved have been developed overtime, with the twentieth century representing a period of particular progress.The degree of actual activity has ebbed and flowed, for the most part followingthe level of dissident political activity (particularly dissent from the left) . At thenational level, this work has been centered in the federal intelligence agenciestheFBI, the CIA, Army Intelligence-but has also come to involve, at times,practically every federal agency and every branch of government. At the locallevel, the bulk of intelligence work has been shared between the police and innumerableprivate agencies, beginning with the Pinkertons. Within police departments,the branches responsible for keeping the lid on subversives have goneunder a wide variety of names, including the "Radical Bureau," the "AnarchistSquad," the "Bomb Squad," the "Intelligence Division," the "Industrial Squad,"the "Bureau of Special Services," the "Special Investigations Bureau," and others.For the sake of regularity, I will refer to them here primarily under thegeneric term "red squad."THE RED SQUADSNew York City's red squad got a head start on the rest of the country.On January 13, 1874, in what came to be termed the '1ompkins Square Riot,"7,000 people took to the streets in a demonstration against unemployment, and thepolice responded by ruthlessly beating them. Following that debacle, the policedepartment began assigning detectives to spy on socialist and union meetings.24Within just a few years, their operations expanded enormously. In 1895 and 1896the NYPD tapped 350 phones. including those of churches.25This pattern was repeated in cities around the United States. The police beganby attacking public events, especially demonstrations. They rigorously enforced laws,forcibly dispersed crowds, and expended a great deal of energy trying to identify andnab individual agitators who, they assumed, must be responsible for any such disturbance.This latter pursuit quickly developed to the point where police targeted entireorganizations, sending informants to their meetin gs . 26 The creation of special branchesdevoted to this task took hold after 1900, prompted by labor unrest, the increasedpopularity of socialism, and a wave of immigration.r153