The New York Times has an absolutely fascinating story about a 43 year old crime that was, until recently, unsolved. It’s a story that shows there is nothing new under the sun. It’s also a story intrinsically involved with the U.S. Government’s last scandal involving spying on its citizens.
The crime was the theft from an FBI office in a suburb of Philadelphia of documents that showed the FBI was spying on Americans, trying to infiltrate anti Vietnam war groups, and incite them to perform illegal acts so that the antiwar movement would be discredited. The documents, subsequently mailed to a number of newspapers, were instrumental in getting the Church commission, that investigated the aforementioned last scandal, formed.
The parallels with the Snowden story are astounding. The NYT story at the link has a 13 minute video about the story that will seem very familiar. After the revelation, the government tried desperately to bury the story. When the papers published it anyway, high ranking government officials lied on the record. The FBI assigned 200 agents to track down the perpetrators.
The way the people involved were finally discovered makes the story all the better. Whatever your thoughts on the Vietnam War—or even if you don’t have any—and on the Snowden affair, you really need to watch that video. If nothing else, it’s a great caper story.