I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround

Marvin Gaye has a brief six-page file, which details an incident that followed him not being paid for a concert. Jimi Hendrix has a file including documents related to a pot bust in Canada. Mariam Makeba, an anti-apartheid activist who was married to Stokely Carmichael,  has a 292-page file which details the couple’s every move, including buying new home appliances.

The FBI declined several requests to comment for this article.  Among the documents obtained by Rolling Stone —some of which are newly declassified— is a 1968 document discussing funeral plans for Martin Luther King Jr., calling it a “racial situation.” It further notes “Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin…of this group, some have supported militant Black power concept…[performance at MLK memorial by these prominent entertainers] would provide emotional spark which could ignite racial disturbance in this area.” The agency also tried and failed to connect Franklin to the Black Liberation Army and other so-called “radical” movements. In one case, the FBI detailed her 1971 contract with Atlantic Records “just in case” agents could link Franklin’s business dealings to the Black Panther Party.  Another document titled “Possible Racial Violence” describes an incident in August 1968 when Franklin canceled a show at the Red Rocks Amphitheater near Denver, Colorado. According to local news reports at the time, fans engaged in a “20-minute melee” and  “broke chairs and music stands, damaged a grand piano, and even set fire to trees, bushes and trash piles.”

From 1967 to 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation methodically collected information about Aretha Franklin using false phone calls, surveillance, infiltration, and highly-placed sources, according to the documents obtained in September by Rolling Stone.  Franklin’s FBI file — first requested in via the Freedom of Information Act on Aug. 17, 2018 —  is 270 pages long, peppered with phrases like “Black extremists,” “pro-communist,” “hate America,” “radical,” “racial violence,” and “militant Black power” and overflowing with suspicion about the singer, her work, and the other activists and entertainers with whom she she spent time. Some documents are heavily redacted and others indicate that there may be additional materials in the FBI’s possession. Rolling Stone has requested the FBI make available any and all additional records.

A screenshot from the document providing an overview of different data retention periods. Image: Motherboard.

The FBI is currently collecting data about our faces, irises, walking patterns, and voices, permitting the government to pervasively identify, track, and monitor us. The agency can match or request a match of our faces against at least 640 million images of adults living in the U.S. And it is reportedly piloting Amazon’s flawed face recognition surveillance technology.

The J. Edgar Hoover Building

The unsealing of an application for a search warrant by the federal government on 8chan’s servers has unintentionally revealed that a federal agent has been trolling the site and attempting to redirect the users’ conspiracy theories against the Russian government instead of the CIA or Mossad.

So far, according to the Times and other outlets, this technique is being used by the FBI and police departments in Arizona, North Carolina, California, Florida, Minnesota, Maine, and Washington, although there may be other agencies using it across the country.

The case marked one of the highest-profile clashes in the debate over encryption and data privacy between the government and a technology company. Law enforcement authorities say that encryption used by the likes of Apple makes it harder for them to solve cases and stop terrorist attacks.

. Apple declined to help the FBI.

On March 20, 2017, during public testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, FBI director James Comey confirmed the existence of an FBI investigation into Russian interference and Russian links to the Trump campaign, including the question of whether there had been any coordination between the campaign and the Russians.[24] He said the investigation began in July 2016 and was "still in its early stages".[25] Comey made the unusual decision to reveal the ongoing investigation to Congress, citing benefit to the public good.[93]