We only found out about COINTELPRO because some US citizens got together and burglarized the FBI [1]. What programs are running today that we don't know about yet, because we haven't burglarized them lately?

1. https://monthlyreview.org/2014/09/01/how-we-found-out-about-...

You're setting them up to fail. You're talking about blackmail specifically. That's where anything going public destroy's the person's career. The blackmail will keep it secret for leverage. You then ask for us to tell you which people are getting blackmailed like folks publish this stuff instead of cave in or battle back in a secret way. Irrational. Of course we can't tell you who is being blackmailed right now. All we can say is that, if opportunity is there, it's happening. And so we need to eliminate the opportunity.

Our precedent is J Edgar Hoover. This nobody running an organization with limited power used surveillance to get dirt on lots of politicians and other powerful people. Their surveillance capabilities were extremely limited. He still managed to get enough which, combined with his media skills, got control of enough of Congress to massively increase his power. He kept at that for a long time. The FBI remains one of the most powerful, well-funded agencies in America.

So, here was my speculation around the time of 9/11. I was going by capabilities Bamford wrote about. I said they probably just ask NSA to use its existing capabilities to watch more people. It will be a black program (SAP or USAP). That means most of Congress won't legally know about it. The USAP's might just take a handful of them (committee heads). Then, with all that data collection, they could literally just have one team of people doing nothing but collecting data on Congress and maybe some Justices. Maybe just the committee members that hold them accountable plus their political opponents. It's not a lot of people or conversations to watch. They'd probably find evidence of bribery by lobbyists, prostitution, etc really fast. They see way more than Hoover did. Hell, they can even bootstrap by spying on those that set their budget first, getting a big increase, and then using a slice of that to target more of Congress.

The people running those organizations are already amoral, rule breakers who see everything as a means to an end. What are the odds that a power monger at top of spy agency would try what Hoover did? And what are those odds if they have widespread surveillance, total secrecy and mostly legal immunity? I'd peg it somewhere close to 100% that it will happen unless we block such surveillance projects. America, in fear, voted for more or didn't resist it. So, it will happen. The expanded access with, per Snowden leaks, sharing with over a dozen agencies will increase the number of abuses. Hell, folks were even looking at their girlfriends with Snowden himself stealing about everything. Think folks hunting for blackmail data couldn't or wouldn't collecting their own dirt with nobody noticing?

You wouldn't hear about the most recent campaigns because they wouldn't be declassified yet.