Friday, 10 June 2016

Reveal About Gov’t Surveillance Of Muhammad Ali

President Obama praised the late athlete and activist

 as a ‘powerful force for peace and reconciliation 

around the world,’ but what he didn’t mention was 

the government’s pervasive surveillance of Ali’s life.


By 

As the world mourns a man that many consider one of the greatest and most
 influential sports figures of all time, the president and other current and
 former government officials were eager to memorialize Ali.
Ali was “not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a 
man who fought for what was right,” President Barack Obama said in a June 4 statement.
“Later, as his physical powers ebbed, he became an even more powerful force 
for peace and reconciliation around the world,” he added.
An Olympic gold medal-winning boxer, Ali won the world heavyweight 
boxing title on three separate occasions. But his actions outside the ring as
 an activist for equal rights for oppressed minorities and an opponent of 
U.S. imperialism brought him as much or even more fame and notoriety.
 He was arrested in 1967 for resisting the Vietnam War draft, resulting
 in a lengthy legal battle and the suspension of his boxing license during three 
of the peak years of his career.
Ali famously spoke out against what he saw as the racist origins of the Vietnam
 War and U.S. empire-building, saying in 1967:
”Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles
 from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam 
while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied
 simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help 
murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination
 of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”
Although widely regarded as an inspirational American sports legend, the
 U.S. government monitored Ali as it did so many other critics of foreign 
and domestic policy, treating him much like it has treated suspected enemies 
of the state.
In 1971, a group of activists called the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI 
broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, taking advantage of the
 excitement over Ali’s fight with Joe Frazier to provide cover for their operation.

The files they stole revealed that the FBI was keeping tabs on Ali, among many
 other famous personalities, in what Betty Medsger, writing for The Intercept
 on Monday, called “poetic justice”:
“As more and more secret FBI files became public as a result of the break-in,
 it was revealed that the FBI had kept tabs on Ali, beginning with its i
nvestigation of his Selective Service case. Some of his phone conversations
 were tapped, and FBI informers gained access to, of all things, his
 elementary school records in Louisville (teachers said little Cassius Clay,
 his original name, loved art). Informers also had diligently monitored and
 typed, word for word, what Ali said on his appearances on the Tonight Show
 with Johnny Carson.”
Formerly top secret documents revealed in 2013 by a lawsuit also showed that
 Ali was monitored on an NSA watchlist which included journalists and other 
racial justice activists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The surveillance was justified as necessary to identify ‘domestic terrorist and 
foreign radical suspects,’”Slate’s Ryan Gallagher reported. “But it appears to
 have been directed primarily at eavesdropping on government critics
—opponents
 of the Vietnam War, for instance, such as Sen. Frank Church,
 D-Idaho, 
Whitney Young, and Muhammad Ali.”

As news of Ali’s death spread this week, WikiLeaks shared its own contribution
 to the discussion:
WikiLeaks archives — in particular, its Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy, a collection
 of decades of cables from U.S. embassies and ambassadors — show the 
government closely monitored Ali’s travel to places like theSoviet Union 
and Bangladesh. And WikiLeaks’ archive of Hillary Clinton’s private email server
 also shows that Ali’s actions sometimes coincided with U.S. government interests, 
such as when he interceded on behalf of a group of hikers imprisoned in Iran.
The most shocking details may be forthcoming. Because his death means his
 entire FBI file could soon be released to the public, it’s likely that more
 information about government surveillance of “The Greatest of All Time” 
will soon come to light:
Matthew Sweet  ✔@DrMatthewSweet
Muhammad Ali being arrested for resisting the draft, 1967. His FBI file will make interesting reading.
 · City of London, London, United Kingdom

http://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-office-break-wikileaks-reveal-govt-surveillance-muhammad-ali/217065/

posted by Satish Sharma at 09:56

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