Next, someone told sister at march 19th break and dances in pennsylvania by eight activities at the Group Citizens to confess to get the fbi. The documents revealed the existence of jay edgar hoovers secret Counterintelligence Program that targeted people he groups the fbi considered to be subversive, including but not limited to members of the black Panther Party and the American Indian movement. This is a little over an hour. In the spring of 1970, the war in vietnam was preaching. American battle to be at not now total 1001 or 42. Antiwork were finally crashing. Its like a nightmare unfolding. I took what was outrage and horror about what was going on and i realized that i had to take it somewhere. Bonnie raines worked at a Day Care Center in philadelphia. Her husband have religion at Temple University. They were the picture of the golden couple. Wieden 8yearold comest extrude and 2yearold. We were family folks who also wanted to keep another track active in our lives, which was political act to visit. That activism attracted the attention of the fbi, its director, the powerful and figured she had her have her receive the Antiwar Movement which claims from radical revolutionary to Peaceful Protesters as a threat to National Security. At one rally i had one of my children on my back and not only did they take my picture, but they took their picture. Protesters became increasingly convinced of the fbi was conducting a Covert Campaign against them, tapping phones in infiltrating antiwar groups. We know is systematically trying to squash the lifeblood of democracy. Determined to give proof efp was crossing the line of activists in hannaford physics Professor William avedon hatched a plan. He reached out to six others including a social worker, graduates duty in the taxi driver named keith forsyth. We agreed to meet somewhere we could talk beauty says that what you think about the idea of breaking into an fbi office. I look at them like you are serious, arent you . Is pretty vehement in my opposition to the war. I felt marching up and down the street was not cutting it anymore. It was like okay, time to kick it up a notch. The crew decided to break into a small Fbi Field Office in media, pennsylvania. Once i got over the shock of thinking this was a 90s thing id ever heard in my life, im like this is a great idea because were not going to make any allegations. Were going to take their own paperwork, signed at their own people, including she had her hoover and give it to the newspapers. See you argue with that. In the thirdfloor attic team to beat up responsibilities and assign tasks. They hung masks to learn that the neighborhood come up landscapers and took extensive notes on the comings and goings in the building. I signed up for a course. That was my job to get us in the door. Practice several times a week. After he met to get good. Army was assigned the job of going inside the office. I was to call the office and make an appointment as a student doing research and opportunities for women in the fbi. So they gave me an appointment. I try to disguise myself as best i could and i went to say goodbye and i acted confused about where the door buzzer that gave me a chance to check out both rooms and where the file cabinets were. When he discovered no farm system and no security cars. She found a second tour of the demon side. When she came back with the news, we became convinced we can get this done. We had more to lose than anybody else in the group because we had these kids. We face the reality others were arrested in a trial we would be in prison for many years. We had to make some plans for that. With a solid understanding of how they would conduct the breakin, they needed to figure out when. March 8, 1971, frasier and ali were fighting for the championship of the world. We have the feeling that maybe the cops might be distracted. While the crew waited at a nearby hotel, forsyth arrived at the office alone. Hello, welcome to the door and one of the locks and i just about had a heart attack. Bottom line is they could not pick the lock. Demo scalded off at the second or bonnie notice gave them another chance. By that point can you know you plan. Well done on the floor come pick the lock and 20 seconds. A deadbolt on the other side. I put the bar in their and yanked it. At one point i heard a noise inside the office and im like, are they in there waiting for me . Basically said to myself, only one way to find out. Im going in. Next come the dsa crew walked into an empty Office Wearing business suits and carrying several suitcases. They cleaned out file cabinet and then make their way downstairs to the getaway car and drove off in notice. The group reconvene at a farmhouse in our stride away in started up packing. Were like i cant believe this work. We knew there was going to be some gold in there somewhere. Or sort and file some all of a sudden you look at this, look at this. After several long its taking for documents that looked the most revealing come to broker sent copies to journalists, including Washington Post reporter, Betty Medsger. The cover letter which the Citizens Commission to investigate the fbi and the first file i read was a group of fat eid agent who were told to enhance the paranoia and the Antiwar Movement create an atmosphere that is an fbi agent behind every mailbox. Net show i supposed not to write about the stolen documents saying they could endanger lives. The attorney general called to key editors and try to convince them not to publish. Posted published a story on the front page. The first of several reports told how agents turned local police, letter carriers and switchboard operators into informants. Strong editorials calling for investigation of the fbi. Another document with a more explosive. Other parties try to uncover the meaning, the fbi was desperate to find the burglars. The pure put those 200 agent an investigation. Overspent sleep with the poster who visited their office. His command was fired without warning. Agents are sure bonnie are there many antiwar activists who fit the description. We could hide within thousands of people. They were so many other factors. Years later, nbc reporter figured out the meaning of that word. Secret fbi memo states of the today show the late she had her hoover ordered a nationwide can pay to decide the activities of the new left without telling any of his superiors about it. Burglaries force blackmail letters on threats of violence used. The fbi initially defended its actions. The government wouldve been derelict in its duty had not taken measures to protect the fabric of our society. Diverse techniques for worse than the targets more farreaching than the burglars ever imagined. Diplomats, government employees, prominent presence. The fbi at one time sought to blackmail the late hour and the 13 in the committee suicide. Marriages destroyed, that encouraged. Many americans for tax, had to mail a print by the cia and the fbi and tax returns used illegally. Congress issued a series of reforms capably webster took over the fbi in 1978, his mandate was clear. My primary focus is making clear that going pro was no longer one of the errors in the quiver of the fbi. Rerouted that business forever. Address type x write about but does not do that to you do this is to reveal that. You can see the information might be useful, but the method is hardly just as viable. Theres a way to take on in the courts and deal with it in a way. There were things happening that were flat out wrong. We took a risk to try to do if they could to to it. The burglars were never caught. Either he cited the statute of limitations running out, the fbi closed the case unsolved. On the very last memo where they say that they think broke into the office, they are down to seven people. Only one of the media burglars. For 20 years, Betty Medsger had no idea that the burglars or until one night an old acquaintance she was having dinner with let it slip. My youngest daughter mary was there. I said you really have to know better because shes the 1 of those documents to you. Denny chin dropped like that. I was absolutely stunned. Medsger spent years got them to reveal the secret they vowed to keep forever. The mastermind recently died, but he and for this are identified medsgers book, trent 10 and a new document tree, 1971 directed by joanna hamilton. The extraordinary story of this event is smaller than that had very farreaching consequence. The exposure pushed congress to rein in government surveillance. He created a special court, the socalled fisa court to issue warrants for intelligence agents dislodges by nonus citizens. After 9 11, more wide reaching surveillance was allowed pages to match the nsa spy abuse has grown with largely unknown until 2010 when contractor edward snowed in late classified documents. [applause] whether these programs and policies are right or wrong. Reportedly obtain a top secret court orders requiring verizon to turn over records of millions of americans to the National Security agency. Revelations of phone records and emails have renewed questions about the balance between privacy and security. I definitely see parallels between snowdens case in our case. Well reveal change public opinion, which is why the laws were changed. Revealing ourselves to get people arguing about what the fbi did in that the nsa is doing now. [applause] [inaudible conversations] hello, everyone. Welcome. I have been asked to ask you to turn off our silence your thoughts coming your cell phone and refrain from flash photos. I am catherine waterson. Also known as Kacey Burkhard when i wrote for the philadelphia evening bulletin a number of years ago. [applause] tonight i am so honored to introduce Betty Medsger, author of the burglary the discovery of j. Edgar hoover secret fbi. As well as three of the eight members of the courageous antiwar act to this group who risked their futures to break into the fbi office in pennsylvania 43 years ago and feel not just on, but every document in that office. [applause] during the following week after the burglary, while the fbi was looking frantically for the perpetrators, they moved 200 agents in to the powell plan neighborhood where i think many people from this audience lives. The group was called the South Pacific save to investigate the fbi photocopied and mailed out hundreds of the fbis directives that prove beyond any doubt that the fbi had reaching an illegal and secretive criminal war against political dissent, you can civil rights in the right activists in justice. The Citizens Commission sent the first batch of files to five people. Three journalists and two members of congress. It shows how powerful jay approvers hold was because four of those five have received the files turned them over to the fbi. One person did not. Top is Betty Medsger, a reporter at the Washington Post said that time. She wrote the first story about the contents of this document and after the Washington Post had published it, which was a struggle for them because this was not popular thinking. People didnt believe it unless it had happened to them. After her story, others picked up the story and it opened the floodgates of investigation that would unmask huger and the fbi and ultimately open the publics mind to the pentagon papers that follow watergate and other dvds of our government that were illegal. For years we have never known the identity of these burglars. But now through Betty Medsgers brilliant book, we not only get to go inside the burglaries of, pitted that the lies and the mind of the people who were committed. She also takes us inside those times which were so passionate and with the escalation of the war and the bombing, she really shows what can help these activities to take these risks to right the wrongs they were seeing. Betty was the perfect person to do this the end shes been working on it for 20 years. She not only worked as a journalist for the Washington Posts in the philadelphia evening bulletin, but she also became chair of the Journalism Department at San FranciscoState University and she is founder of center for integration and improvement of journalism. Her research in this the is exhausted. Its hard to imagine how many documents she read, how many interview she can act together two decades to create this book. Alone she rad to 33,698 pages the fbi had put out about media burglary among other things. On stage with her tonight will be three of the eight members of the city said aware that id are hard to their heads to take these risks for all of us. To me they have always been heroes because they proved what we were experiencing, but had not had any evidence that before except our own eyes and that was not necessarily the least. The threepart johnny and Bonnie Raines who had three Young Children at the time of the burglary and keith forsyth. Keith is now an engineer. At that time he was a fulltime activist and cab driver who went to learn how to pick the fbis block. A professor of religion at Temple University had been a freedom rider in the 1960s where he witnessed the war against blacks in america. Bonnie had taught in harlem in an educated writer experience is. Direct her to Daycare Center at the time of the burglary. And missing person tonight is harvard physics professor, note that the nun who was the architect. What did i just say . He died this past november and so sadly he is not here with us. Instead he writes, dont want the public to doubt that despite the vast governmental power, the giant goliath was especially when it did during together. Please join me in welcoming Betty Medsger, john raines, said six and keith forsyth. [cheers and applause] [applause] good evening. Its wonderful to be here near the home of the burglary and the home of the investigation that was god first 200 fbi trying to find these people. In case you havent seen them recently, you just now heard their name, keith forsyth, said six [applause] and john raines. [applause] especially nice to be in this immediate area, the Beautiful Library and also this neighborhood. This is the neighborhood that the data down in his sleep wise, maxi me post the tune immediately prior in the years prior to her death in 2010 and enjoyed many things about the neighborhood including coming here for events. That feels like a special time for us. I assume if you are here and have the bcs and show that you know a lot about the burglary. So i wont rehash the details except through some things i would like to say. It really began in 1970 when the data done had a very powerful idea. As he moved from Peace Organization to Peace Organization that year, people kept telling him that they thought there were spies in their mid. He would not be a believer in conspiracies and was not among his regulated. As a physicist he believed in the scientific method. He really thought people were perhaps imagining that, that people in the movement by that time had such a sense of lack of hope for depression about what they felt was their failure to stop the war. And so, as he heard this more and more from a greater variety of people, he decided a few this is true. If its true, if the government is officially suppressing dissent, this is a chronic and democracy and its a crime that needs to be stopped. And in that idea was the origin of the question that he then asked 10 people he met with individually in late 1970 and asked, what do you think of her gracing an office . No, not a question that many people would ask. He invited 10 people. One said no. When turned them down and there were nine. And then, just not long before, several days before the burglary, the ninth person to ninth person abandoned the group. That person knew everything that was planned and these people in the other burglars didnt seem to be fazed by that for a number of other obstacles i think most people would be fazed by it. And they proceeded to plan and they seem to have they did have the same results that bill had a malicious heart for many of us to imagine that instead of thinking like most people would oppose such a problem, how do you get evidence that the most powerful Law Enforcement agents be in the country is suppressing dissent when its also the most secretive and the most hightech Good Organization . Most people would be safe to say but if that this is a problem that cannot be solved. Sure its terrible and simply lament and bill was a Problem Solver and he thought this problem is not too big to solve. It is so big it must be solved. In that commitment and the commitment the other string within with the burglary was born. The first news about the burglary with about two paragraphs long. It was a confirmation that the burglary had occurred and somebody at the fbi said something about as profound as if he thinks missing. Two weeks later we found out everything was missing, dead in the dark for burglars had gone in and they had removed every piece of paper they found in a mounted about a thousand files. The documents shop the american public. Again, it is so important to remember what a revered person who ever was. There is that file to set enhance the paranoia. Make people think theres an fbi agent behind every mailbox. That was a devastating thing to discover about the top Law Enforcement agent c. In t