Opinion ID: 437447
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Self-Concealing Wrong

Text: 142 The FBI took numerous steps to assure that no aspect of its COINTELPRO program would come to the attention of the public, or, indeed, of anyone outside the FBI. Steps were also taken to limit knowledge of COINTELPRO operations even among FBI personnel. Thus, in any early FBI memorandum regarding COINTELPRO-Black Nationalist, it was written, 143 You are also cautioned that the nature of this new endeavor is such that under no circumstances should the existence of the program be made known outside the Bureau and appropriate within-office security should be afforded to sensitive operations, and techniques considered under the program. 144 IV J.A. 1728. A later airtel from FBI headquarters again cautioned the Field Office agents that COINTELPRO proposals must be designed to avoid embarrassing the Bureau. IV J.A. 1735. The record discloses numerous ways in which the FBI sought to hide its activities. Two examples suffice. First, the Bureau published The Rational Observer on unwatermarked paper [f]or the sake of security, IV J.A. 1853 (memorandum from SAC, WFO to Director, FBI), and falsely attributed authorship of the articles therein to a small group of students, IV J.A. 1854. Second, the Bureau mailed out the Give Them Bananas! leaflet 110 anonymously, in unmarked white envelopes, taking all necessary steps to protect the identity of the Bureau as the source of these leaflets. 111 These affirmative efforts at concealment leave no doubt that the FBI defendants engaged in a self-concealing wrong. There also was ample evidence to find that the District defendants on their own engaged in activities that they deliberately concealed. They sent informants into the New Mobe, WMC, BUF, ECTC, Institute for Policy Studies, WAPAC, and into the two plaintiff organizations, who misrepresented their identities. 112 Moreover, the MPD Intelligence Division shredded all its political surveillance files in 1974. III J.A. 1317 (testimony of Jerry Wilson). Whether the MPD did so for housekeeping or for concealment purposes was a question of fact for the jury. 145 The record in this case is replete with examples of efforts to prevent public awareness of the conduct at issue in this case. Our review leaves no doubt of the existence of evidence that defendants deliberately constructed schemes of such a kind that plaintiffs would not even suspect that any outsider was meddling in their lawful activities, much less that their constitutional rights were being violated. Accordingly, this case properly went to the jury under the framework established by Richards for adjudicating claims of fraudulent concealment emanating from self-concealing wrongs, and we decline to hold that insufficient evidence supports the jury's verdict on this issue. 113 146