The 1971 FBI Media Burglary
A group of ordinary citizens broke into an FBI field office, stole every document inside, and mailed them to journalists — the resulting leak is the entire reason the public ever learned COINTELPRO existed, and the burglars themselves stayed anonymous for over 40 years.
The 1971 FBI Media Burglary was a real break-in at an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, conducted by a group calling itself the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, who stole and subsequently leaked internal documents to journalists. The leaked documents provided the first public evidence of COINTELPRO, the FBI's secret domestic surveillance and disruption program, and the burglars' identities remained a closely guarded secret for over 40 years until several came forward publicly in 2014.
- →On March 8, 1971, a group of eight private citizens calling themselves the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, stealing essentially all documents contained within the office.
- →The group subsequently mailed selections from the stolen documents to several journalists and members of Congress, providing the first public documentary evidence of COINTELPRO, the FBI's previously entirely secret program of domestic political surveillance and disruption.
- →Despite an extensive FBI investigation, the burglars' identities were never discovered by law enforcement at the time, and the statute of limitations for the crime eventually expired without any prosecution occurring.
- →The burglars' identities remained a closely guarded secret for over 40 years, until several participants, including Keith Forsyth and Bonnie Raines, voluntarily came forward publicly in 2014, coinciding with the release of a book and documentary film about the burglary.