CIA releases documents showing past surveillance of Latino civil rights groups

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has released documents showing it monitored Latino activists who had supported late civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and who opposed police brutality and the Vietnam War.

The files were reported first by Axios on Monday, posted on the CIA's website and ranged from 1968 to 1983.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Surveillance by U.S. agencies has a long history, with historians and rights advocates having condemned its sweeping and abusive nature in periods like the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, as well as the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The latest documents were requested by Democratic U.S. Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jimmy Gomez on CIA's Operation Chaos, which was a domestic espionage program that targeted American citizens and voices of dissent.

CONTEXT

The documents released by the CIA showed that the work of activists like Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and farmworker union leader Cesar Chavez was viewed by the agency as a threat and with suspicion. They also showed that the movements of those leaders were tracked.

The documents also revealed surveillance of Mexican American students in universities in that period.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

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