[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 16309-16318]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              CIVIL RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mast). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to 
coanchor this CBC Special Order hour. Also, I want to acknowledge the 
chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Cedric Richmond, from the 
State of Louisiana, and other Members who are here to participate. For 
the next 60 minutes, we have a chance to speak directly to the American 
people on issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, 
the constituents that we all represent in our various districts.
  For this particular Special Order hour, I am going to open it up and

[[Page 16310]]

begin to talk about something that is very important and has been 
widely discussed within the Congressional Black Caucus, and that is 
civil rights and some of the things that we are worried about that are 
going on within the Justice Department.
  We have several important Members here to speak on these. Before I go 
any further, I want to go ahead and recognize them. The first speaker 
we have is from the State of South Carolina, representing that State's 
Sixth Congressional District, and also our caucus' assistant leader. 
That is Mr. Jim Clyburn.
  I thank Representative Clyburn for joining and being a part of this 
Special Order hour to talk about this subject matter that is very 
important to so many members of the Black Caucus.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Clyburn).
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me.
  I also thank him and our colleague, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice 
Johnson, for joining me at the Center for African American Studies at 
the University of Texas at Arlington last Thursday evening. It was a 
wonderful experience for me. President Vistasp Karbhari, Dr. Jason 
Skelton, and my longtime friend, Dr. Marvin Delaney, were perfect 
hosts.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, Sergeant La David T. Johnson died a 
hero's death in a distant land on a mission few Americans know about or 
understand. This weekend, his grieving family, including his pregnant 
wife, took him to his final resting place in Florida. Sergeant 
Johnson's tragic death leaves this young family fatherless.
  Mr. Speaker, in his second inaugural address, President Abraham 
Lincoln called on our Nation to endeavor to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.
  Unfortunately, rather than comfort Sergeant Johnson's grieving 
family, the current occupant of the White House has chosen to use them 
as his latest prop in his constant effort to sow discord and division 
in this country.
  The President and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who happens 
to be a four-star general, have insulted and smeared an honorable 
public servant who happens to be a five-star Congresswoman, and, in 
effect, called her and her grieving widow constituent liars.
  Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson has been a champion for the people 
of south Florida for decades. It is no mystery--and it was not 
political--that she was accompanying Mrs. Johnson and her family to 
receive her husband's remains. She had mentored Sergeant Johnson 
throughout his childhood.
  I have participated in several of Congresswoman Wilson's 500 Role 
Models events and have spoken for one of their graduations. I also wear 
this red tie to this floor helping her highlight their efforts. Her 
passionate work on behalf of those kidnapped girls of Boko Haram is 
unmatched.
  As the husband of a five-star African-American woman for more than 56 
years and the father of three African-American daughters who are 
working hard to earn their stars every day, I feel compelled to respond 
to General Kelly and completely disregard his concocted 
misrepresentations.
  Mr. Speaker, we can have political differences here in Washington. 
That comes with the territory. But people need to have the common 
decency and basic humanity to refrain from exacerbating the pain of 
those already suffering so much. I was taught from childhood that 
silence gives consent. I want the White House to know this: I and the 
members of the Congressional Black Caucus will not be silent, and we 
will not be silenced.
  Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina 
(Mr. Clyburn) very much for his timely and very serious comments. I 
hope that all of the Members who are here on both sides of the aisle 
realize the seriousness of the comments. There is nothing humorous 
about them all, nothing to be smiling or laughing about. It is very 
timely in light of the unfortunate incident that happened with our 
colleague. I thank the gentleman very much for bringing that to light.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield to my fellow Texan from the 18th 
Congressional District in Houston. I thank very much Representative 
Sheila Jackson Lee for joining us this evening. We look forward to the 
gentlewoman's words.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the manager, Mr. Veasey, for 
his leadership, his sensitivities, his sensibilities, and his empathy, 
knowing his distinguished wife and the leadership she gives to the 
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. I am sure that there are many 
women in the gentleman's family, and I know that he has a great honor 
and respect for them.
  It is appropriate to follow the leader, Mr. Clyburn, who is vested in 
the storied history of African Americans from the East to the West, 
North to the South. He often diminishes his status by saying that he 
was raised in a parish house, but when he eloquently rises to the floor 
to defend, all eyes and all ears are tuned to him.
  Now, I want to adhere to our discussion today because it is extremely 
important, and to also acknowledge my colleagues. So let me hurry 
through my comments. I do want to acknowledge the chair of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, Cedric Richmond. I thank the women of the 
caucus for their eloquent and pointed statement regarding the series of 
events that has occurred.
  Let me, first of all, say that our topic today deals with a retracing 
of the horrible history that was perpetrated under FBI Director Hoover 
for the decades that he served in that capacity. So as I label what it 
is, let me just for a moment deviate to what happened this weekend. I 
believe that the FBI personnel, through much of its history, were 
mostly men--fine men--who wanted to protect this Nation. But you see, 
Mr. Speaker, I have firsthand knowledge of the devastation of FBI 
surveillance way before the word ``terrorism'' became part of our 
normal discussion or language.
  So I want to put a pause there and say that in the history of African 
Americans, we have been subjected to name-calling. That is what happens 
to you when, in the Constitution, you are not a complete human being. 
That is what happens to you even after the Emancipation Proclamation 
and the short-lived Reconstruction, the Nation rushed toward the 
hanging fruit, Jim Crowism, and the rampant murder of African Americans 
in the Deep South, some of the very States in which the President stood 
and called young African-American men sons of Bs.
  There is another name-calling. So it seems that even as we have gone 
through the transition of freedom and we came through the 20th century 
with civil rights, and then affirmative action, that name-calling seems 
to be the welcomed and accepted tactic to use with people of color and, 
in this instance, African Americans.
  What would be the explanation for the unseemly events that occurred 
around a grieving mother, aunt, uncle, and a grieving widow with 
beautiful children who no longer have their dad?
  I offer my sympathy to Sergeants Wright, Black, La David Johnson, and 
Jeremiah Johnson.
  So how their loss, through no fault of their own, in the battle for 
this Nation turned into an ugly name-calling, I am baffled, except for 
the fact that it is easy to call African Americans names. It is easy 
for some White Americans to call African Americans names.
  When we are on the floor of the House and we say things that are 
untoward in some segments of the population, our phones ring off the 
hook with the N word, N word, N word. I don't know how many of my 
friends who are not people of color--I am sure we all say things that 
people disagree with, and I don't know whether they call up and call 
them White, White, White.
  You see, race is something that we are fearful of discussing, and 
that is because the thought would be: Here she goes again.
  But there is a great love--my interaction, my life's history is with 
the diversity of this world, from White Caucasians, Anglos in Texas, to 
Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, and beyond

[[Page 16311]]

in various religious. I feel comfortable in my soul.
  But this weekend was the most difficult time for African-American 
women who are--in the category of casting, the caste system--at the 
bottom of the totem pole. Even today, the likes of Harriet Tubman, 
Sojourner Truth, Mae Jemison, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, 
doctors, lawyers, and others, we are at the bottom.
  So there was much latitude--uncontrolled latitude--in name-calling. 
Forty-five mentioning untoward words about our colleague, Congresswoman 
Wilson: name-calling. Nobody--there is no retribution or reprimand. 
None of his constituents would give a hoot. But it was name-calling.
  Mr. Speaker, you don't know how many people stop me in airports, 
along the road, hurt and appalled. Let me just come to a close on that.
  First of all, Congressman Clyburn has already given the attributes of 
Congresswoman Wilson. I do want to add that she is a principal. She is 
an old-fashioned principal, though she is a young woman.

                              {time}  1945

  She loved her students. She implemented the 5000 Role Models. She 
took the children as family, and Sergeant David Johnson was one of 
those. So if people don't understand the cultural distinctions in the 
African-American community, we are aunts and uncles without bloodline. 
We are Godparents. We are family.
  Her presence in that car was not as an interloper. She didn't break 
the door down. She was in there as family. She was not eavesdropping. 
The phone was on. As indicated by Mrs. Johnson's interview, she asked 
the phone to be put on speaker.
  It seems that her offense in breaking down moved the Representative 
to articulate, probably seeking some humanity, to say: Can you just, if 
you hear my words, apologize?
  That never happened. The untruth spread all over. You see, as an 
African-American woman, you don't have to worry about saying the truth 
about us. We are various names--sons of Bs--and we have got all kinds 
of disturbing situations going on with names that we can be called. And 
that is what this White House did.
  My dear friend, who I knew in the Southern Command, that is what 
happens when you are here for just a few years. He had great leadership 
and loss. I was here when that happened. And I don't want to spend a 
moment to diminish his status as a Gold Star parent. He has a right to 
mourn and to speak of his loss.
  But then, when you are forced to step from that humble position over 
to an untruth, you can do it to a Black woman. They have no power. I 
can talk something that doesn't have any truth, because I have to 
defend--and this is said lovingly--a White man who happens to be in the 
Oval Office.
  We don't count. We are the largest group of active, civic women in 
all kinds of organizations. If there is something being done--first of 
all, it is women overall, I love them all, but you will see the 
African-American woman--she is in there scrubbing, she is in there 
teaching, she is in there handling the religious institutions, she is 
standing by babies, and she is standing by young people.
  She is a civil rights activist, she is a scientist, she is a doctor. 
She is president of various organizations. She is just in there.
  That is what happened that has brought me to this point that what we 
have now is so dangerous. I hope before the end of the week--maybe 
before the end of tomorrow--my good friend, General Kelly, seeks to 
apologize for the distortion. He didn't have to defend a person who 
does it in his own way and besmirch all of the Gold Star families and 
this young mother who has not been able to see her son.
  Mr. Speaker, I know there are many of us who served in this Congress 
who have seen their brethren fall. They have been injured. What is it 
like for their family not to be able to see the body? What is it like 
to know that the person's body was not found for 48 hours?
  I am going to get to an end for my colleagues. I just want to say 
this. There are those of us who know about the African Command. There 
are those of us who know the soldiers there. The Congressional Black 
Caucus was instrumental when George Bush said that an African Command 
needs to stand up when Charles Taylor was killing his citizens in 
Liberia.
  I know it firsthand. I have been to all those countries. I know ISIL 
was connected with Boko Haram. We have been trying to say it, but 
people have deaf ears, maybe because it is Africa.
  Now, all of a sudden we are awake. Congresswoman Wilson knew that. 
She has been there. We have been there. Why don't people listen to 
Black women who know what they are talking about, along with our 
distinguished colleagues?
  This document that I hold in my hand, ``Black Identity Extremists 
Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers,'' I have a lot to 
say on, but I am going to summarize.
  As a member of the Judiciary Committee, this is name-calling. We just 
got through a reckless weekend of name-calling of a distinguished 
Member of Congress.
  This is name-calling. This is the FBI defining BIEs as individuals 
who seek, through unlawful acts of force or violence, a response to 
perceived racism and injustice.
  But do you know what will happen, Mr. Speaker? This will be a big 
fishnet: the high school student who is getting his fists up; the 
college student who is rallying around in opposition to racism; the 
students down in Charlottesville who may believe they should stand up 
and be counted.
  I know this, Mr. Speaker, because, with a little bit of humor, I am 
young, going backwards, but I served on the Select Committee on 
Assassinations that investigated the assassination of Martin Luther 
King--the reopening of the investigation--along with John F. Kennedy.
  I was immersed in the files of COINTELPRO. I saw how the FBI dogged a 
modern-day prophet, a man who only wanted peace and believed in the 
beloved community. Yes, he was human. When you dog someone, you can 
find them throwing gum on a sidewalk.
  Dr. Martin Luther King was subjected to the COINTEL program. It was 
dastardly and devastating, and may have been the basis of the loss of 
his life. If he was subjected to the COINTEL program, we always 
wondered why he couldn't have been in another hotel.
  So the danger of this document that has come under Donald Trump and 
not under any other President--not Bill Clinton, not George Bush, not 
President Obama--as I understand it, but it came in August of this 
year, under President Trump, the same President who could find nothing 
distinctive between the alt-right and racist vileness talking about 
Jews and Blacks and everybody else in Charlottesville. There were good 
people on both sides.
  Now we have this document. Lo and behold, what other names of Black 
activists and African Americans still fighting the war of civil rights 
peacefully may be caught up in this large net?
  Again, I want to be able to say my respect for the service of FBI 
agents. They are friends of mine. I am on the Judiciary Committee. They 
are friends to all of us. We continue to salute their service. But this 
document is a riotous document.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I include in the Record: ``The History of 
Surveillance and the Black Community.'' It goes into the discussion.

      [From the Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 13, 2014]

          The History of Surveillance and the Black Community

                            (By Dia Kayyali)

       February is Black History Month and that history is 
     intimately linked with surveillance by the federal government 
     in the name of ``national security.'' Indeed, the history of 
     surveillance in the African-American community plays an 
     important role in the debate around spying today and in the 
     calls for a congressional investigation into that 
     surveillance. Days after the first NSA leaks emerged last 
     June, EFF called for a new Church Committee. We mentioned 
     that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the targets of 
     the very surveillance that eventually

[[Page 16312]]

     led to the formation of the first Church Committee. This 
     Black History Month, we should remember the many African-
     American activists who were targeted by intelligence 
     agencies. Their stories serve as cautionary tales for the 
     expanding surveillance state.
       The latest revelations about surveillance are only the most 
     recent in a string of periodic public debates around domestic 
     spying perpetrated by the NSA, FBI, and CIA. This spying has 
     often targeted politically unpopular groups or vulnerable 
     communities, including anarchists, anti-war activists, 
     communists, and civil rights leaders.
       60s. COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program, 
     was started in 1956 by the FBI and continued until 1971. The 
     program was a systemic attempt to infiltrate, spy on, and 
     disrupt activists in the name of ``national security.'' While 
     it initially focused on the Communist Party, in the 1960s its 
     focus expanded to include a wide swathe of activists, with a 
     strong focus on the Black Panther Party and civil rights 
     leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
       FBI papers show that in 1962 ``the FBI started and rapidly 
     continued to gravitate toward Dr. King.'' This was ostensibly 
     because the FBI believed black organizing was being 
     influenced by communism. In 1963 FBI Assistant Director 
     William Sullivan recommended ``increased coverage of 
     communist influence on the Negro.'' However, the FBI's goal 
     in targeting Dr. King was clear: to find ``avenues of 
     approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro 
     leader,'' because the FBI was concerned that he might become 
     a ``messiah.''
       The FBI subjected Dr. King to a variety of tactics, 
     including bugging his hotel rooms, photographic surveillance, 
     and physical observation of King's movements by FBI agents. 
     The FBI's actions went beyond spying on Dr. King, however. 
     Using information gained from that surveillance, the FBI sent 
     him anonymous letters attempting to ``blackmail him into 
     suicide.'' The agency also attempted to break up his marriage 
     by sending selectively edited ``personal moments he shared 
     with friends and women'' to his wife.
       The FBI also specifically targeted the Black Panther Party 
     with the intention of destroying it. They infiltrated the 
     Party with informants and subjected members to repeated 
     interviews. Agents sent anonymous letters encouraging 
     violence between street gangs and the Panthers in various 
     cities, which resulted in ``the killings of four BPP members 
     and numerous beatings and shootings,'' as well as letters 
     sowing internal dissension in the Panther Party. The agency 
     also worked with police departments to Department that aided 
     in a raid on BPP leader Fred Hampton's apartment. The raid 
     ended with the Chicago Police shooting Hampton dead.
       The FBI was not alone in targeting civil rights leaders. 
     The NSA also engaged in domestic spying that included Dr. 
     King. In an eerily prescient statement, Senator Walter 
     Mondale said he was concerned that the NSA ``could be used by 
     President `A' in the future to spy upon the American people, 
     to chill and interrupt political dissent.''
       The Church Committee was created in response to these and 
     other public scandals, and was charged with getting to the 
     bottom of the government's surveillance overreach. In 
     response to its findings, Congress passed new laws to provide 
     privacy safeguards, including the Foreign Intelligence 
     Surveillance Act. But ever since these safeguards were put in 
     place, the intelligence community has tried to weaken or 
     operate around them. The NSA revelations show the urgent need 
     to reform the laws governing surveillance and to rein in the 
     intelligence community.
       Today we're responding to those domestic surveillance 
     abuses by an unrestrained intelligence branch. The overreach 
     we've seen in the past underscores the need for reform. 
     Especially during Black History Month, let's not forget the 
     speech-stifling history of US government spying that has 
     targeted communities of color.

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. It says: ``We mentioned that Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr., was one of the targets of the very surveillance that eventually 
led to the formation of the first Church Committee. This Black History 
Month, we should remember the many African-American activists who were 
targeted by intelligence agencies. Their stories serve as cautionary 
tales for the expanding surveillance state.''
  Where are the conservatives to stand up against this document? We can 
be safe, we can have the First Amendment, and we speak our different 
issues, but now we are going to entrap African Americans--young men who 
are kneeling because of their concern for police reform and violence 
that has taken the lives of African-American young men.
  There are so many law enforcement officers who agree with me on the 
idea of police reform to help all of us work together. We are not 
divided, but we will stay divided with a document that is going to 
label us.
  Where is the document for the alt-right, the religious right, the 
White supremacists? Where is that?
  When are we going to understand that the calling of names--in our 
community, we call it calling me out of my name--by the majority 
community is a carryover from slavery and Jim Crow.
  I am saddened by the last couple of days of steering away from the 
mourning of those wonderful heroes who reflected the greatness of 
America. They reflected what young men and women do who are willing to 
sacrifice their lives. They go without a recognition of what color 
their fellow soldier is. We honor them with no distinction.
  That is what the last couple of days should have been about, as well 
as the loving care of that widow and the families of the other young 
men. Yet, in the spirit of the FBI COINTEL program, that may be the 
downfall, again, of those of us trying to heal and not reflecting on 
how the best way to deal with those who would do us harm violently, of 
which I stand against, we are now in the midst of name-calling.
  I go to my seat mourning. When is America going to change?
  On August 3, 2017, the FBI released their new ``Intelligence 
Assessment'' report entitled: Black Identity Extremists (BIE) Likely 
Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers''.
  The FBI defines BIE as individuals who seek, through unlawful acts of 
force or violence, a response to ``perceived'' racism and injustice in 
American society.
  The FBI also indicates, there is a desire for black physical or 
psychological separation based on religious or political beliefs 
grounded in racial superiority or supremacy.
  Blacks fought for America long before it was a country, 
prerevolutionary period, where during the first 100 years of conflict 
we stepped up; and will continue, for equality and justice.
  Blacks led civil rights movement winning double victories in both 
World War II and the Jim Crow era, forcing our then President Truman, 
to announced that ``there are no justifiable reasons for discrimination 
because of one's ancestry, or religion, or race, or color of his 
skin.''
  Today, Trump's FBI believes that the African American community's 
reality is a mere perception as it relates to the racism and injustice 
that plague our communities. Why?
  The FBI has consistently relied upon a flawed system to determine the 
number of people killed by officers. This flawed system is shaped by 
``voluntary law enforcement compliance''--in other words, police 
departments need not report this stat.
  ``The Counted'' launched by the Guardian, is a public-service project 
tallying deaths of unarmed persons by law enforcement. They reached a 
tally of 1,068 at the start of 2015.
  Former FBI Director Comey said, this was embarrassing and 
unacceptable that a Guardian U.S. investigative unit had a better tally 
than his agency's near 35,000 employees.
  There is no reliable mechanism to accurately depict the true 
dimensions of an epidemic of lethal violence, force, and shootings 
committed by police across this country on unarmed civilians.
  The reality is Sandra Bland died while in the custody of law 
enforcement; Michael Brown was gunned down in the street by law 
enforcement; Eric Garner died from a chokehold at the hands of law 
enforcement; Freddie Gray died while being transported in the custody 
of law enforcement; Tamir Rice was shot dead by a law enforcement 
officer previously deemed an emotionally unstable recruit and unfit for 
duty; and Laquan McDonald shot in the back and killed by law 
enforcement officers.
  These are just a few of the innocent lives robbed and thus, gone too 
soon. These are the realities not perceptions that young activists in 
their own modern ways represent, whether it's marching, protesting with 
passion, or even taking a knee.
  They are protesting unapologetically with great passion and hunger 
for justice, but nonetheless, peacefully.
  They are not killing others who do not agree with them; nor are they 
inflicting violence due to religion, nationality and race.
  Therefore, it is highly insensitive, offensive and blatantly 
discriminative and unconstitutional to mount a counter intelligence 
program, now COINTELPRO 2.0, to once again, aggressively target a race 
that merely seeks justice and equality it is entitled under our 
Constitution.
  According to sources close to the FBI, the term ``Black Identity 
Extremists'' did not exist before the Trump administration. The FBI 
named BIE, a major threat to national security

[[Page 16313]]

and public safety, thereby, criminalizing black activism.
  The newly coined term, black identity extremists (BIE) is such a 
vague terminology that it invites alarming abuse of a specific race's 
constitutional rights based solely on an Administration's disturbed and 
visceral approach to race relations.
  Under FBI Director Edgar Hoover's leadership, the Counter 
Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), a covert, often illegal, campaign 
was mounted to break up the civil rights movement and ``neutralize'' 
activists they perceived as threatening.
  COINTELPRO was used to surveil and discredit civil rights activists, 
members of the Black Panther Party and any major advocates for the 
rights of black people in our nation's history.
  COINTELPRO allowed the FBI to falsify letters in an effort to 
blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. into silence.
  This was such a disgraceful period in our nation's history that our 
recent FBI Director, James Comey, kept a copy of a 1963 order 
authorizing Hoover to conduct round-the-clock surveillance of Martin 
Luther King Jr. on his desk as a reminder of Hoover's abuses.
  The FBI's dedicated surveillance of black activists follows a long 
history of the U.S. government aggressively monitoring protest 
movements and working to disrupt civil rights groups, but the scrutiny 
of African Americans by a domestic terrorism unit was particularly 
alarming to some free speech campaigners.
  This administration continues the same vile tactics used in well-
documented stories of civil rights leaders who were profiled, targeted 
and killed for insisting that black people receive equitable treatment 
under the law in a country whose Constitution guarantees it.
  Today the FBI continues its once intrusive, abhorrent and illegal 
targeting of black activists by labeling the Black Lives Matter 
movement as BIE.
  We know that the Department of Homeland Security has been surveilling 
Black Lives Matter activists since 2014, but there's no way to know 
what's next.
  With this recent report, the FBI has legitimized the idea that black 
activism is a threat and should be treated accordingly, with violent 
force.
  Despite Charlottesville and all the other harms inflicted by 
emboldened white nationalists, the FBI has instead, chosen to target a 
group of American citizens whom merely decry the injustice seen and 
felt throughout their communities.
  Despite numerous unarmed black individuals, particularly, young black 
men that are disproportionately the victims of police shootings, the 
FBI would like us to believe this is not a reality.
  Instead, the FBI's report claims there is a danger in black activism 
by asserting that violence inflicted on black people at the hands of 
police is ``perceived'' or ``alleged,'' not real.
  This month the Congressional Black Caucus has written to the FBI 
Director, Christopher Wray, to express our concern over the recent 
``Intelligence Assessment'' report.
  We have requested a briefing on both the origins of its research and 
the FBI's next intended step based on its findings. No response as of 
date.
  We should be allowed to exercise our constitutional and fundamental 
rights of free speech.
  We should not be restricted and criminalized when we demand that 
those we elect to office exercise justice and fairness.
  This FBI report will further inflame an already damaged police/
community relation under the leadership of Attorney General Jeff 
Sessions.
  Sessions has dismantled all the safeguards installed under Attorney 
General Holder's leadership, thus, returning our justice system to the 
broken system under Ashcroft.
  Session has unleashed a merciless approach to ``all'' crimes 
including low level drug-related cases, and demands that his attorneys 
prosecute every case to the fullest extent of the law.
  In doing so, Session has taken away any prosecutorial discretion once 
available to prosecutors throughout our justice system under U.S. law.
  The FBI in this Trump Administration has returned to the era of 
Director Edgar Hoover, in their unleashing of this damaging, 
discriminative, and unconstitutional COINTELPRO 2.0.
  With these lethal forms of attacks on the African American community 
from both the DOJ and the FBI, where is justice?
  Mr. VEASEY. I thank my colleague from the 18th Congressional District 
for her comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), my 
friend and classmate who represents the 10th Congressional District.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from the Lone Star 
State, my classmate, Congressman Veasey, for hosting tonight's Special 
Order hour.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we find ourselves in this 
position where the lines are being so blurred that Gold Star families 
have come into this political discussion and are being dragged into 
this, unwillingly, over the past several days.
  I have great respect for General Kelly and was very delighted to see 
him get the job as Chief of Staff so that he could maybe bring some 
semblance of calm and normalcy to the White House, but it seems like he 
has been infected by the disease that is the scourge in the White 
House.
  There is no reason for him to fabricate what one of our colleagues 
said. The videotape is there. She never did one thing that General 
Kelly said she did on that fateful day in the dedication to that FBI 
building.
  I don't understand what is going on with people these days, but these 
are the times we find ourselves in.
  Mr. Speaker, as much as we would like to live in a colorblind 
society, in an America where people should be judged by the content of 
their character and not the color of their skin, we aren't there yet. 
Race, unfortunately, still matters.
  Juries devalue Black lives by punishing offenders more harshly when 
their victims are White than when their victims are Black. Police are 
more likely to use force when interacting with Black people than when 
interacting with White people. Emergency room doctors are less likely 
to prescribe pain medication to Black patients than to Whites.
  Results from psychological studies of racial bias have shown that 
nearly 90 percent of the White people in the United States who have 
taken the implicit-association test have an inherent racial preference 
for White people over Black people. Oh, yes, race matters in America, 
and we have got to talk about it.
  It should not take a crisis for the United States to discuss race and 
the effects of stereotypes that are baked into our national cultural. 
We should not have to wait for a police officer to shoot an unarmed 
Black man before we discuss how negative stereotypes about Black people 
affect snap judgments.

                              {time}  2000

  It should not take mass murder in a Bible study to get us talking 
about how negative stereotypes of Black people in social media help 
White supremacists rationalize their racism.
  Back in 1997, Professor Jody David Armour warned us that bad actors 
would try to make racism seem reasonable. Professor Armour wrote a book 
called ``Negrophobia.'' In it, he predicted that ``perhaps the gravest 
threat today to progress toward racial justice comes from the right-
wing ideologues bent on convincing White people of good faith that 
negative stereotypes about Blacks are justified.''
  Professor Armour told us to look out for people trying ``to prove 
that Blacks are inherently less intelligent and more violent than 
Whites.'' And he explained that these people would try to make racism 
seem rational by using discredited studies, unscientific experiments, 
and cooked statistics.
  What have we seen on our social media over the past few years? We 
have seen that negrophobia is alive and well in the United States, and 
social media is its enabler.
  People like the President have used social media to spread cooked 
statistics and outright lies to rationalize the racist stereotypes that 
Black people are inherently violent.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
  Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward 
the President.
  The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, countries like Russia have used social media 
to fuel racial tensions in America's communities, and White 
supremacists have used social media to organize their hate.
  We must not be afraid to ask: What role has Facebook played in 
fueling negrophobia in America?

[[Page 16314]]

  Facebook was born in an age of diversity, but it was not born with a 
commitment to diversity. Only 3 in every 100 Facebook employees are 
African American.
  The company has no Black executives, and it has no Black board 
members. The company's global director of diversity has said that 
hiring women and people of color is complicated. Its chief executive 
officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has promised that Facebook would hire a Black 
board member sometime soon.
  Why has it taken so long? Why have minority voices been left out of 
the essential media development? Has Facebook's failure to value 
minority voices inside the company made Facebook an online megaphone 
for racist voices outside the company?
  Facebook's algorithms have the power to affect the way Americans 
think about Black people, for better or worse. When Facebook accepts 
money from foreign actors who want to exploit racial tensions in the 
United States, Facebook perpetuates negrophobia.
  By the same token, Facebook's algorithms could weaken negrophobia by 
enhancing positive messages that challenge people to reexamine and 
resist discriminatory responses, but that will require Facebook to 
fully commit to diversity right now, not sometime in the future.
  Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus met with Facebook a week 
ago in terms of these negative ads that were found out to be bought by 
Russian actors and spending $100,000 in doing so, and buying fake 
``Black Lives Matter'' responses and ads and ``anti-Black Lives 
Matter'' ads to continue to fuel this division in our country.
  If countries are able to see a weakness in our fabric in this Nation, 
then they will exploit it. We have to come together as Americans and 
understand that our issues are something that we have to deal with and 
look each other in the face and have an honest discussion about.
  No one is perfect. No one is saying that one side is worse than the 
other, but we need to come together as a unit, as this great experiment 
called the United States was meant to be, that all men are created 
equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights--all Americans, not 
just some--and we continue to strive towards that goal, towards that 
utopia in this country.
  This is the greatest country in the world, and we all know it here 
because we benefit from it, but we have a long way to go in terms of 
reaching the ultimate goal.
  Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from 
Newark, New Jersey, for his comments, and also to talk about the fact 
that I am glad that he mentioned Facebook, because one of the things 
that really surprised me was the fact that some of those ads were 
purchased in rubles, and no one seemed to notice that, seems absolutely 
amazing to me. And we need to, again, just continue to have this 
discussion and talk about these things, so I thank the gentleman very 
much for his comments tonight.
  I yield to my friend and colleague from the great State of Michigan, 
representing the State's 14th Congressional District, Brenda Lawrence. 
Again, I want to thank Brenda for participating. She participates often 
in this hour, and I just really appreciate her comments. Her district 
appreciates the comments, her State, and our country, and I appreciate 
her joining us this evening.
  Mrs. LAWRENCE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Veasey for 
his leadership and for his dedication.
  Today, I am at this mike for a number of reasons. One is that we have 
witnessed, over the weekend, another time in history that will be 
written for many to read, for generations to try to understand what 
exactly happened.
  Most of us are raised that, in a time of grieving and mourning, you 
are sympathetic, you are patient, and, most of all, you try to be 
understanding.
  I am at a loss in trying to understand how the dialogue was reduced 
to name-calling and then just unfactual information. But what I had 
hoped and what I feel that, as an American, as a Member of Congress, as 
a citizen, if someone gets it wrong, that at least I deserve, ``I'm 
sorry, I didn't get the information right,'' or maybe ``I spoke out of 
turn.'' And when you are grieving the loss of someone you love dearly, 
someone who was serving this country, someone who, as the family of a 
military service person, gave the sacrifice as well for them to 
represent our country.
  I would hope--I was hopeful that that would happen, but it did not. 
There comes a point in time, Mr. Speaker, as American citizens, that we 
begin to stand up and say, as our country, there is an expectation. 
There is an expectation for those we elect, there is an expectation for 
those in leadership, and truly, there is an expectation of civility 
and, at minimum, truth.
  As we know, the FBI has had a long, troubling history of using its 
broad investigatory powers to target Black citizens. It is not a myth. 
It is a fact. It has been written. During the 1960s, Director Hoover 
used the counterintelligence program to surveil and discredit civil 
rights activists, members of the Black Panther Party.
  For an example, the FBI falsified a letter in an attempt to blackmail 
the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King into silence.
  So the Congressional Black Caucus is concerned by the assertion that 
coins a new term, ``Black identity extremists,'' and claims, with high 
confidence, that they are likely to target law enforcement based on 
perceptions of police brutality against African Americans.
  In August, the FBI Counterterrorism Division issued a chilling and 
outlandish warning to its agents, all hidden behind the veil of an 
internal report never meant to be seen by the American people. It 
worries me because, in 2017, such a misguided and hateful and dangerous 
report exists at all.
  Released just 9 days before the hateful violence in Charlottesville, 
this report targets so-called Black identity extremists by falsely 
linking peaceful and necessary calls for justice from Americans, from 
the African-American community, to entirely unrelated acts of violence 
against law enforcement.
  Mr. Speaker, I served as a mayor of a diverse city for 14 years and 
had the responsibility of an entire police force for a city. I have 
such respect and honor for those who serve us.
  I understand how, when there is trouble, the police run to that 
trouble to protect us, but I also know that the power that is held on 
the shield of a police force can be used for other than protection of 
their people. And that in this great country that we live in, time and 
time again in history, some people will use the comment: Don't be so 
sensitive about everything that happened. But history has shown us, 
every change that we have made in this country of freedoms and rights 
have come from people who had the courage, the political courage, to 
stand up and fight for that. Is that extremism?
  Will you say the right to vote were Black extremists? Would you say 
that the women who protest and march so that women could have the right 
to vote, were they extremists? Or were they Americans who believed in 
this country and had the courage to stand up not just for them but for 
generations to come?
  Our Social Security, when we looked at--and we looked at hunger in 
this country, and people repeatedly have shown, of all ethnic groups, 
that nothing in America happens without protests and the courage to 
stand up. Are they extremists, or they part of this amazing democracy 
that we have?
  And the threat of being labeled by our FBI so you have permission to 
now treat these individuals, who have the courage to stand up, as 
unlawful villains and terrorists, and you have the permission now by 
the FBI to attack and to imprison them.
  We must, as a Congress and a country, learn to understand the power 
of our words, and I am going to close with this.
  Your words mean something. If this administration has taught us 
anything, the words of those who are elected to leadership do matter, 
whether it is the truth or whether it is a lie. It matters.
  It fuels anger and hatred in people. It tells people that it is okay 
to disrespect others. Words mean something.

[[Page 16315]]

And for me to be a Black woman in America and be labeled, if I stand up 
and fight for my rights, if I stand with others, if Black Lives Matter 
has not just been Black people standing up--it has been all members of 
the United States, citizens saying that all lives matter and that we 
will not tolerate criminal injustice against Black people and the 
murder rate that we see of those who are of color.

                              {time}  2015

  This has been a movement in our country, and now we see this internal 
labeling by our law enforcement in our country. Does that cause me to 
feel afraid in my own country? Does that give me the fear that history 
is going to repeat itself because words have given permission for this 
to happen when you legitimize people whose only purpose to stand and be 
in a position in your community is to say that you have no value less 
than me and we hate you?
  But do you know what? There are some very fine people there. Being a 
Black person in America, I can tell you, we have had some fine days. I 
would not be standing here, this little Black girl from Detroit, if 
this country did not give me the opportunities. But it came from the 
protests; it came in the death and the riots of the people in my 
generation before me who would not sit down and be quiet.
  So now are we being told that we are not to use our constitutional 
rights of free speech and protests and to gather to say that now you 
are being an extremist? I am not going to allow that to happen in this 
country, and if you want to label me, label me. But I would not be here 
today if it were not for those who had the political courage to stand 
up for what is right, not just for Black people, but for Americans in 
this country. And that is something that this report strikes a chord 
with me.
  I stand in opposition. I understand when someone takes their freedom 
to stand up and oppose something that is happening in America, and I 
want to protect that First Amendment right. But if we can avoid the 
consequences of halfway speech fueled by fear and false perceptions, we 
will be stronger as a country.
  Mr. Speaker, I call on Congress to join me and my colleagues in 
condemning this report and standing with us for a more peaceful, a more 
accepting, and a more equal country where we can really mean, when we 
stand up and we say the Pledge of Allegiance and we say, ``one nation 
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,'' and for all 
of us we have a name.
  We have a name that we were given at birth, and we expect our 
leadership, our President, our Congress, our Chief of Staff, our 
military to address us by our names. It is not acceptable, it is 
embarrassing for us as a country, to reduce ourselves to that level. 
And I stand here tonight, on the Record, that I am an American. I am a 
Member of Congress. I am a woman. I am an African American. I deserve 
respect, and I expect all of our colleagues to conduct themselves the 
same way, including the President of the United States.
  Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Lawrence for her comments, 
which are very timely in light of everything that is happening right 
now.
  Mr. Speaker, before I close out, the one thing that I would like to 
make note of is that I think, with this COINTELPRO 2.0 that is going on 
right now, we should take this very seriously. And I just want to 
remind everybody that may be out here listening right now, we talk a 
lot about extremist groups. We talk a lot about alt-right and KKK and 
White supremacist groups, but one thing that we have to keep in mind is 
that, in the 1960s, when Dr. Martin Luther King came to town, he was 
not treated like he is now.
  I hear so many people--conservatives, liberals, Democrats, and 
Republicans--talk about how much they admire and respect Dr. King, and 
rightfully so, because he earned the respect and the admiration that he 
has now, posthumously, in this country. I don't think that anyone would 
argue that. But if we could travel back in time to the 1960s, we will 
find that he was not that welcomed.
  And let's just put aside the White supremacists. Let's put aside the 
alt-right. Let's put aside these hateful forces that, again, all of us 
agree on are bad people. But remember, when Dr. King came to some of 
these Southern towns in the 1960s, he was not welcomed. He was not 
welcomed by people at the Lions Club, people at the Elks Club, people 
at the First Baptist Church, people at the Methodist Church. People 
thought that Dr. King was bad, that he was stirring up trouble, that he 
was not ``keeping his place,'' and that he had come into these 
communities to stir up a lot of trouble.
  And because regular, everyday people--again, not the Klan, not the 
White supremacists, just regular, everyday, tax-paying shopkeepers in 
these little Southern towns--these conservative individuals who 
represented all segments of our society thought that Dr. King was out 
of place for doing what he was doing, because of that, the Nation 
reacted. And one of those people who reacted against Dr. King, against 
Malcolm X, and against other organizations like the Southern Christian 
Leadership Conference, SNCC, which was the Student Nonviolent 
Coordinating Committee, and many, many others, they ran the domestic 
counterintelligence program that you have heard about tonight, this 
COINTELPRO, and it became a weapon that was used to spy on individuals.
  We heard mentioned earlier that our colleague, Barbara Lee, was one 
of these people who was monitored. But this was happening to everyday 
African Americans who were just out there trying to make sure that we 
can vote and that our water fountains and our schools weren't 
segregated. And these regular town folk--again, the ones that weren't 
in the Klan, that were just good old folks that went to Sunday school 
and went to church every Sunday--were trying to prevent this from 
happening, and J. Edgar Hoover stepped in and decided that he was going 
to discredit, disrupt, and neutralize these organizations, again, that 
were just trying to make sure that African Americans were no longer 
second-class citizens.
  I think these groups and these organizations and these individuals 
that I mentioned earlier within the Black community that were willing 
to be part of that circle, I know that I would not be here serving had 
it not been for that surveillance that they endured, and I know that I 
would not be here today were it not for them putting their lives on the 
line, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, because of that.
  So what I would just like to say is it is important that we monitor 
everything that is coming out of the Justice Department in relation to 
any announcements that they are going to make about investigating these 
organizations that they disagree with politically because it is 
dangerous, and we don't want to go back to those times. We don't want 
to end up in a situation where the organization is doing any sort of 
domestic spying on people who are practicing their First Amendment 
rights of free speech.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire how much time is remaining on 
the clock.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 7 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. VEASEY. Mr. Speaker, let me also, again, talk about, very 
briefly, some of the things that people are concerned about in regards 
to civil liberties during the Cold War. That is when the FBI started 
running a lot of these counterintelligence programs, and Dr. King was 
always very high on the list. That is what people are concerned about. 
Their concerns are concerns that are very warranted because of what 
happened.
  I know that people always say: Well, those things happened a long, 
long time ago. But, in reality, there are people who serve with us in 
this body who, sadly, remember those days. So it didn't happen that 
long ago because they are still here, and they are still active, very 
healthy members of society. They weren't Members of Congress back then, 
but they are now, and they saw this up front. They saw this in a very 
personal way, and that is important.

[[Page 16316]]

  Also, one of the things that was mentioned earlier by Representative 
Payne from Newark, New Jersey, was the fact about social media. Social 
media has been very convenient. It has helped spawn new wealth in this 
country. It has brought us together like never before, but it can also 
tear us apart if we let it.
  We have to be very serious when we have a foreign entity, a foreign 
country that doesn't like America, that doesn't like our values, and 
they have been very open and blatant in saying that you can't have a 
multicultural society that exists. We need to take that threat very 
seriously.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) so 
she can tell her story, and I thank her for joining us this evening.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Veasey for yielding, but 
also for his remarkable leadership here in Congress and for hosting 
this very important Special Order this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise, along with my colleagues in the Congressional 
Black Caucus, with a message for the American people: Wake up. 
COINTELPRO 2.0 is on the rise.
  Mr. Speaker, now, in a report that was never supposed to see the 
light of day, the FBI's Counterterrorism Division branded African 
Americans in the fight for equality and justice as Black identity 
extremists that pose a domestic threat to police officers.
  Now, I have witnessed many covert tactics designed to suppress 
African-American activism in my life, but the revelation of this report 
is one of the most troubling details I have ever learned about our 
government.
  I remember very clearly the days of COINTELPRO under J. Edgar Hoover. 
As a community worker who worked closely with the Black Panther Party 
in their Ten-Point Platform, which made programs like Free Breakfast 
for Children possible and paved the way for our government's free 
breakfast program for low-income children, I witnessed firsthand how 
the lives of good people doing good work were destroyed by COINTELPRO.
  Seeing the emergence of what is effectively COINTELPRO 2.0 is not 
only alarming, it is frightening. Just listen to how the FBI describes 
young women who take a stand for justice.
  According to the FBI: ``Black identity extremist, BIE, perceptions of 
police brutality against African Americans'' has been responsible for 
``an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law 
enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such 
violence in the future.''
  My God.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, we know that all police officers aren't bad actors. 
Actually, thousands of officers, the majority of officers, go to work 
every morning to protect our communities and to provide public safety 
for everyone, but I want to be very clear about two things, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Police brutality is not, as they said in this FBI report, a 
perception. Police brutality is a reality African Americans grapple 
with every day.
  African Americans are three times more likely to be killed by police 
than White people. That is a reality. That is not a perception. The 
facts speak for themselves.
  Despite being only 13 percent of our population, nearly 25 percent of 
those killed by police in the United States each year are African 
Americans. That is a reality. That is not a perception.
  Nearly 99 percent of police-involved shootings have not resulted in 
any officers involved being convicted of a crime. Now, that is a 
reality, not a perception.
  I also want to be very clear that Black identity extremism does not 
exist. It is simply not real. No academics or journalists have 
uncovered such a movement. No one has identified as a leader of such a 
movement. No act of hate or violence has been committed in the name of 
Black identity extremism.
  So what is it, then? It is a twisted attempt by arbiters of the alt-
right, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and this 
administration, to deflect attention from the realities of police 
misconduct and the alt-right and White supremacy.
  First let me thank Congressman Veasey for his remarkable leadership 
in Congress and for hosting this vitally important Special Order hour.
  Mr. Speaker I rise today along with my colleagues in the 
Congressional Black Caucus with a message for the American people.
  Wake up! COINTELPRO 2.0 is on the rise.
  Mr. Speaker, in a report that was never supposed to see the light of 
day, the FBI's Counterterrorism Division branded African Americans that 
fight for equality and justice as ``Black Identity Extremists'' that 
pose a domestic threat to police officers.
  I have witnessed many covert tactics designed to suppress African 
American activism in my life, but the revelation of this report is one 
of the most troubling details I have ever learned about our government.
  I remember clearly the days of COINTELPRO under J. Edgar Hoover.
  As a community worker who worked closely with the Black Panther Party 
on their 10 point platform, which made programs like free breakfast for 
children possible, I witnessed firsthand how the lives of good people 
doing good work were destroyed by COINTELPRO.
  So seeing the emergence of what is effectively COINTELPRO 2.0 is not 
only alarming it is frightening.
  Just listen to how the FBI describes young men and women who take a 
stand for justice.
  According to the FBI:
  ``Black Identity Extremist (BIE) perceptions of police brutality 
against African Americans'' has been responsible for ``an increase in 
premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and 
will very likely serve as justification for such violence'' in the 
future.
  Mr. Speaker, we know that all police officers aren't bad actors. 
Thousands of officers go to work every morning to protect our 
communities.
  But I want to be very clear about two things Mr. Speaker: Police 
brutality is not a perception. Police brutality is a reality African 
Americans grapple with every day.
  African Americans are three times more likely to be killed by police 
than white people.
  That is a reality, not a perception.
  Despite being only 13% of our population, nearly 25% of those killed 
by police in the U.S. each year are African Americans
  That is a reality, not a perception.
  And nearly 99% of case of police involved shootings have not resulted 
in any officers involved being convicted of a crime.
  That is a reality, not a perception.
  I also want to be very clear that Black Identity Extremism does not 
exist.
  It is simply is not real.
  No academics or journalists have uncovered such a movement.
  No one has identified as a leader of such a movement
  And no act of hate or violence has been committed in the name of 
Black Identity Extremism.
  So what is it then?
  Black Identity Extremism is a twisted attempt by arbiters of the alt-
right, including President Trump and Jeff Sessions to deflect attention 
from the realities of Police brutality and white supremacy.
  That is why members of the Congressional Black Caucus are here this 
evening. To sound the alarm.
  This is not just another revelation or press report that should be 
dismissed.
  This kind of hateful stigmatization presents a serious threat to the 
African American community. This is not mere speculation, Mr. Speaker.
  If we're honest about the history of our nation, we must admit that 
the FBI has a disturbing history of surveillance and intimidation of 
African Americans for political expediency.
  I remember all too clearly the lives that were cut short during the 
civil rights movement through the highly coordinated 
counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO.
  For 15 years under the direction of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the 
federal government spied on civil rights leaders and sowed division 
among African Americans with one express goal.
  To ``expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize'' 
any individual or group deemed to be subversive or a threat to the 
established power structure.
  Members of the Black Panther Party were the greatest victims of this 
vitriolic pursuit.
  Under the guise of COINTELPRO FBI agents harassed, intimidated and 
committed acts of violence against Black Panthers and their supporters.
  Men and women were killed as a result of this program. We simply 
cannot allow government sanctioned violence to develop against innocent 
African Americans fighting for the perfection of our union.

[[Page 16317]]

  As the conscience of Congress, members of the Congressional Black 
Caucus are determined to stop COINTELPRO 2.0 dead in its tracks.
  That is why we are demanding that the FBI give a full account to 
Congress on the development of this report and the sources used to 
inform it.
  It has been said that those who do not know their history are doomed 
to repeat.
  Well Mr. Speaker, we are here to give the American people and the 
Trump Administration a history lesson.
  Clearly the FBI has not learned from its mistakes. But I want to be 
clear about one thing, under no circumstances will we allow another 
generation of African Americans to be subjected to unwarranted 
surveillance and harassment.
  It will not happen, not on our watch.
  I stand with our Chairman Congressman Richmond, Congressman Conyers, 
Congressman Thompson and Congressman Cummings in demanding that the FBI 
come clean about this report.
  Enough is enough.
  Mr. VEASEY. I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, in my role as a member of the House 
Committee on the Judiciary, I have always taken a serious view of my 
oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. It is vitally 
important that we keep a close watch on the activities of law 
enforcement, especially regarding their operations in domestic 
intelligence gathering. In the wake of September 11th attacks, a time 
of crisis when civil liberties can be viewed as a luxury, it was 
important to ensure that all Americans could rely on the Constitution 
to both protect our rights and protect public safety.
  As we all know, the FBI has a long, troubling history of using its 
broad investigatory powers to vulnerable or dissenting groups in our 
society. As a long-serving member, I was here in Congress when the 
reports of the FBI's surveillance activities against African-American 
groups involved in the struggle for civil rights first surfaced in the 
press.
  Centralized operations under COINTELPRO officially began in August 
1956 with a program designed to ``increase factionalism, cause 
disruption and win defections'' inside American Communist Party. 
Tactics included anonymous phone calls, IRS audits, and the creation of 
documents that would divide the American communist organization 
internally. An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified the FBI's 
ongoing surveillance of black leaders, including it within COINTELPRO, 
with the justification that the movement was infiltrated by communists.
  In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a 
civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi 
who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. 
Lee, Emmett Till, and other black people in the South. When the 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was founded in 1957, 
the FBI began to monitor and target the group almost immediately, 
focusing particularly on Bayard Rustin, Stanley Levison, and, 
eventually, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. During the 1960's Director J. 
Edgar Hoover also used COINTELPRO to spy on and attempt to discredit 
civil rights activists and members of the Black Panther Party.
  After the 1963 March on Washington, Hoover singled out King as a 
major target for COINTELPRO. Soon after, the FBI was systematically 
bugging King's home and his hotel rooms, as they were now aware that 
King was growing in stature daily as the leader among leaders of the 
Civil Rights Movement. Amidst the urban unrest of July-August 1967, the 
FBI began ``COINTELPRO--BLACK HATE'', which focused on King and the 
SCLC as well as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 
the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the Deacons for Defense and 
Justice, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Nation of Islam. 
BLACK HATE established the so-called Ghetto Informant Program and 
instructed 23 FBI offices to ``disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or 
otherwise neutralize the activities of black-nationalist hate type 
organizations.''
  The program was successfully kept secret until 1971, when the 
Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI burgled an FBI field office 
in Media, Pennsylvania, took several dossiers, and exposed the program 
by passing this material to news agencies. In 1976, the ``Church 
Committee'' (Sen. Frank Church-Idaho) launched a major investigation of 
the FBI and COINTELPRO. Journalists and historians speculate that the 
government has not fully released the many dossiers and documents 
related to the program.
  Against this backdrop, the Congressional Black Caucus is justified in 
its concern about the FBI's investigation of African-American political 
organizations. The coining of the phrase ``Black Identity Extremists'' 
and claims with ``high confidence'' that these groups are likely to 
target law enforcement based on ``perceptions of police brutality 
against African Americans'' takes us back to claims about groups like 
the Black Panthers in the 1960's.
  While it is important that the FBI monitor all threats domestic, its 
activities around the American Muslim community and efforts to ``combat 
violent extremism'' have raised questions about tactics and 
constitutional norms. The CBC has called for an FBI briefing on the 
origins on this research and the Bureau's intended next steps. I have 
supported this request in my role as Ranking Member on the Judiciary 
Committee and intend to keep a close eye on the Bureau's activities. 
This is not the time for a COINTELPRO 2.0 in America.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Bureau 
of Investigation (FBI) published a report on August 3rd with findings 
that ``black identity extremists'' and their views on police brutality 
have very likely contributed to an uptick in premeditated violence 
against police officers. While many questions about the origins and 
intentions behind this report still remain unanswered, I cannot help 
but feel that this troubling assessment is reminiscent of the 1960's 
era Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that targeted black 
activists during the Civil Rights Movement.
  There are no doubts that the 2012 shooting of Treyvon Martin or the 
2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri have paved the way 
for increased tension within our communities. The subsequent protests 
and rise of the Black Lives Matter movement born out of the 2013 
acquittal of Treyvon Martin's murderer fueled further tension between 
law enforcement and racial minorities. However, these protests--while 
interspersed with bouts of violence--have been largely peaceful at 
their core.
  Interestingly, we have yet to also see a comparable FBI report 
investigating the white supremacists that have emerged during rallies 
in Charlottesville, VA and other parts of the country. This apparent 
double standard sets a dangerous precedent for race relations in the 
United States. The FBI's recent report is also extremely troubling 
given the rise and prominence of far-right movements throughout the 
country during this tense moment in our history.
  Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus has called for an FBI 
briefing on the origins of this report and the Bureau's intentions on 
next steps. I will join my colleagues in eagerly awaiting a response 
from the FBI, so that we can make sure that there is no impropriety or 
racial bias fueling this investigation. I am disappointed in the FBI's 
report and urge my colleagues to tread carefully as we look to avoid a 
repeat of history by using government institutions and resources to 
unfairly target racial minorities.
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Veasey, and our 
colleague Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, for joining me at the 
Center for African American Studies at the University of Texas at 
Arlington last Thursday evening. It was a wonderful experience for me 
and President Vistasp Karbhari, Dr. Jason Skelton and my longtime 
friend Dr. Marvin Delaney were perfect hosts.
  Earlier this month, Sergeant La David T. Johnson died a hero's death 
in a distant land on a mission few Americans know about or understand.
  This weekend, his grieving family, including his pregnant wife, took 
him to his final resting place in Florida. Sgt. Johnson's tragic death 
leaves this young family fatherless.
  Mr. Speaker, in his Second Inaugural address, President Abraham 
Lincoln called on our nation to endeavor ``to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan. . . .''
  Unfortunately, rather than comfort Sgt. Johnson's grieving family, 
the current occupant of the White House has chosen to use them as his 
latest prop in his constant effort to sow discord and division in this 
country.
  The President and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who happens 
to be a Four-Star General, have insulted and smeared an honorable 
public servant who happens to be a Five-Star Congresswoman, and in 
effect called her and her grieving widowed constituent liars.
  Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson has been a champion for the people 
of South Florida for decades. It is no mystery--and it was not 
political--that she was accompanying Mrs. Johnson and her family to 
receive her husband's remains. She had mentored Sgt. Johnson throughout 
his childhood.
  Mr. Speaker, I have participated in several of Congresswoman Wilson's 
500 Role Models events and have spoken for one of their graduations. I 
often wear a red tie to this floor

[[Page 16318]]

helping her highlight their efforts. And her passionate work on behalf 
of those kidnapped girls of Boko Haram is unmatched.
  As the husband of a five-star African American woman for more than 56 
years and the father of three African American daughters who are 
working hard to earn their stars each and every day, I feel compelled 
to respond to General Kelly and completely debunk his concocted 
misrepresentation.
  Mr. Speaker, we can have political differences here in Washington, 
D.C. That comes with the territory. But people need to have the common 
decency and basic humanity to refrain from exacerbating the pain of 
those already suffering so much.
  I was taught from childhood that silence gives consent. I want the 
White House to know this, I and the members of the Congressional Black 
caucus will not be silent or silenced.
  Ms. FUDGE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend Rep. Veasey for 
hosting tonight's special order.
  Let me begin by offering my condolences to the families of Sgt. La 
David Johnson and his fellow soldiers who lost their lives in Niger.
  Those who give their lives in the service of this great nation and 
their families deserve our honor, respect and thanks. The White House's 
treatment of Sgt. Johnson's Gold Star widow is an embarrassment to our 
nation.
  Furthermore, the White House's attacks on Congresswoman Frederica 
Wilson's character are baseless and shameful. I know Congresswoman 
Wilson as a woman of integrity who has proven her deep commitment to 
her constituents and community over the years.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand today with my colleagues in the Congressional 
Black Caucus to share a concern about the leaked FBI's assessment 
creating a new class of threats and unjustly labeling ordinary 
Americans exercising their constitutional rights as extremists.
  In the report, the FBI coins a new term--black identity extremists--
which can easily give the perception that African Americans speaking 
out against police brutality or anyone who identifies as black for that 
matter is a threat to law enforcement.
  I can't help but wonder, what led the FBI to reach such a conclusion. 
Was it the Facebook ads purchased by Russian operatives targeting the 
Black Lives Matter movement?
  This type of mischaracterization is dangerous and further erodes the 
trust between law enforcement officials and communities of color.
  We have seen this before. The FBI has a long and troubling history of 
targeting African Americans in this country.
  In the 1960s, the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) was 
used to surveil and discredit civil rights activists fighting 
institutional racism, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and black 
members of Congress.
  These activists were fighting for equality, access to the ballot box, 
educational opportunities, and decent housing. They no longer wanted to 
be treated as second-class citizens. Put simply, they were seeking an 
even playing field and equal treatment under the law as should be 
provided to every American.
  Here we are sixty years later, and we continue to fight for the same 
rights.
  We have seen it play out in the unrest that unfolded in communities 
like Ferguson, Baltimore, and Cleveland where those who are being paid 
to protect and serve are not held accountable for killing unarmed 
African American citizens.
  This report makes clear that we have harkened back to the dark days 
of J. Edgar Hoover. COINTELPRO 2.0 undermines the progress we have made 
and continues the current Administration's disturbing trend of 
demonizing communities of color.
  At some point, Members on both sides of the aisle must stand up and 
speak out against these efforts to mischaracterize actions of Americans 
fighting for a fairer and more just America.
  We all have rights under the Constitution, and no American seeking 
equal treatment under the law should be unfairly labeled when 
exercising those rights.

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