6 COINTELPRO was a secret intelligence program that the FBI used to target five political groups including the Black Panther Party. Their aim was to gather intelligence to establish connections between such radical groups and foreign enemies through infiltration and surveillance.

In order to discredit and disrupt political groups that created an atmosphere of dissent in the US, the FBI undertook many illegal projects between 1956 and 1979 under its Counter Intelligence Program.

Under the pretext of national security, the FBI discredited groups and individuals through forged documents, used the media to spread false propaganda, and assassinated political leaders. They even undertook elaborate projects to create division within such groups.

Leaders of the Black Panther Party and the civil rights movement were smeared through character assassination and imprisonment. To weaken the alliance between the US Organization and the Black Panthers, the FBI posted fake letters and misled the US Organization into believing that Black Panthers were plotting to murder its leader.

After many such illicit activities, the program was exposed in 1971 when the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI raided the FBI office in Pennsylvania. The raiders stole documents that disclosed the activities of COINTELPRO and published them through the media. (1, 2)

7 In the 1950s, Britain and the US conducted studies named Project Sunshine on more than 1,500 corpses to study the effects of radioactive fallout on human tissues. Most of the corpses were bodies of stillborn babies, procured without the consent of the parents.

USAF Project Rand and the United States Atomic Energy Commission wanted to measure the concentration of “radioactive isotope Sr-90” in the tissues and bones of humans, especially of young humans as they were susceptible to the highest radiation damage.

This led to a hunt for corpses, preferably of babies, from around the world. Dr. Willard Libby, then commissioner of the Atomic Energy Commission, encouraged body-snatching for the project by calling it a “matter of prime importance” and a “servitude to the country.”

In response, 1,500 corpses were gathered, mostly of babies, from a number of countries and shipped to the US without the prior consent of the dead or their relatives.

Though there were reports by Canadian and British media on cases of body snatching for testing, it wasn’t until 2001 that declassified documents confirmed Britain’s involvement in sourcing the bodies. (1, 2)

8 Britain and the US backed the Iranian military in a coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. They provided financial assistance and support for the coup as Mosaddegh’s oil policies were against the interests of British and American oil corporations.

Shortly after his appointment as the president of Iran in 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh began nationalizing Iran’s oil industry. The new nationalistic policies took away British control from its oil fields.

In retaliation, Great Britain sought help from the US. As interests of American Oil companies were also threatened, the CIA, along with the British Intelligence, bribed the Iranian press to circulate propaganda against Mosaddegh. With the help of pro-western Iranian elites, the CIA attempted to forcefully take down the president.

After a failed attempt, a second coup was orchestrated on August 19, 1953. This time, with crucial support from the CIA, the Iranian military succeeded in overthrowing the president. He was replaced by the Shah who handed 40% of the oil fields to US corporations. (1, 2)

9 In 2018, The prime minister of the UK was forced to publish orders that confirmed speculations that MI5 agents are permitted to commit crimes, including murder.

Reprieve, a human rights group, fought a seven-month-long legal battle to gain transparency of the activities of spies working for the security service MI5. As a result, the UK government accepted that MI5 agents working as informants in criminal groups were allowed to carry out crimes in the country. The government refused to publish the extent these agents can go to commit such activities.

Human rights groups continued to put pressure on Theresa May to make public when agents can commit offenses and the extent they can go.

In 2019, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal set the limits on the powers of M15 by authorizing its agents to perpetrate crimes, including murder, to protect the national security of the UK.

(1, 2)

10 MKUltra was a covert operation by the CIA to experiment with LSD and other psychedelics in mind control. Around 150 US citizens, including unwitting volunteers, were exposed to drugs and electroshock therapy in horrifying conditions that left many with long-term mental illnesses and amnesia.

In 1953, Allen W. Dulles, director of CIA, undertook project MKUltra to study mind control. The US government believed that the communist forces used manipulation or mind-control techniques on American POWs and turned them into their allies.

To counter this and come up with their own techniques to control the human mind, the CIA carried out a number of inhuman experiments on unsuspecting volunteers.

Most of the subjects were citizens from marginalized groups like the mentally ill, sex workers, prisoners, and others who, in the words of a government agent, “…people who could not fight back.”

The agency experimented with LSD on more than 150 victims with no precautions and a lack of foresight of its life-altering effect on the recipients. There are reports of subjects being exposed to mind-altering drugs for more than 174 days.

For its operation “Midnight Climax,” the CIA lured unwitting men through prostitutes into “safe houses,” where they were drugged and studied without their knowledge and consent.

After many unethical testings and experiments, the CIA concluded that the effects of LSD were too unpredictable to be used for counterintelligence. So, the project was officially halted in 1973.

In 1974, Journalist Seymour Hersh brought Project MKUltra and the CIA’s brutal methods to the public light. This led to an investigation into the CIA’s illegal activities against its own citizens under the guise of counterintelligence. (1, 2)

Also see: 10 Of The Biggest Scams Ever In History