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The Fairshake Files

The Fairshake Files

By: The Fairshake Files
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About this listen

 The Fairshake Files is a documentary investigation channel producing long-form, multi-part deep-dive series. We provide well-researched, sober analysis of history's most controversial events, from infamous true crime cases to declassified government programs and unsolved historical mysteries.

Our mission is to go beyond the official story to explore competing theories, alternative narratives, and complex conspiracies. We present all angles with a calm, narrative style that values research over sensationalism.

This channel is for viewers seeking nuance and in-depth context on topics like Project MKUltra, COINTELPRO, the Manson Family, and other pivotal historical moments. We dissect the legends, present the evidence, and let the viewer decide.

New investigations are opened monthly. This is the home for historical deep-dives, true crime analysis, and conspiracy theory deconstruction.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support.The Fairshake Files Social Sciences True Crime World
Episodes
  • COINTELPRO: Paranoia with a Budget (Full Series)

    COINTELPRO: Paranoia with a Budget (Full Series)
    Dec 23 2025
    This is the bundled release of Chapters 1–4 of The Fairshake Files COINTELPRO series.

    These chapters appear as originally published, with their original structure intact. This compilation is provided for listeners who prefer to follow the full arc in one sitting, without release gaps.

    COINTELPRO wasn’t about surveillance.It was about disruption.

    Across four chapters, we trace how the FBI built a domestic playbook of “neutralization”, using informants, psychological operations, forged letters, internal sabotage, and pressure campaigns that moved far beyond traditional law enforcement.

    The program began under the justification of COINTELPRO — White Hate, targeting violent extremist groups. But the methods didn’t remain limited to those targets. What started as an exception became a precedent.

    The same tactics were redirected toward civil rights leaders, anti-war activists, student movements, and political organizations—until “disruption” became a standing permission slip.

    This compilation follows the full trajectory: from infiltration and psychological warfare, to escalation against lawful dissent, to the moment COINTELPRO stopped being deniable and became documented...exposed by a burglary in Media, Pennsylvania, forced into daylight through FOIA litigation, and confronted by the Church Committee’s investigation.

    It also tracks the modern afterlife of the logic: new authorities, new language, and a surveillance ecosystem where investigations can begin without a criminal predicate, and disruption doesn’t always look like disruption until it’s too late.

    This series isn’t asking whether the first targets were “bad.”

    It’s asking what happens once a government decides it can violate its own laws to stop them.

    Once that line is crossed, the definition of “bad” never stays fixed.

    IN THIS EPISODE:
    • Origins: How COINTELPRO emerged as a domestic “neutralization” program
    • White Hate: Infiltration, informants, and the “Good Lie” justification
    • Disruption: Psychological warfare tactics deployed without warrants
    • Escalation: The expansion to civil rights leaders, students, anti-war movements, and political organizations
    • Exposure: The Media, Pennsylvania break-in, FOIA disclosures, and the Church Committee
    • Afterlife: Guidelines, “assessments,” expanded domestic authority, and modern surveillance ecosystems
    SOURCES & CITATIONS (selected)
    • U.S. Senate (Church Committee), Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (Book II)
    • FBI COINTELPRO directives and memoranda (declassified / FOIA releases via FBI Vault)
    • DOJ, Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations (2008)
    • FBI, Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) (selected sections)
    • DOJ OIG reporting on post-Watergate guideline history (Levi / 1976) and related oversight
    • ACLU reporting on FBI “assessments” and domestic intelligence practices
    • Documented reporting on social-media monitoring tools and related civil liberties cases
    • ACLU / Statewatch materials on JTRIG “effects” capabilities and documented techniques
    Next investigation: Project MKULTRA

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support.

    Thank you for listening.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts — share your perspective in the comments or a review.

    🎥 The full video version, complete with visuals, is available on YouTube: @thefairshakefiles

    As an independent creator, I deeply appreciate every listener and every bit of support. Your time and curiosity keep this project alive.

    💡 Supporters hear new episodes three days early and ad-free — and help keep The Fairshake Files truly independent. Join here → https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support

    Thank you again — every single one of you makes this possible.

    This episode includes AI-generated content.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 5 mins
  • COINTELPRO: The Rubric (Chapter 4)

    COINTELPRO: The Rubric (Chapter 4)
    Dec 17 2025
    In Chapter 4, The Fairshake Files follows the moment COINTELPRO stopped being a secret program and became a documented one.

    It begins with a burglary in Media, Pennsylvania.

    Not a leak.

    Not an insider.

    A break-in that forced the Bureau into daylight.

    From there, we trace the chain reaction:

    FOIA lawsuits that compelled disclosure, congressional investigations that exposed the tactics in plain language, and the reforms that were supposed to prevent this playbook from returning.

    But the story doesn’t end with Watergate-era accountability. It evolves. We examine how the logic of COINTELPRO survives through modern domestic authorities, where investigations can begin without criminal predicate, where disruption can be outsourced to platforms and contractors, and where surveillance becomes a background condition of public life.

    This chapter is not about paranoia. It’s about the rubric: the method, the permissions, and the machinery that persists even when the names change.

    IN THIS EPISODE
    • The Break-In: The Media, Pennsylvania burglary that cracked open the COINTELPRO file.
    • FOIA & Exposure: How forced disclosure revealed the Bureau’s directives in its own words.
    • Reform Era: Church Committee oversight, new guidelines, and the attempt to rebuild limits.
    • The Modern Turn: “Assessments,” expanded domestic authority, and surveillance without probable cause.
    • Digital Disruption: Social media monitoring, outsourced tools, and the new shape of influence control.
    SOURCES & CITATIONS (selected)
    • U.S. Senate (Church Committee), Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (Book II)
    • FBI COINTELPRO directives and memoranda (declassified / FOIA releases)
    • DOJ Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations (2008)
    • FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) (selected sections)
    • ACLU reporting on FBI “assessments” and domestic intelligence practices
    • Documented reporting on social-media monitoring tools and related civil liberties cases


    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support.

    Thank you for listening.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts — share your perspective in the comments or a review.

    🎥 The full video version, complete with visuals, is available on YouTube: @thefairshakefiles

    As an independent creator, I deeply appreciate every listener and every bit of support. Your time and curiosity keep this project alive.

    💡 Supporters hear new episodes three days early and ad-free — and help keep The Fairshake Files truly independent. Join here → https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support

    Thank you again — every single one of you makes this possible.

    This episode includes AI-generated content.
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins
  • COINTELPRO: The Threat of Peace (Chapter 3)

    COINTELPRO: The Threat of Peace (Chapter 3)
    Dec 6 2025
    In Chapter 3, The Fairshake Files uncovers the moment COINTELPRO stopped hiding behind pretext.

    The threat was no longer violence. It was unity.

    We examine how the FBI expanded from monitoring dissidents to actively sabotaging peace groups, student organizers, clergy networks, and community coalitions — anyone capable of turning protest into political force.

    At the center of this shift was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose moral authority the Bureau viewed as a national risk. But King was only one node in a broader effort.

    We investigate the state’s campaign against the Black Panther Party, revealing internal memos that identified their Free Breakfast for Children program, not their militancy, as one of the greatest dangers to federal objectives.

    We trace the devastating smear operation against actress Jean Seberg, whose support for Panther community programs made her a symbolic target.

    And finally, we return to Chicago, December 1969, where a pre-dawn raid killed 21-year-old organizer Fred Hampton, a man building a multiracial working-class alliance the government considered intolerable.

    This chapter is not just about surveillance.

    It’s about the machinery built to prevent a coalition before it began.

    IN THIS EPISODE

    - The Pivot: How influence, not violence, became COINTELPRO’s primary concern.
    - Targeting King: Internal directives aimed at neutralizing a unifying national figure.
    - The Panthers & Community Power: Why breakfast programs triggered federal alarm. The Seberg - - Operation: A Hollywood smear campaign with tragic consequences.
    - Chicago 1969: The killing of Fred Hampton and the destruction of an emerging coalition.

    SOURCES & CITATIONS
    • Church Committee Report, Book II (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)
    • COINTELPRO Internal Memos & Directives
    • Black Panther Party Community Program Records
    • Testimony & Legal Findings from the December 4, 1969 Raid
    • Seberg Case Files and Press Analysis


    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support.

    Thank you for listening.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts — share your perspective in the comments or a review.

    🎥 The full video version, complete with visuals, is available on YouTube: @thefairshakefiles

    As an independent creator, I deeply appreciate every listener and every bit of support. Your time and curiosity keep this project alive.

    💡 Supporters hear new episodes three days early and ad-free — and help keep The Fairshake Files truly independent. Join here → https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-fairshake-files--6771179/support

    Thank you again — every single one of you makes this possible.

    This episode includes AI-generated content.
    Show More Show Less
    18 mins
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