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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    18 mins
  • COINTELPRO: The Good Lie (Chapter 2)

    COINTELPRO: The Good Lie (Chapter 2)
    Nov 26 2025
    In Chapter 2, The Fairshake Files investigates "The Good Lie"—the narrative shield J. Edgar Hoover used to protect his secret war.

    We examine the one COINTELPRO operation that history deems a success: the destruction of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. But beneath the surface of this victory lies a disturbing reality.

    We reveal how the FBI’s massive infiltration created a dependency on illegal tactics, protected violent informants, and inadvertently forced the Klan to evolve from a regional vigilante group into a revolutionary "White Power" network.

    This is a story about the cost of victory, the ethics of espionage, and the law of unintended consequences.

    IN THIS EPISODE:
    • Force Majeure: The federal "invasion" of Neshoba County to find the bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.

    • The Informant Dilemma: The moral cost of the FBI paying 20% of the Klan's membership and the protection of violent asset Gary Thomas Rowe.

    • The Mutation: How destroying the Klan’s hierarchy birthed the "Leaderless Resistance" strategy and the modern White Power movement.

    SOURCES & CITATIONS
    • The MIBURN Investigation (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
    • United States v. Price (1966 Supreme Court Ruling)
    • The Church Committee Report, Book II (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)
    • Bring the War Home (Kathleen Belew, Harvard University Press)


    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.
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    16 mins
  • COINTELPRO: The Frustrated State (Chapter 1)

    COINTELPRO: The Frustrated State (Chapter 1)
    Nov 18 2025
    The Fairshake Files opens the story of COINTELPRO: the secret, illegal domestic spying program run by the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover.

    We reveal how the operation was created out of frustration with the Supreme Court's protection of free speech, leading Hoover to declare a secret war on dissent outside the law. This is American political history, surveillance, and true crime with deep context.

    IN THIS EPISODE:
    • FDR's secret 1936 mandate to hunt the "fifth column" threat.
    • The shock of real spies: the Duquesne Spy Ring and high-level Soviet agent Harry Dexter White.
    • The Supreme Court's decisions (like Yates v. United States) that forced Hoover to illegally "neutralize" enemies.
    SOURCES & CITATIONS
    • COINTELPRO Mandate
    • Duquesne Spy Ring
    • Yates v. United States


    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.
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    12 mins
  • Manson: Cult, Criminal, or CIA Asset? (The Full Investigation)

    Manson: Cult, Criminal, or CIA Asset? (The Full Investigation)
    Nov 13 2025
    The world knows one story: "Helter Skelter."

    The story of a charismatic cult leader and a doomsday prophecy. But that's just the narrative they wanted you to hear.

    In this deep-dive investigation, The Fairshake Files deconstructs the Manson legend to find the truth by investigating the three competing narratives:
    1. THE CULT: The official "Helter Skelter" motive the prosecution sold to the world.
    2. THE CRIMINAL: The drug deals, rivalries, and copycat killings the evidence actually pointed to.
    3. THE ASSET: The declassified records of MKUltra and COINTELPRO that suggest Manson was less of a mastermind... and more of a "manufactured monster."
    This is not the story you think you know.

    Disclaimer: The following is an exploration of different historical narratives and theories. The goal is to examine the evidence presented for all sides, not to endorse any single conclusion.

    Follow for our next series: Cointelpro

    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.
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    44 mins
  • The Manson Investigation (Part 4/4) The Manufactured Monster

    The Manson Investigation (Part 4/4) The Manufactured Monster
    Nov 8 2025
    In Part 3, we dismantled the "Helter Skelter" narrative, revealing a simpler, more believable story of drug debts, failed ambitions, and chaotic copycat crimes.

    In our series finale, we explore the third and most unsettling narrative of all: that Charles Manson was not a mastermind, but a "monster manufactured in the shadows".

    The Fairshake Files investigates the documented realities of the CIA's Project MKUltra and its mission to control human behavior. We trace Manson's time as an inmate at the Vacaville psychiatric prison —a facility where CIA-funded doctors were simultaneously testing "behavioral-control materials" on prisoners.

    We examine the chilling "Haight-Ashbury Nexus," where Manson, his parole officer Roger Smith, and documented MKUltra contractor Dr. Louis Jolyon West all crossed paths. Was his parole officer a "handler" protecting an active operation?

    Finally, we connect the case to the FBI's COINTELPRO , a program designed to "neutralize" the counterculture. Did the Manson murders provide the "perfect outcome" —discrediting an entire generation and fulfilling the FBI's stated goal of preventing the rise of a "messiah"?

    This concludes our Manson investigation.

    Subscribe now so you don't miss our next deep dive into the FBI's secret war: COINTELPRO.

    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
    13 mins
  • The Manson Investigation (Part 3/4): Cracks in the Foundation

    The Manson Investigation (Part 3/4): Cracks in the Foundation
    Oct 31 2025
    In Part 2, we laid out the official story: "Helter Skelter."

    In Part 3, we begin to dismantle it.

    Fairshake traces the fissures beneath the prosecution’s case to uncover motives that were far less theatrical but far more believable.

    We investigate how prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's personal ambition—and a "Helter Skelter" book deal signed before the verdict—may have shaped a narrative that served his quest for a legacy.

    We explore the personal vengeance motive: Manson's failed record deal with producer Terry Melcher, and the chilling, non-random fact that 10050 Cielo Drive was Melcher's former home.

    Finally, we lay out a clear, chronological timeline of the Manson Family's criminal underworld—from the shooting of Bernard Crowe to the murder of Gary Hinman.

    We ask: Were the Tate-LaBianca murders an apocalyptic prophecy, or a desperate, chaotic copycat crime staged to free Bobby Beausoleil from jail?

    Subscribe now so you don't miss our final episode, Part 4: The Manufactured Monster.

    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
    13 mins