Official repression of dissident voices in American society is endemic and began as soon as the nation was founded. (Known Tories were expelled from the former colonies). The recent revelations of blanket electronic surveillance of American citizens is, in essence, a continuation by other means of the secret surveillance, infiltration, and intimidation program of the civil rights movement as early as the fifties and later the anti-war movement of the sixties and seventies. This six-part video shows the extent of official involvement in a "near-fascist" conspiracy to suppress progressive dissent in the United States that became known by its FBI acronym, "COINTELPRO" for Counter Intelligence Program:
The allegations of connections between the US government and international drug cartels is not news. (Senator John Kerry: "There is a complicity in the flow of drugs into this country, period.") The latest information about a federal connection is the UNODC report that the Sinaloa Cartel headed by Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán is responsible for 80% of the methamphetamine entering the US. The amount of cash generated by these operations is so large that the Mexican cartels are credited with triggering the financial Panic of 2008 by withholding their narco-dollars from international exchange as a protest against a change in US government money laundering policy. Guzmán has been ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the world's most powerful people every year since 2009. Guzmán is also reported to be a paid CIA informant.