"'EVEN MILD PROTEST IS NOT GENERALLY CONSIDERED TO BE VERY PATRIOTIC': SURVEILLANCE CULTURE AND THE RISE OF THE 'SOONER CIA"'.

This article examines the emergence of Oklahoma's Office of Inter-agency Coordination (OIC)--an organization that one exposé dubbed the "Sooner CIA" (Central Intelligence Agency). The article sets the OIC within the context of a growing national culture of surveillance, driven in part by fears of race riots and widespread unrest during the Vietnam War Era. Examining the connection between the OIC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and the Army spy scandal illustrates that Oklahoma's surveillance activities and civil disorder planning were part of a larger nationwide erosion of civil liberties [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]