When Women Spied on Women.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) infiltration of movements in the sixties is by now well-known. But those who have excavated the history of such surveillance have barely looked into the government's infiltration of the women's movement. The FBI, it turns out, viewed the women's movement as a serious threat to national security. The FBI's surveillance of the women's movement began as part of COINTELPRO, an FBI domestic surveillance program begun in 1956. This mission was to "neutralize" the effectiveness of civil rights, New Left, anti-war and African-American liberation groups.