10 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True

7) COINTELPRO

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COINTELPRO was a series of clandestine, illegal FBI projects that infiltrated domestic political organizations to discredit and smear them. This included critics of the Vietnam War, civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King and a wide variety of activists and journalists.

The acts committed against them included psychological warfare, slander using forged documents and false reports in the media, harassment, wrongful imprisonment and, according to some, intimidation and possibly violence and assassination.

Similar and possibly more sophisticated tactics are still used today, including NSA monitoring (see #10).

8) Operation Snow White

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Operation Snow White is the name given to an unprecedented infiltration of the US government by the Church of Scientology during the 1970s. They stole classified government files regarding Scientology from dozens of government agencies.

In 1977, the FBI finally cracked Snow White open which led to the arrest and imprisonment of a senior Church official.

The core mission of the program was to expose and legally expunge “all false and secret files of the nations of operating areas” and to enable Church seniors and L. Ron Hubbard himself to “frequent all Western nations without threat.” By the end, of course, there was nothing legal about their endeavors.

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