Red squad

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Red Squads are police intelligence units that specialize in infiltrating, harassing, and gathering intelligence on political and social groups. Dating as far back as the Haymarket Riot in 1886, Red Squads became common in larger cities such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles during the First Red Scare of the 1920s. They were set up as specialized units of city police departments, as a weapon against labor unions, communists, anarchists, and other dissidents. In New York, former City Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy traced their origin there to an "Italian Squad" formed in 1904 to monitor a group of Italian immigrants under suspicion^[1]. However, it is their association with fighting communism which provides the basis for the name "Red Squad." They became more commonplace in the 1930s, often conceived of as a countermeasure to Communist organizers who were charged with executing a policy of dual unionism - namely, building a revolutionary movement in parallel with membership in above-ground labor organizations. Similar units were established in Canada in this period, although only the Toronto police used the name.

In the late 1960s, as the protests against Vietnam and the general domestic upheaval intensified, the Red Squads augmented their focus, to include dissidents largely outside the labor movement, including therein not just war resisters, but protest movements of all political stripes, including Neonazis, Native American movements, the women's movement, environmentalists, the civil rights movement, and others. The methods employed ranged from simple surveillance to isolated incidents of assassination. Anti-activist police operations were expanded under the Johnson and Nixon administrations, particularly in concert with, and within the cadre of the FBI's COINTELPRO surveillance program, but also including domestic spying by the CIA.

The aftermath of civil unrest during Johnson's administration, Watergate during Nixon's administration, and the public exposure of COINTELPRO by a dissident organization in 1971 led to widespread criticism of the Red Squads for illegal and undemocratic tactics. In 1975, in the wake of both the Watergate scandel and the exposure of COINTELPRO, the Church Committee was formed to investigate overstepping on the part of federal law inforcement and intelligence gathering agencies. Following the recommendations of that committee, the U.S. Congress passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978, placing limits on the power of police and Federal agencies. This ended the official use of Red Squads.

Since 1978, the term Red Squad has resurfaced repeatedly to describe any action by police or Federal agencies that is deemed to be oppressive to a social or political group.

1 Other use of "red squad"
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Other use of "red squad"

Outside of politics, the term "red squad" is used without negative connotations:

During the 1981 Springbok Tour in New Zealand, riot police were formed into Red and Blue Squads to control protesters opposed to the tour.
In the NFL Pro Bowl, the AFC is often referred to as the red squad because the AFC team color is red while the NFC team color is blue.
In Star Trek, Red Squad is the name of an elite corps of Cadets at the academy.
In the episode of Strangers with Candy entitled "Is My Daddy Crazy?", Jerri's stepfather claims to have a "secret enemy" which he calls The Red Squad.

[edit] References

^ Police Surveillance of Political Activity -- The History and Current State of the Handschu Decree (HTML). Testimony Of Arthur N. Eisenberg Presented To The New York Advisory Committee To The U.S. Commission On Civil Rights. New York Civil Liberties Union (May 21, 2003). Retrieved on February 19, 2007.

Frank J. Donner (1990). Protectors of privilege : red squads and police repression in urban America. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05951-4. Includes bibliographical references.
Encyclopedia of Chicago: Red Squad
Red Squad. Directed by Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher, Howard Blatt and Francis Freedland. USA, 1972, b/w, 45 min.