The idea that a tyrannical government is secretly plotting against US citizens is a popular and longstanding belief among much of the American far right. The scenario has many variations, but the basics are that politicians, threatened by a potentially rebellious populace, are watching and listening in on them, working to undermine them and readying for the day they will wrench away their freedoms.

But this scenario isn’t merely a paranoid fantasy dreamed up in the deepest corners of the alt-right — it’s relatively recent history. Instead of gun-toting sovereign citizens and Confederate-flag-waving patriot groups serving as the targets, however, the US government largely targeted segments of the Left for widespread surveillance, disruption, neutralization, and eventually destruction.

This was the COINTELPRO program, whose first operations were launched by the FBI sixty years ago this month.