This is a list of some of the prominent U.S. citizens who are known to have been put under surveillance by the federal government of the United States.
The FBI kept Keller under surveillance for most of her adult life for her radical views.
The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. But perhaps the most startling fact in the declassified document is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.)
Shearer said the book would allege that FBI agents had gone to the telephone company in Santa Monica, Calif., and removed a "paper tape" of Monroe's calls.
I asked the translator, who told me that it was Republican Senator Strom Thurmond. 'Oh my gosh!' I thought. 'We're not only spying on other countries, but also on our own citizens.'
J. Edgar Hoover (1895–1972), the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, considered Eleanor Roosevelt's liberal views dangerous and believed she might be involved in communist activities. He ordered his agents to monitor Roosevelt and keep what became an extensive file on her.
Because of his controversial political beliefs-his support for socialism, civil rights, and nuclear disarmament, for example-many anti-Communist crusaders believed that Einstein was a dangerous subversive. Some, like FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, even thought he was a spy. For 22 years, Hoover's agents tapped Einstein's phones, opened his mail, rifled through his trash and even bugged his secretary's nephew's house, all to prove that he was more radical (as his 1,500-page FBI dossier noted) than "even Stalin himself."
Hoover oversaw the Seberg smear, ordering agents in Los Angeles to wait until Seberg's pregnancy grew more visible. He didn't want the wiretap—which agents apparently misinterpreted—to be suspected.
Dietrich entertained US troops during the war, saying it was her most effective way of fighting Hitler. She was a favourite with the GIs, but US officials – particularly the then boss of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover – largely mistrusted her. For years Hoover ordered that the Hollywood star's every move be trailed and her mail opened, in an effort to prove their suspicions that she was a Nazi spy involved in "anti-American activities".
The FBI kept tabs on Ellington into the '70s, just a few years before his death.
Pluta said FBI agents on surveillance saw Hanssen on the day of his arrest take a black plastic trash bag from the trunk of his car.
As alleged in the complaint, computer forensic analysis, substantial covert surveillance, court authorized searches and other sensitive techniques revealed that Hanssen has routinely accessed FBI records and clandestinely provided those records and other classified information to Russian intelligence officers.