In fact, it’s the uncertainty itself that contributes to the surveillance PTSD experienced today by aging Black activists like Silvers. Surveillance PTSD, also common among young men who’ve experienced multiple police stops, manifests as hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, and mistrust of formal institutions, including health clinics and banks. Sometimes it’s the very inability to know whether you’re really being watched, or you’re simply being paranoid, that is most unsettling of all.
…
Rahim and Silvers are not outliers. The destabilization, the inability to know what’s real, to be haunted by uncertainty for decades—that’s the point. FBI briefs from 1971 describe their purpose as the inducement of “paranoia.” So COINTELPRO’s effects linger on, whether or not the program’s targets are still being actively surveilled by the state today.
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