This is Part 2 of a six-part investigation. Part 1 is available here.
In a constitutional democracy, the legitimacy of power rests on accountability. When agents of the state act, they do so in the name of the people, and the people have a right to know who they are. As federal courts challenge the masked, unidentified operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles, it is easy to view this as a uniquely modern crisis.1 Yet, a review of American history reveals a deep-seated, often violent, struggle over the very principle of anonymous enforcement. The tactics now employed by ICE are not just a departure from policy but a reversal of hard-won lessons about the dangers of secrecy and the foundational need for transparency.
America’s first major confrontation with anonymous, paramilitary power came not from the state, but from those seeking to terrorize it. In the ashes of the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rose as a shadow government in the South, using masks and robes to commit acts of violence with impunity. Their anonymity was their primary weapon, dissolving individual responsibility into the collective terror of the mob.
The legislative response was unequivocal. Between the 1860s and the 1920s, at least 18 states enacted anti-masking laws specifically designed to dismantle the KKK’s power by stripping away its anonymity.2 These laws were a direct affirmation of a core democratic principle: the exercise of power—or the intimidation of citizens—cannot be done from behind a mask. The statutes established that a person’s identity is fundamental to their legal and moral accountability. By outlawing the mask, the state was not merely addressing a public order nuisance; it was defending the idea that a just society cannot function when its members, or those claiming authority, operate from the shadows.
The irony is stark. The very tool that America legislated against as a symbol of anti-democratic terror is now a feature of federal law enforcement operations.
While the nation fought masked vigilantism, a different kind of secrecy was incubating within the federal government itself. From 1956 to 1971, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ran its infamous Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. This clandestine operation was designed to surveil, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt domestic political organizations, from civil rights groups to anti-war movements.3 Operating without public knowledge or clear legal authority, COINTELPRO agents engaged in psychological warfare, planted false stories in the media, and used informants to sow discord.
The program’s existence was a closely guarded secret until 1971, when a group of citizen activists calling themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and leaked stolen files to the press.4 The revelations were a profound shock, exposing a secret political police force operating within the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. COINTELPRO demonstrated that the threat of unaccountable power did not only come from masked mobs but could also wear the institutional legitimacy of the federal government.
The public outcry over COINTELPRO and other revealed abuses led directly to the Church Committee, a 1975 Senate investigation that conducted the most extensive review of intelligence activities in American history. Its final report was a bombshell, detailing decades of “systematic” and illegal abuses by the CIA, NSA, and FBI.4 The committee found that intelligence agencies had spied on hundreds of thousands of American citizens, conducted illegal wiretaps, and plotted assassinations, all with minimal oversight.
The Church Committee’s work was not just an exposé; it was a catalyst for sweeping reform. It led to the creation of permanent intelligence oversight committees in both the House and Senate and the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which established a special court to review government surveillance warrants. The reforms were built on a singular premise: secret power, left unchecked, will inevitably be abused. The committee’s legacy was a renewed consensus that accountability mechanisms are not an impediment to national security but a precondition for it in a democracy.
Even when undercover operations are deemed necessary, history provides cautionary tales about the paramount importance of oversight. The case of Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., an FBI informant inside the KKK during the 1960s, is a grim example. While his infiltration provided valuable intelligence, his actions became a source of deep concern. Rowe was present at, and failed to prevent, numerous acts of violence, and later failed polygraph tests regarding his potential involvement in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls.5 His case raised a disturbing question: at what point does an unaccountable informant become an agent provocateur, indistinguishable from the criminals he is meant to be monitoring?
This stands in sharp contrast to the celebrated case of Ron Stallworth, the Black detective who successfully infiltrated the KKK in Colorado Springs in 1978. Stallworth’s operation, while covert, was a model of accountability. He operated with the full knowledge and supervision of his superiors, his objectives were clear, and his actions were documented within a transparent chain of command.6 He demonstrated that undercover work can be conducted effectively and ethically, but only when it remains firmly tethered to the principles of democratic policing—serving the public, not a clandestine agenda.
Viewed through this historical lens, the re-emergence of anonymous federal agents on American streets is a radical regression. The throughline is clear: America has repeatedly confronted the threat of unaccountable power—from the KKK’s masks to the FBI’s secret files—and each time, after great struggle, has reaffirmed the necessity of transparency and oversight. The anti-mask laws, the Church Committee reforms, and the ethical framework of accountable policing all point to the same conclusion: a government that fears being identified by its own people is a government at odds with its own founding principles.
ICE’s masked tactics ignore this history. They dissolve the individual agent’s responsibility into the intimidating anonymity of the state, eroding the very trust between citizen and government that the Fourth Amendment and the principles of due process are meant to protect.7 As this series will continue to explore, the justifications for such secrecy often collapse under scrutiny, leaving behind a policy that is not only constitutionally suspect but historically bankrupt.
Next: Part 3 will examine how ICE’s recruitment and training practices have created a culture of unaccountability within the agency.
References
- Mahomet Daily. “Federal Judge Blocks Indiscriminate Immigration Raids in Southern California, Citing Racial Profiling and Constitutional Violations.” July 2025. https://mahometdaily.com/federal-judge-blocks-indiscriminate-immigration-raids-in-southern-california-citing-racial-profiling-and-constitutional-violations/
- Saito, N.T. “Mask Bans as Expressions of Memory Politics in the United States.” SSRN, 2019. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3434689_code855590.pdf
- Saito, N.T. “Whose Liberty? Whose Security? The USA PATRIOT Act in the Context of COINTELPRO and the Unlawful Repression of Political Dissent.” Oregon Law Review, Vol. 81, No. 4, 2002. https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/bitstreams/6a1571aa-57ae-4c51-807a-2e7d0b076111/download
- U.S. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. “Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities.” U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. Available through Senate Intelligence Committee Archives
- U.S. Department of Justice. “Task Force Report on Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr.” U.S. Department of Justice, 1975. https://clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/doc/96346.pdf
- Stallworth, Ron. “Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime.” Flatiron Books, 2014.
- Skolnik, T. “Policing, Technology, and the Erosion of Constitutional Rights.” Queen’s Law Journal, Vol. 49, No. 1, 2023. https://journal.queenslaw.ca/sites/qljwww/files/Issues/Vol%2049%20i1/3.%20Skolnik%2C%20Policing%2C%20Technology%2C%20and%20the%20Erosion%20of%20Constitutional%20Rights%2C%2049(1)%20Queen%27s%20LJ%2040.pdf