Hacking with a Crowbar

On March 8, 1971, while millions watched a televised fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, a group of burglars used a crowbar to break into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. They filled suitcases with files and used getaway cars to disappear into the night. Now, more than four decades later, some of the people involved in the burglary are coming forward to tell their story. Keith Forsyth echoes Edward Snowden as he explains the motivation for the effort: “When you talked to people outside the movement about what the F.B.I. was doing, nobody wanted to believe it. There was only one way to convince people that it was true, and that was to get it in their handwriting.”