Fascinated by the recent arrest of a Buffalo office FBI agent for public lewdness on the New York State Thruway? Interested in learning more about the culture of the agency that continues to monitor such subversive activities as writing letters to the editor?

The Buffalo chapter of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee is screening J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisitions, a documentary chronicling the career of J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI for more than 40 years. His lifelong obsession with communists began with the “Red Scare” of the early 1920s and manifested itself in a mission hell-bent on eradicating anyone suspected of engaging in anti-American activities, be they actors, politicians, or protest groups. Hoover and his Counter Intelligence Program (“COINTELPRO”) took particular aim at the American Indian Movement and Leonard Peltier.

The screening takes places at Burning Books (420 Connecticut Street) at 7pm, Wednesday, December 19.