Underground Weather

Weather Underground, San Francisco, California. 440,651 likes 2,222 talking about this. You've found the official Weather Underground company page.

Weather Underground is a commercial weather service providing real-time weather information over the Internet. Weather Underground provides weather reports for most major cities across the world on its Web site, as well as local weather reports for newspapers and third-party sites. Its information comes from the National Weather Service (NWS), and over 250,000 personal weather stations (PWS). The site is available in many languages, and customers can access an ad-free version of the site with additional features for an annual fee. Weather Underground is owned by The Weather Company, a subsidiary of IBM.^[2]

History[edit]

The company is based in San Francisco, California and was founded in 1995 as an offshoot of the University of Michigan Internet weather database. The name is a reference to the 1960s militantradical student group the Weather Underground, which also originated at the University of Michigan.^[3]

Jeff Masters, a doctoral candidate in meteorology at the University of Michigan working under the direction of Professor Perry Samson, wrote a menu-based Telnet interface in 1991 that displayed real-time weather information around the world. In 1993, they recruited Alan Steremberg and initiated a project to bring Internet weather into K–12 classrooms. Weather Underground president Alan Steremberg wrote 'Blue Skies' for the project, a graphical Mac Gopher client, which won several awards. When the Mosaic Web browser appeared, this provided a natural transition from 'Blue Skies' to the Web.

In 1995 Weather Underground Inc. became a commercial entity separate from the university.^[4] It has grown to provide weather for print sources, in addition to its online presence. In 2005, Weather Underground became the weather provider for the Associated Press; Weather Underground also provides weather reports for some newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Google search engine.^{[citation needed]} Steremberg also worked on the early development of the Google search engine with Larry Page and Sergey Brin.^[5]

In October 2008, Jeff Masters reported that the site was No. 2 for Internet weather information in 2008.^[6]

In February 2010, Weather Underground launched FullScreenWeather.com, a full screen weather Web tool with integrated mapping and mobile device use in mind.

On July 2, 2012, The Weather Channel announced that it would acquire Weather Underground, which would become operated as part of The Weather Channel Companies, LLC, which was later renamed 'The Weather Company'. The Weather Underground Web site continues to operate as a separate entity from The Weather Channel primary site, weather.com, with its existing staff retained. Third-party Web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb rate the site as the 117th and 98th most-visited site in the United States, respectively, as of July 2015.^[7][8] SimilarWeb rates the site as the second most visited weather website globally, attracting more than 47 million visitors per month.^[8][9] The Weather Company also uses the site's San Francisco headquarters as a regional office.^[10][11]

The site popularity also helped launch a television show hosted by meteorologist Mike Bettes, which airs on The Weather Channel from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET, except during storm coverage; in which case the show is extended to 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.

On October 28, 2015, Jeff Masters noted that IBM had officially announced an agreement to acquire The Weather Companybusiness-to-business, mobile and cloud-based Web properties, including Weather Underground, WSI, weather.com, and also the Weather Company brand. The Weather Channel television service remained a separate entity, later sold to Entertainment Studios in 2018.^[12] The deal was finalized on January 29, 2016.^[1]

On October 3, 2019, Jeff Masters announced that he will be leaving Weather Underground.^[13]

Blogs[edit]

Web logs (blogs) was one of the main features in Weather Underground, allowing users of the site to create blogs about weather, everyday life and anything else. Jeff Masters started the first blog on April 14, 2005,^[14] and he posts blog entries nearly every day. From 2007 through early 2017 Richard B. Rood wrote blogs on climate change and societal response, with new entries on a weekly basis.

On October 14, 2016, the Wunderblog announced that it would be changing their name to Category 6, a name suggested by Jeff Masters. They decided on the name, because it 'alludes to our deep fascination with all types of weather and climate extremes, including the many important facets of our changing climate', and 'will provide all the insight and expert analysis needed to put the extreme events of our evolving 21st-century climate into context.'^[15]

On April 3, 2017 Weather Underground ended all Member blogs, WUMail, SMS alerts, NOAA Weather Radio rebroadcast and Aviation.^[16] As part of this transition, Category 6 will get a new look. All posts by Jeff Masters, Bob Henson and Weather Underground featured bloggers were moved to Category 6. Users can no longer contact each other or have blogs, nor are they permitted to question or criticize the opinions of Masters and Henson in the comment section.

Services[edit]

Weather Underground also uses observations from members with automated personal weather stations (PWS).^[17] Weather Underground uses observations from over 250,000 personal weather stations worldwide.^[18]

The Weather Underground's WunderMap overlays weather data from personal weather stations and official NWS stations on a Mapbox Map base and provides many interactive and dynamically updated weather and environmental layers.^[19] On November 15, 2017, users were notified by email that their worldwide, user-provided weather cameras would cease to be available on December 15, 2017. However, on December 11, 2017 users received another email from Weather Underground announcing that they were reversing their position and would not be discontinuing the service based on significant user feedback.^[20]

The service previously distributed Internet radio feeds of NOAA Weather Radio stations from across the country, as provided by users, and had a Weather Underground Braille Page.

The Associated Press uses Weather Underground to provide national weather summaries.^[21]

Weather Underground has several Google Chrome extensions^[22] and applications for iPhone, iPad and Android^[23] including FullScreenWeather.com, a redirect to a full screen weather viewer tied into OpenStreetMap. There was an app developed for Roku devices, which has been deleted.^[24]

In February 2015, Weather Underground released an iOS app called Storm.^[25] This app is universal, and can be used on both iPhone and iPad. Other apps by Weather Underground include WunderStation^[26] for iPad and WunderMap^[27] for iOS and Android. In 2017, Weather Underground removed support for 'Storm,' in favor of the 'Storm Radar' app released by The Weather Channel Interactive in June 2017.^[28]

On December 31, 2018, Weather Underground ceased offering its popular application programming interface (API) for weather data, further reducing the breadth of its services.^[29]

On September 10, 2019, Weather Underground announced the discontinuation of its Email Forecast Program as of October 1, 2019, continuing the reduction in services noted above.^[30]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'IBM Finalizes Deal for Weather Channel Product and Tech Business'. TheWrap. January 29, 2016.
2. ^Masters, Jeff (28 October 2015). 'Weather Underground Bought by IBM'. Weather Underground. SBM. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
3. ^Schwartz, John; Stelter, Brian (July 3, 2012). 'Fans Howl After Weather Site Buys Out Rival'. The New York Times.
4. ^Weather Underground, Inc. The First Internet Weather Service. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
5. ^https://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/07/03/notes-from-weather-underground-a-paleo-google-enterprise-gets-bought
6. ^Jeff Master's WunderBlog, 10-27-2008 Heavy Internet Weather Retrieved on 2008-10-27.
7. ^'wunderground.com Site Overview'. Alexa. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
8. ^ ^ab'Wunderground.com Analytics'. SimilarWeb. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
9. ^'Top 50 sites in the world for News And Media > Weather'. SimilarWeb. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
10. ^Weather Channel buys Weather Underground, brand stays. PaidContent.org. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
11. ^Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog: Wunderground.com sold to The Weather Channel Companies, Weather Underground, July 2, 2012.
12. ^'Weather Underground Bought by IBM, by Dr. Jeff Masters, October 28, 2015'.
13. ^https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Jeff-Masters-Leaving-Weather-Underground-November?cm_ven=cat6-widget
14. ^Weather Underground, Inc. Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
15. ^'Our New Name: Category 6™'. Weather Underground. October 14, 2016. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
16. ^'WU feature and product updates'. March 2, 2017.
17. ^Weather Underground, Inc. Personal Weather Station. Retrieved on 2008-04-05.
18. ^Weather Underground, Inc. Personal Weather Station Network. Retrieved on 2017-02-20
19. ^Weather Underground, Inc. WunderMap Retrieved on 2015-02-01.
20. ^'Wunderground.com'. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
21. ^WEATHER UNDERGROUND For The Associated Press. Weather SearchRetrieved on 2009-10-28. Archived 2009-10-29 at the Wayback Machine
22. ^'Weather Underground - Chrome Web Store'. Chrome.google.com. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
23. ^'Weather Underground - Android Apps on Google Play'. Play.google.com. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
24. ^'Weather Underground for Roku'. Wunderground.com. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
25. ^'Storm by Weather Underground Weather Underground'. Wunderground.com. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
26. ^'WunderStation by Weather Underground Weather Underground'. Wunderground.com. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
27. ^'WunderMap® by Weather Underground'. Wunderground.com. Retrieved 2015-05-14.
28. ^'Storm Radar FAQ'. Wunderground.com. Retrieved 2017-05-19.
29. ^'End of Services for the Weather Underground API'. Weatherunderground.com. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
30. ^'End of Services for the Weather Underground Email Forecasts'. weatherunderground.com. Retrieved 2019-09-30.

External links[edit]

• Weather Underground Braille Page, a simple text page ideal for screen readers used by the blind. (NO longer works)
• UM-Weather, the original service from which Weather Underground branched

Contents.Background and formation The Weathermen emerged from the campus-based and from the of the 1960s. One of the factors that contributed to the radicalization of SDS members was the Economic Research and Action Project that the SDS undertook in Northern urban neighborhoods from 1963 to 1968.

This project was aimed at creating an interracial movement of the poor that would mobilize for full and fair employment or guaranteed annual income and political rights for poverty class Americans. Their goal was to create a more democratic society 'which guarantees political freedom, economic and physical security, abundant education, and incentives for wide cultural variety'. While the initial phase of the SDS involved campus organizing, phase two involved community organizing. These experiences led some SDS members to conclude that deep social change would not happen through community organizing and electoral politics, and that more radical and disruptive tactics were needed.In the late 1960s, action in escalated, especially in Vietnam. In the U.S., the anti-war sentiment was particularly pronounced during theThe origins of the Weathermen can be traced to the collapse and fragmentation of the following a split between office holders of SDS, or 'National Office', and their supporters and the (PLP). During the factional struggle National Office leaders such as and began announcing their emerging perspectives, and Klonsky published a document titled 'Toward a ' (RYM).RYM promoted the philosophy that young workers possessed the potential to be a revolutionary force to overthrow capitalism, if not by themselves then by transmitting radical ideas to the working class.

Klonsky's document reflected the philosophy of the National Office and was eventually adopted as official SDS doctrine. During the summer of 1969, the National Office began to split. A group led by Klonsky became known as RYM II, and the other side, RYM I, was led by Dohrn and endorsed more aggressive tactics such as, as some members felt that years of had done little or nothing to stop the Vietnam War. The Weathermen strongly sympathized with the radical. The police killing of Panther prompted the Weatherman to issue a declaration of war upon the United States government.We petitioned, we demonstrated, we. I was willing to get hit over the head, I did; I was willing to go to prison, I did.

To me, it was a question of what had to be done to stop the much greater violence that was going on. — SDS Convention, June 1969 At an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969, the National Office attempted to persuade unaffiliated delegates not to endorse a takeover of SDS by Progressive Labor who had packed the convention with their supporters. At the beginning of the convention, two position papers were passed out by the National Office leadership, one a revised statement of Klonsky's RYM manifesto, the other called 'You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows'.The latter document outlined the position of the group that would become the Weathermen. It had been signed by, Gerry Long, Jim Mellen, and Steve Tappis. The document called for creating a clandestine revolutionary party.The most important task for us toward making the revolution, and the work our collectives should engage in, is the creation of a mass revolutionary movement, without which a clandestine revolutionary party will be impossible. A revolutionary mass movement is different from the traditional revisionist mass base of 'sympathizers'. Rather it is akin to the in China, based on the full participation and involvement of masses of people in the practice of making revolution; a movement with a full willingness to participate in the violent and illegal struggle.At this convention the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society, planned for October 8–11, as a 'National Action' built around slogan, 'bring the war home'.

The National Action grew out of a resolution drafted by Jacobs and introduced at the October 1968 SDS National Council meeting in. The resolution, titled 'The Elections Don't Mean Shit—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street' and adopted by the council, was prompted by the success of the in August 1968 and reflected Jacobs' strong advocacy of.As part of the 'National Action Staff', Jacobs was an integral part of the planning for what quickly came to be called 'Four Days of Rage'. For Jacobs, the goal of the ' was clear:Weatherman would shove the war down their dumb, fascist throats and show them, while we were at it, how much better we were than them, both tactically and strategically, as a people. In an all-out civil war over Vietnam and other fascist U.S. Imperialism, we were going to bring the war home. 'Turn the imperialists' war into a civil war', in Lenin's words. And we were going to kick ass.In July 1969, 30 members of Weatherman leadership traveled to and met with North Vietnamese representatives to gain from their revolutionary experience.

The requested armed political action in order to stop the U.S. Government's war in Vietnam. Subsequently, they accepted funding, training, recommendations on tactics and slogans from Cuba, and perhaps explosives as well. SDS Convention, December 1969 After the Days of Rage riots the Weatherman held the last of its National Council meetings from December 26 to December 31, 1969 in. The meeting, dubbed the by the 300 people who attended, adopted Jacobs' call for violent revolution. Dohrn opened the conference by telling the delegates they needed to stop being afraid and begin the 'armed struggle.' Over the next five days, the participants met in informal groups to discuss what 'going underground' meant, how best to organize collectives, and justifications for violence.

In the evening, the groups reconvened for a mass 'wargasm'—practicing, engaging in physical exercise, singing songs, and listening to speeches.The War Council ended with a major speech by John Jacobs. Jacobs condemned the 'pacifism' of white middle-class American youth, a belief which he claimed they held because they were insulated from the violence which afflicted blacks and the poor. He predicted a successful revolution, and declared that youth were moving away from passivity and apathy and toward a new high-energy culture of 'repersonalization' brought about by drugs, sex, and armed revolution. 'We're against everything that's 'good and decent' in honky America,' Jacobs said in his most commonly quoted statement. 'We will burn and loot and destroy.

We are the incubation of your mother's nightmare.' Two major decisions came out of the War Council.

The first was to go underground, and to begin a violent, armed struggle against the state without attempting to organize or mobilize a broad swath of the public. The Weather Underground hoped to create underground collectives in major cities throughout the country. In fact, the Weathermen eventually created only three significant, active collectives; one in California, one in the Midwest, and one in New York City. The New York City collective was led by Jacobs and Terry Robbins, and included, (Robbins' girlfriend),. Jacobs was one of Robbins' biggest supporters, and pushed the Weathermen to let Robbins be as violent as he wanted to be. The Weatherman national leadership agreed, as did the New York City collective.

The collective's first target was Judge John Murtagh, who was overseeing the trial of the 'Panther 21'.The second major decision was the dissolution of SDS. After the summer of 1969 fragmentation of SDS, Weatherman's adherents explicitly claimed themselves the real leaders of SDS and retained control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any leaflet, label, or logo bearing the name 'Students for a Democratic Society' (SDS) was in fact the views and politics of Weatherman, not of the slate elected by Progressive Labor. Weatherman contained the vast majority of former SDS National Committee members, including, and Bernardine Dohrn. The group, while small, was able to commandeer the mantle of SDS and all of its membership lists, but with Weatherman in charge there was little or no support from local branches or members of the organization, and local chapters soon disbanded.

At the War Council, the Weathermen had decided to close the SDS National Office, ending the major campus-based organization of the 1960s which at its peak was a mass organization with 100,000 members. Ideology The thesis of Weatherman theory, as expounded in its founding document, You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows, was that 'the main struggle going on in the world today is between U.S. Imperialism and the national liberation struggles against it', based on, first expounded in 1916 in. In Weatherman theory 'oppressed peoples' are the creators of the wealth of empire, 'and it is to them that it belongs.' 'The goal of revolutionary struggle must be the control and use of this wealth in the interest of the oppressed peoples of the world.' 'The goal is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism'The Vietnamese and other third world countries, as well as third world people within the United States play a vanguard role. They 'set the terms for class struggle in America.'

The role of the 'Revolutionary Youth Movement' is to build a centralized organization of revolutionaries, a 'Marxist-Leninist Party' supported by a mass revolutionary movement to support international liberation movements and 'open another battlefield of the revolution.' The theoretical basis of the Revolutionary Youth Movement was an insight that most of the American population, including both students and the supposed 'middle class,' comprised, due to their relationship to the instruments of production, the, thus the organizational basis of the SDS, which had begun in the elite colleges and had been extended to public institutions as the organization grew could be extended to youth as a whole including students, those serving in the military, and the unemployed. Students could be viewed as workers gaining skills prior to employment.

This contrasted to the Progressive Labor view which viewed students and workers as being in separate categories which could ally, but should not jointly organize.FBI analysis of the travel history of the founders and initial followers of the organization emphasized contacts with foreign governments, particularly the Cuban and North Vietnamese and their influence on the ideology of the organization. Participation in the, a program which involved US students volunteering to work in the sugar harvest in Cuba, is highlighted as a common factor in the background of the founders of the Weather Underground, with China a secondary influence. This experience was cited by both Kathy Boudin and Bernardine Dohrn as a major influence on their political development.Terry Robbins took the organization's name from the lyrics of the song ',' which featured the lyrics 'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.' The lyrics had been quoted at the bottom of an influential essay in the SDS newspaper, New Left Notes. By using this title the Weathermen meant, partially, to appeal to the segment of US youth inspired to action for by Dylan's songs.The Weatherman group had long held that was becoming more important than forms of action, and that university-campus-based demonstrations needed to be punctuated with more dramatic actions, which had the potential to interfere with the US military. The belief was that these types of actions would act as a catalyst for the coming revolution. Many international events indeed seemed to support the Weathermen's overall assertion that was imminent, such as the tumultuous in China; the, and elsewhere; the; the; the emergence of the organization in; the emergence of the and similar -led independence movements throughout Africa; and within the United States, the prominence of the Black Panther Party, together with a series of 'ghetto rebellions' throughout poor neighborhoods across the country.We felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence is itself a form of violence.

That's really the part that I think is the hardest for people to understand. If you sit in your house, live your white life and go to your white job, and allow the country that you live in to murder people and to commit, and you sit there and you don't do anything about it, that's violence. The police memorial, seen in 1889Shortly before the demonstrations on October 6, 1969, the Weatherman planted a bomb which blew up a statue in Chicago commemorating the deaths of police officers during the 1886. The blast broke nearly 100 windows and scattered pieces of the statue onto the Kennedy Expressway below.

The city rebuilt the statue and unveiled it on May 4, 1970, but the Weathermen blew it up as well on October 6, 1970. The city rebuilt the statue once again, and Mayor posted a 24-hour police guard to protect it, but the Weathermen destroyed the third one, as well.

The city rebuilt the monument once more, but this time they located it at Chicago Police Headquarters, essentially offering a compromise with the terrorist group. 'Days of Rage'. Main article:One of the first acts of the Weathermen after splitting from SDS was to announce they would hold the 'Days of Rage' that autumn.

This was advertised to 'Bring the war home!' Hoping to cause sufficient chaos to 'wake' the American public out of what they saw as complacency toward the, the Weathermen meant it to be the largest protest of the decade.

They had been told by their regional cadre to expect thousands to attend; however, when they arrived they found only a few hundred people.According to in 2003, 'The Days of Rage was an attempt to break from the norms of kind of acceptable theatre of 'here are the anti-war people: containable, marginal, predictable, and here's the little path they're going to march down, and here's where they can make their little statement.' We wanted to say, 'No, what we're going to do is whatever we had to do to stop the violence in Vietnam.'

' The protests did not meet Ayers' stated expectations.Though the October 8, 1969, rally in Chicago had failed to draw as many as the Weathermen had anticipated, the two or three hundred who did attend shocked police by rioting through the affluent. They smashed the windows of a bank and those of many cars. The crowd ran four blocks before encountering police barricades. They charged the police but broke into small groups; more than 1,000 police counter-attacked. Many protesters were wearing motorcycle or football helmets, but the police were well-trained and armed.

Large amounts of were used, and at least twice police ran squad cars into the mob. The rioting lasted about half an hour, during which 28 policemen were injured.

Six Weathermen were shot by the police and an unknown number injured; 68 rioters were arrested.For the next two days, the Weathermen held no rallies or protests. Supporters of the RYM II movement, led by Klonsky and Noel Ignatin, held peaceful rallies in front of the federal courthouse, an International Harvester factory, and Cook County Hospital.

The largest event of the Days of Rage took place on Friday, October 9, when RYM II led an interracial march of 2,000 people through a Spanish-speaking part of Chicago.On October 10, the Weatherman attempted to regroup and resume their demonstrations. About 300 protesters marched through, Chicago's main business district, watched by a double-line of heavily armed police. The protesters suddenly broke through the police lines and rampaged through the Loop, smashing the windows of cars and stores. The police were prepared, and quickly isolated the rioters. Within 15 minutes, more than half the crowd had been arrested.The Days of Rage cost Chicago and the state of Illinois about $183,000 ($100,000 for National Guard expenses, $35,000 in damages, and $20,000 for one injured citizen's medical expenses). Most of the Weathermen and SDS leaders were now in jail, and the Weathermen would have to pay over $243,000 for their. Flint War Council.

Main article:Weather Underground members, and were making bombs in a townhouse on March 6, 1970 when one of the bombs detonated. Oughton, Gold, and Robbins were killed; Wilkerson and Boudin escaped unharmed.They were making the bombs in order to kill Army soldiers and non-commissioned officers (NCO) who would be attending an NCO dance at, and to randomly kill people in Butler Library at Columbia University. An FBI report stated that they had enough explosives to 'level both sides of the street'.The site of the Village explosion was the former residence of, co-founder of the brokerage firm, and the childhood home of his son. James Merrill memorialized the event in his poem 18 West 11th Street, the address of the brownstone townhouse. Underground strategy change After the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, per the December 1969 decisions the group was now well underground, and began to refer to themselves as the Weather Underground Organization. At this juncture, WUO shrank considerably, becoming even fewer than they had been when first formed.

The group was devastated by the loss of their friends, and in late April 1970, members of the Weathermen met in California to discuss what had happened in New York and the future of the organization. The group decided to reevaluate their strategy, particularly regarding their initial belief in the acceptability of human casualties, and rejected such tactics as kidnapping and assassinations.

In 2003, Weather Underground members stated in interviews that they had wanted to convince the American public that the United States was truly responsible for the calamity in. The group began striking at night, bombing empty offices, with warnings always issued in advance to ensure a safe evacuation. According to, who took part in the that killed two police officers and a Brinks' guard, and was jailed for murder, 'their goal was to not hurt any people, and a lot of work went into that.

But we wanted to pick targets that showed to the public who was responsible for what was really going on.' After the Greenwich Village explosion, in a review of the documentary film (2002), a journalist restated the film's contention that no one was killed by WUO bombs.We were very careful from the moment of the townhouse on to be sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably successful. —, 2003 Declaration of war In response to the death of Black Panther members and in December 1969 during a police raid, on May 21, 1970, the Weather Underground issued a ' against the United States government, using for the first time its new name, the 'Weather Underground Organization' (WUO), adopting fake identities, and pursuing activities only. These initially included preparations for a bombing of a U.S. Military non-commissioned officers' dance at, New Jersey, in what said had been intended to be 'the most horrific hit the United States government had ever suffered on its territory'.We've known that our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution. We never intended to spend the next five to twenty-five years of our lives in jail.

Ever since SDS became revolutionary, we've been trying to show how it is possible to overcome frustration and impotence that comes from trying to reform this system. Kids know the lines are drawn: revolution is touching all of our lives. Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches don't do it.

Revolutionary violence is the only way. Investigators search for clues after the May 19, 1972 Weatherman bombing of.On May 19, 1972, 's birthday, the Weather Underground placed a bomb in the women's bathroom in the Air Force wing of. The damage caused flooding that destroyed computer tapes holding classified information. Other radical groups worldwide applauded the bombing, illustrated by German youths protesting against American military systems in.

This was 'in retaliation for the U.S. Bombing raid in.' Withdrawal of charges In 1973, the government requested dropping charges against most of the WUO members. The requests cited a recent decision by the that barred electronic surveillance without a court order. This Supreme Court decision would hamper any prosecution of the WUO cases. In addition, the government did not want to reveal foreign intelligence secrets that a trial would require.

Bernardine Dohrn was removed from the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on 7 December 1973. As with the earlier federal grand juries that subpoenaed Leslie Bacon and in the U.S. Capitol bombing case, these investigations were known as 'fishing expeditions', with the evidence gathered through jobs including illegal mail openings that involved the FBI and, burglaries by FBI field offices, and electronic surveillance by the against the support network, friends, and family members of the Weather Underground as part of Nixon's apparatus.These grand juries caused Sylvia Jane Brown, Robert Gelbhard, and future members of the to be subpoenaed in Seattle and Portland for the investigation of one of the first (and last) captured WUO members.

Four months afterwards the cases were dismissed. The decisions in these cases led directly to the subsequent resignation of FBI Director, and the federal indictments of or 'Deep Throat' and Edwin Miller and which, earlier, was the factor leading to the removal of federal 'most-wanted' status against members of the Weather Underground leadership in 1973.Prairie Fire With the help from, the Weather Underground sought a more ideological approach to the post-Vietnam reality.

The leading members of the Weather Underground (Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn) collaborated on ideas and published a manifesto: Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism. The name came from a quote by, 'a single spark can set a prairie fire.' By the summer of 1974, 5,000 copies had surfaced in coffee houses, bookstores and public libraries across the U.S. Leftist newspapers praised the manifesto.publicly praised Prairie Fire and believed every American should be given a copy.

The manifesto's influence initiated the formation of the in several American cities. Hundreds of above-ground activists helped further the new political vision of the Weather Underground.

Essentially, after the 1969 failure of the Days of Rage to involve thousands of youth in massive street fighting, Weather renounced most of the Left and decided to operate as an isolated underground group. Prairie Fire urged people to never 'dissociate mass struggle from revolutionary violence'.

To do so, asserted Weather, was to do the state's work. Just as in 1969–1970, Weather still refused to renounce revolutionary violence for 'to leave people unprepared to fight the state is to seriously mislead them about the inevitable nature of what lies ahead'. However, the decision to build only an underground group caused the Weather Underground to lose sight of its commitment to mass struggle and made future alliances with the mass movement difficult and tenuous.: 76–77By 1974, Weather had recognized this shortcoming and in Prairie Fire detailed a different strategy for the 1970s which demanded both mass and clandestine organizations. The role of the clandestine organization would be to build the 'consciousness of action' and prepare the way for the development of a people's militia. Concurrently, the role of the mass movement (i.e., above ground Prairie Fire collective) would include support for, and encouragement of, armed action. Such an alliance would, according to Weather, 'help create the 'sea' for the guerrillas to swim in'.: 76–77According to Bill Ayers in the late 1970s, the Weatherman group further split into two factions — the and the Prairie Fire Collective — with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in the latter.

The Prairie Fire Collective favored coming out of hiding and establishing an above-ground revolutionary mass movement. With most WUO members facing the limited criminal charges (most charges had been dropped by the government in 1973) against them creating an above ground organization was more feasible. The May 19 Communist Organization continued in hiding as the clandestine organization. A decisive factor in Dohrn's coming out of hiding were her concerns about her children. The Prairie Fire Collective faction started to surrender to the authorities from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The remaining Weather Underground members continued to attack U.S. Institutions.COINTELPRO.

Main article: Event In April 1971, the ' broke into an FBI office in. The group stole files with several hundred pages. The files detailed the targeting of civil rights leaders, labor rights organizations, and left wing groups in general, and included documentation of acts of intimidation and disinformation by the FBI, and attempts to erode public support for those popular movements. By the end of April, the FBI offices were to terminate all files dealing with leftist groups. The files were a part of an FBI program called COINTELPRO.After COINTELPRO was dissolved in 1971 by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI continued its counterintelligence on groups like the Weather Underground. In 1973, the FBI established the 'Special Target Information Development' program, where agents were sent undercover to penetrate the Weather Underground.

Due to the illegal tactics of FBI agents involved with the program, government attorneys requested all weapons- and bomb-related charges be dropped against the Weather Underground. The most well-publicized of these tactics were the ',' referring to searches conducted in the homes of relatives and acquaintances of Weatherman. The Weather Underground was no longer a fugitive organization and could turn themselves in with minimal charges against them. Additionally, the illegal domestic spying conducted by the CIA in collaboration with the FBI also lessened the legal repercussions for Weatherman turning themselves in.

Investigation and trial After the revealed the FBI's illegal activities, many agents were investigated. In 1976, former FBI Associate Director publicly stated he had ordered break-ins and that individual agents were merely obeying orders and should not be punished for it. Felt also stated that acting Director had also authorized the break-ins, but Gray denied this. Felt said on the CBS television program Face the Nation that he would probably be a ' for the Bureau's work.

'I think this is justified and I'd do it again tomorrow,' he said on the program. While admitting the break-ins were 'extralegal,' he justified it as protecting the 'greater good.' Felt said, 'To not take action against these people and know of a bombing in advance would simply be to stick your fingers in your ears and protect your eardrums when the explosion went off and then start the investigation.' The Attorney General in the new, investigated, and on April 10, 1978, a federal grand jury charged Felt, and Gray with conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by searching their homes without warrants.

The case did not go to trial and was dropped by the government for lack of evidence on December 11, 1980.The indictment charged violations of Title 18, Section 241 of the. The indictment charged Felt and the others 'did unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other to injure and oppress citizens of the United States who were relatives and acquaintances of the Weatherman fugitives, in the free exercise and enjoyments of certain rights and privileges secured to them by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.Felt and Miller attempted to plea bargain with the government, willing to agree to a misdemeanor guilty plea to conducting searches without warrants—a violation of 18 U.S.C.

2236—but the government rejected the offer in 1979. After eight postponements, the case against Felt and Miller went to trial in the on September 18, 1980. On October 29, former President appeared as a rebuttal witness for the defense, and testified that presidents since had authorized the bureau to engage in break-ins while conducting foreign intelligence and counterespionage investigations.It was Nixon's first courtroom appearance since his resignation in 1974. Nixon also contributed money to Felt's legal defense fund, with Felt's legal expenses running over $600,000. Also testifying were former Attorneys General, and, all of whom said warrantless searches in matters were commonplace and not understood to be illegal, but Mitchell and Kleindienst denied they had authorized any of the break-ins at issue in the trial.The jury returned guilty verdicts on November 6, 1980. Although the charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, Felt was fined $5,000. (Miller was fined $3,500).

Writing in a week after the conviction, claimed that Felt and Miller were being used as scapegoats by the Carter administration and that it was an unfair prosecution. Cohn wrote it was the 'final dirty trick' and that there had been no 'personal motive' to their actions.The Times saluted the convictions, saying that it showed 'the case has established that zeal is no excuse for violating the Constitution'. Felt and Miller appealed the verdict, and they were later pardoned. Dissolution Despite the change in their legal status, the Weather Underground remained underground for a few more years. However, by 1976 the organization was disintegrating. The Weather Underground held a conference in Chicago called Hard Times.

The idea was to create an umbrella organization for all radical groups. However, the event turned sour when Hispanic and Black groups accused the Weather Underground and the Committee of limiting their roles in racial issues. The Weather Underground faced accusations of abandonment of the revolution by reversing their original ideology.The conference increased divisions within the Weather Underground. East coast members favored a commitment to violence and challenged commitments of old leaders,. These older members found they were no longer liable for federal prosecution because of illegal wire taps and the government's unwillingness to reveal sources and methods favored a strategy of inversion where they would be above ground 'revolutionary leaders'. Jeremy Varon argues that by 1977 the WUO had disbanded.appeared on the lead segment of CBS' 60 Minutes in 1976 and was interviewed by about the ease of creating fake identification, the first ex-Weatherman interview on national television. (The House document has the date wrong, it aired February 1, 1976 and the title was Fake ID.)The federal government estimated that only 38 Weathermen had gone underground in 1970, though the estimates varied widely, according to a variety of official and unofficial sources, as between 50 and 600 members.

Most modern sources lean towards a much larger number than the FBI reference. An FBI estimate in 1976, or slightly later, of then current membership was down to 30 or fewer.

Plot to bomb office of California Senator In November 1977, five WUO members were arrested on conspiracy to bomb the office of California State Senator. It was later revealed that the Revolutionary Committee and PFOC had been infiltrated by the FBI for almost six years. FBI agents Richard J. Gianotti and William D. Reagan lost their cover in November when federal judges needed their testimony to issue warrants for the arrest of and four Weather people. The arrests were the results of the infiltration.WUO members Judith Bissell, Thomas Justesen, Leslie Mullin, and Marc Curtis pleaded guilty while, who helped write the 1974 Prairie Fire Manifesto, went to trial.Within two years, many members turned themselves in after taking advantage of President 's amnesty for draft dodgers. Mark Rudd turned himself in to authorities on January 20, 1978.

Rudd was fined $4,000 and received two years probation. Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers turned themselves in on December 3, 1980, in New York, with substantial media coverage. Charges were dropped for Ayers. Dohrn received three years probation and a $15,000 fine. Brinks robbery.

Main article:Some members remained underground and joined splinter radical groups. The US government states that years after the dissolution of the Weather Underground, three former members, and, joined the May 19 Communist Organization, and on October 20, 1981 in, New York, the group helped the containing $1.6 million.

The robbery was violent, resulting in the deaths of three people including Waverly Brown, the first black police officer on the police force.Boudin, Clark, and Gilbert were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy terms in prison. Media reports listed them as former Weatherman Underground members considered the 'last gasps' of the Weather Underground. The documentary The Weather Underground described the as the 'unofficial end' of the Weather Underground. May 19th Communist Organization. Main articles: andThroughout the underground years, the Weather Underground members worked closely with their counterparts in other organizations, including Jane Alpert, to bring attention their further actions to the press.

She helped Weatherman pursue their main goal of overthrowing the U.S. Government through her writings. However, there were tensions within the organization, brought about by her famous manifesto, 'Mother Right', that specifically called on the female members of the organization to focus on their own cause rather than anti-imperialist causes. Weather members then wrote in response to her manifesto.Legacy Widely known members of the Weather Underground include, Joe Kelly, and the married couple. Most former Weathermen have integrated into mainstream society without repudiating their violence and terrorist activities.The Weather Underground was referred to as a terrorist group by articles in The New York Times, United Press International, and Time Magazine. The group also fell under the auspices of the FBI-New York City Police Anti Terrorist Task Force, a forerunner of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces.

The FBI refers to the organization in a 2004 news story titled 'Byte out of History' published on its website as having been a 'domestic terrorist group' that is no longer an active concern. Some members have disputed the 'terrorist' categorization and justified the group's actions as an appropriate response to what they described as the 'terrorist activities' of the war in Vietnam, domestic racism, and the deaths of black leaders.Ayers objected to describing the WUO as terrorist in his 2001 book Fugitive Days. 'Terrorists terrorize,' he argues, 'they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate.' Wasted time eagles.

Dan Berger asserts in Outlaws in America that the group 'purposefully and successfully avoided injuring anyone' as an argument that their actions were not terrorism. 'Its war against property by definition means that the WUO was not a terrorist organization.' Others, however, have suggested that these arguments are specious.

Former Weather Underground member admitted that the group intended to target people prior to the accidental town house explosion. 'On the morning of March 6, 1970, three of my comrades were building pipe bombs packed with dynamite and nails, destined for a dance of non-commissioned officers and their dates at Fort Dix, N.J., that night.' Grand juries were convened in 2001 and 2009 to investigate whether Weather Underground was responsible for the, in which one officer was killed, one was maimed, and eight more were wounded by shrapnel from a pipe bomb. They ultimately concluded that members of the Black Liberation Army were responsible, with whom WUO members were affiliated. They were also responsible for the bombing of another police precinct in San Francisco, as well as bombing the Catholic Church funeral services of the police officer killed in the Park Precinct bombing in the early summer of 1970.

Ayers said in a 2001 New York Times interview, 'I don't regret setting bombs'. He has since claimed that he was misquoted. Mark Rudd teaches mathematics at, and he has said that he doesn't speak publicly about his experiences because he has 'mixed feelings, guilt and shame'. 'These are things I am not proud of, and I find it hard to speak publicly about them and to tease out what was right from what was wrong.' See also., documentary., nominated for for.General:., a corporate weather service, subsidiary of The Weather Company, and unrelated to the militant student organization; the name dates from the service's founding as an offshoot of the weather database of the University of Michigan, where the original Weather Underground was also founded.References.