---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
  - person
  - journalist
  - contra-war
summary: Martha Honey was a New York Times stringer in Costa Rica who pursued the Contra drug story and was placed under FBI surveillance for her reporting.
---
Martha Honey was a [[New York Times]] stringer in [[Costa Rica]] who pursued the Contra drug story and was placed under [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] surveillance for her reporting. Honey and her husband [[Tony Avirgan]], an ABC cameraman, were among the journalists who investigated the connections between the [[Contras]] and drug trafficking on Costa Rica's Southern Front.[^1]

### Under Surveillance

The FBI's decision to place Honey under surveillance revealed the government's willingness to monitor journalists who investigated the Contra-drug connection. Honey's reporting from Costa Rica documented the overlapping worlds of covert operations, drug trafficking, and Contra political activity on the Southern Front. The surveillance of a journalist by federal law enforcement illustrated the lengths to which the government went to suppress information about its relationship with drug traffickers.[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 18.
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 18.