was accurate dave van ronk also believed that he was being surveilled by the united states government due to his political beliefs and his friendships with some of the most important names in the mccarthy era american folk scene and while many laughed at dave's assertion calling him paranoid it turns out he was right journalist aaron j. leonard was discovered has discovered through a freedom of information act request that the f.b.i. was indeed surveilling dave van ronk from one nine hundred sixty three intell at least one nine hundred seventy three informants were reporting membership in an offshoot organization of the socialist workers party which felt the party was not radical enough and should be saturating unions the newly released files show that the f.b.i. reviewed copies of dave van ronk albums self made sure that wrong was kept from review re new in his merchant marine union membership questioned his neighbors tapped his phone and eventually put him on the f.b.i.'s security and that's dave van ronk folk musician a guitar player was put on a list that at the time meant in the