This approval was renewed three months later despite the fact that the request for renewal made no mention of violent or illegal activity by the group. The value of the wiretap was shown, according to the FBI, by such results as obtaining "the identities of over 600 persons either in touch with the national headquarters or associated with" it during the preceding three months.117 Six months after the original authorization the number of persons so identified had increased to 1,428; and approval was granted for a third three-month period." 118 The "seventeen wiretaps" also show how the term "national security" as a justification for wiretapping can obscure improper use of this technique. Shortly after these wiretaps were revealed publicly, President Nixon stated they had been justified by the need to prevent leaks of classified information harmful to the national security.119 Wiretaps for this purpose had, in fact, been authorized under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. President Nixon learned of these and other prior taps and, at a news conference, sought to justify the taps he had authorized by referring to past precedent. He stated that in the: period of 1961 to '63 there were wiretaps on news organiza- Thus, questionable electronic surveillances by earlier administrations were put forward as a defense for improper surveillances exposed in 1973. In fact, however, two of these wiretaps were placed on domestic affairs advisers at the White House who had no foreign affairs responsibilities and apparently no access to classified foreign policy materials. 121 A third target was a White House speech writer who had been overheard on an existing tap agreeing to provide a reporter with background information on a Presidential speech con picket lines and engage in disruptive and sometimes violent tactics against industry recruiters on college campuses. ... "This faction is currently very active in many of the major demonstrations and student violence on college campuses. . . ." (Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General, 3/16/70. The excised words have been deleted by the FBI.) 117 Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General, 6/16/70. The only other results noted by Hoover related to the fact that the wiretap had "obtained information concerning the activities of the national headquarters of [the group and] plans for [the group's] support and participation in demonstrations supporting antiwar groups and the (excised)." It was also noted that the wiretap "revealed . . . contacts with Canadian student elements". 118 Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General, 9/16/70. The only other results noted by Hoover again related to obtaining information about the "plans and activities" of the group. Specifically mentioned were the "plans for the National Interim Committee (ruling body of [excised]) meeting which took place in New York and Chicago", and the plans "for demonstrations at San Francisco, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Chicago." There was no indication that these demonstrations were expected to be violent. (The excised words have been deleted by the FBI). 119 Public statement of President Nixon, 5/22/73. 121 Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General 7/23/69; memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General 12/14/70. cerning domestic revenue sharing and welfare reform.122 The reinstatement of another wiretap in this series was requested by H. R. Haldeman simply because "they may have a bad apple and have to get him out of the basket." 123 The last four requests in this series that were sent to the Attorney General (including the requests for a tap on the "bad apple") did not mention any national security justification at all. As former Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus has testified: I think some of the individuals who were tapped, at least to None of the "seventeen" wiretaps was ever reauthorized by the Attorney General, although 10 of them remained in operation for periods longer than 90 days and although President Nixon himself stated privately that "[t]he tapping was a very, very unproductive thing... it's never been useful to any operation I've conducted..." 125 In short, warrantless electronic surveillance has been defended on the ground that it was essential for the national security, but the history of the use of this technique clearly shows that the imprecision and manipulation of this and similar labels, coupled with the absence of any outside scrutiny, has led to its improper use against American citizens who posed no criminal or national security threat to the country.126 Similarly, the terms "foreign intelligence" and "counterespionage" were used by the CIA and the FBI to justify their cooperation in the CIA's New York mail opening project, but this project was also used to target entirely innocent American citizens. As noted above, the CIA compiled a "Watch List" of names of persons and organizations whose mail was to be opened if it passed through the New York facility. In the early days of the project, the names on this list which then numbered fewer than twenty-might reason 122 Memorandum from W. C. Sullivan to C. D. DeLoach, 8/1/69. 123 Memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to Messrs. Tolson, Sullivan and D. C. Brennan, 10/15/70. 124 Ruckelshaus testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, 5/9/74, pp. 311-12. 125 Transcript of the Presidential Tapes, 2/28/73 (House Judiciary Committee Statement of Information Book VII, Part W, p. 1754.) 128 'The term "national security" was also used by John Ehrlichman and Charles Colson to justify their roles in the break-in of Dr. Fielding's office in 1971. A March 21, 1973 tape recording of a meeting between President Nixon. John Dean, and H. R. Haldeman suggests, however, that the national security "justification" may have been developed long after the event for the purpose of obscuring its impropriety. When the President asked what could be done if the break-in was revealed publicly, John Dean suggested, "You might put it on a national security grounds basis." Later in the conversation. President Nixon stated "With the bombing thing coming out and everything coming out. the whole thing was national security," and Dean said, "I think we could get by on that." (Transcript of Presidential tapes, 3/21/73.) ably have been expected to lead to genuine foreign intelligence or counterintelligence information. But as the project developed, the Watch List grew and its focus changed. By the late 1960s there were approximately 600 names on the list, many of them American citizens and organizations who were engaged in purely lawful and constitutionally protected forms of protest against governmental policies. Among the domestic organizations on the Watch List, which was supplemented by submissions from the FBI, were: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Ramparts, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Center for the Study of Public Policy, and the American Friends Service Committee.127 The FBI levied more general requirements on the CIA's project as well. The focus of the original categories of correspondence in which the FBI expressed an interest was clearly foreign counterespionage, but subsequent requirements became progressively more domestic in their focus and progressively broader in their scope. The requirements that were levied by the FBI in 1972, one year before the termination of the project, included the following: "... [p]ersons on the Watch List; known communists, New Communist party and front organizations... extremist and Protest and peace organizations, such as People's Coalition Communists, Trotskyites and members of other Marxist- Traffic to and from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands This final set of requirements evidently reflected the domestic turmoil of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The mail opening program that began as a means of collecting foreign intelligence information and discovering Soviet intelligence efforts in the United States had expanded to encompass detection of the activities of domestic dissidents of all types. In the absence of effective outside control, highly intrusive techniques have been used to gather vast amounts of information about the entirely lawful activities and privately held beliefs of large numbers of American citizens. The very intrusiveness of these techniques demands the utmost circumspection in their use. But with vague or non-existent standards to guide them, and with labels such as "national security" and "foreign intelligence" to shield them, executive branch officials have been all too willing to unleash these techniques against American citizens with little or no legitimate justification. 127 Staff summary of Watch List review, 9/5/75. 128 Routing slip from J. Edgar Hoover to James Angelton (attachment), 3/10/72. 68-786 - 76 - 15 D. USING COVERT ACTION TO DISRUPT AND DISCREDIT DOMESTIC GROUPS MAJOR FINDING The Committee finds that covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society. Subfindings (a) Although the claimed purposes of these action programs were to protect the national security and to prevent violence, many of the victims were concededly nonviolent, were not controlled by a foreign power, and posed no threat to the national security. (b) The acts taken interfered with the First Amendment rights of citizens. They were explicitly intended to deter citizens from joining groups, "neutralize" those who were already members, and prevent or inhibit the expression of ideas. (c) The tactics used against Americans often risked and sometimes caused serious emotional, economic, or physical damage. Actions were taken which were designed to break up marriages, terminate funding or employment, and encourage gang warfare between violent rival groups. Due process of law forbids the use of such covert tactics, whether the victims are innocent law-abiding citizens or members of groups suspected of involvement in violence. . (d) The sustained use of such tactics by the FBI in an attempt to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., violated the law and fundamental human decency. Elaboration of the Findings For fifteen years from 1956 until 1971, the FBI carried out a series of covert action programs directed against American citizens.1 These "counterintelligence programs" (shortened to the acronym. COINTELPRO) resulted in part from frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups.2 1 Before 1956 the FBI engaged in activities to disrupt and discredit Communists and (before World War II) Fascists, but not as part of a formal program. The Bureau is the only agency which carried on a sustained effort to "neutralize" domestic groups, although other agencies made sporadic attempts to disrupt dissident groups. (See Military Surveillance Report; IRS Report.) 2 The Bureau personnel involved in COINTELPRO link the first formal counterintelligence program, against the Communist Party, USA, to the Supreme Court reversal of the Smith Act convictions, which "made it impossible to prosecute Communist Party members at the time". (COINTELPRO unit chief, 10/16/75, p. 14.) It should be noted, however, that the Court's reversal occurred in 1957, the year after the program was instituted. This belief in the deficiencies of the law was a major factor in the four subsequent programs as well: "The other COINTELPRO programs were opened as the threat arose in areas of extremism and subversion and there were not adequate statutes to proceed against the organization or to prevent their activities." (COINTELPRO Unit Chief, 10/16/75, p. 15.) |