KENNEDY SAYS WIRETAP GAP EXISTS IN UNITED STATES

(By John Chadwick)

WASHINGTON.-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D., Mass., said Saturday that government wiretapping and bugging in national security cases is substantially greater than President Nixon and other administration officials have led the public to believe.

This type of electronic surveillance is conducted without court-issued warrants, as contrasted with a requirement that court authorization be obtained for government eavesdropping to combat domestic crime.

Kennely said figures obtained from the Justice Department bear out his recent contention that "there has been three to nine times as much federal listening going on as a result of warrantless electronic surveillance as there has been on devices operated under judicial authorization."

He made public an exchange of correspondence with Assistant Atty. Gen. Robert C. Mardian, in charge of the department's Internal Security Division.

ALLEGATIONS HIT

The Justice Department said Kennedy's allegations are "erroneous and misleading."

In a statement, the department said: "Any assertion that the total amount of federal electronic eavesdropping without court permission far exceeds the eavesdropping with judicial approval is false. The number of court-authorized devices in 1970 was 180, compared to 113 national security devices installed. "Court-authorized taps, which are used solely for gathering evidence for use in criminal prosecutions, are limited to 30 days duration. There is no such limit for national security taps, which are solely for the purpose of intelligence gathering. To compare the two for the purpose of drawing inappropriate and preconceived conclusions doesn't serve the public interest."

The department said FBI records show there were never more than 50 wiretaps in operation at any one time in 1969, 1970 and 1971, except in two instances where authorizations overlapped for a matter of days. The microphone surveillance has never exceeded six at any one time in these years, it said.

Kennedy said figures supplied by Mardian contradict a statement by Nixon last April to the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the total number of taps for national-security purposes by the FBI has been fewer than 50 a year during his administration.

He said they contradict also a brief filed by the U.S. solicitor general in the Supreme Court saying that only 36 warrantless telephone survelilances were operated in 1970.

A letter he received from Mardian last March 1, Kennedy said, showed "that a total of 97 warrantless telephone taps were operated in 1970-almost double the President's figure, and almost triple the solicitor general's figure." Kennedy said that in addition to the telephone taps, Mardian's letter showed there were 16 microphone installations used for bugging in 1970.

"Further," Kennedy said, "the repeated references by government officials to the limited number of warrantless devices ignore the far more significant question of the duration and total usage of these surveillances."

Mardian's March 1 letter listed 97 telephone surveillances without court order in 1970 and broke these down into four categories-those in operation less than a week, from a week to a month, from one to six months and more than six months.

Mardian requested that the number in each category be treated as confidential "since an examination of the breakdown might indicate a fixed number of permanent surveillances."

In compliance with Mardian's request, Kennedy didn't disclose the number in each category. But from the figures his staff prepared a table showing a range from a minimum of 8,100 to a maximum of 22,600 days in which listening devices were in operation by executive order in 1970.

Kennedy said that for the two-year period of 1969-1970, the staff calculations showed that "warrantless devices accounted for an average of 78 to 209 days of listening per device, as compared with a 13-day per device average for those devices installed under court order."

Thus, he said, the information obtained from Mardian "poses the frightening possibility that the conversations of untold thousands of citizens of this country are being monitored on secret devices which no judge has authorized and which may remain in operation for months and perhaps for years at a time.".

[From the New York Times, December 19, 1971]

KENNEDY CHARGES JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HIDES EXTENT OF WIRETAPS WASHINGTON.-Senator Edward M. Kennedy said today that the Justice Department ordered 207 electronic surveillances in 1969 and 1970 under executive authority, nearly equal to the 210 approved by the Federal courts.

In a letter to his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, the Massachusetts Democrat provided the most comprehensive public disclosure yet of the socalled "warrantless" surveillances and charged that the figures contradicted official statements.

"Further," Mr. Kennedy said in his letter, "the repeated references by Government officials to the limited number of warrantiess devices ignore the far more significant question of the duration and total usage of these surveillances." Using figures provided by the Justice Department, the Senator declared that "there were from 3.4 to 9.6 times as many days of Federal listening on warrantless devices as there were on devices installed under judicial authorization." Mr. Kennedy's assertion was based on Justice Department figures that showed that court-ordered devices in 1970 were in use a total of 2,363 days and executive-ordered devices a total og 6,100 to 22,600 days.

The specific duration of executive-ordered devices is not disclosed by the Justice Department. It supplies only a range of time-from one week to one, month, for example.

The disclosures will probably intensify the controversy over the legality and extent of executive surveillances, but they may also serve to demonstrate the limits of the Administration's wiretapping practices, which some have called widespread.

Thus, if the figures are complete, it could be argued that they reflect a low level of wiretapping over the two-year period-one of every million citizens. As for the duration of the surveillances used without court authority, Government officials have said that relatively longer periods reflect the routine use of devices over extended periods of time on such places as foreign embassies. The distinction between the two kinds of electronic survillances derives from a Supreme Court decision in 1967 that declared that the use of wiretaps was unconstitutional in certain instances.

Subsequently, Federal legislation was approved to enable the Government to employ electronic surveillance under court authority in criminal investigations, but left it to the courts to decide to what extent the Government could use wiretaps and other such devices without court approval in cases involving internal security.

This question is pending before the Supreme Court.

CHART ILLUSTRATES USE

The wiretapping statistics were provided by Mr. Kennedy in his role as chairman of the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure. He obtained them from Robert C. Mardian, Assistant Attorney General for Internal Security, in a letter dated last March 1.

A chart compiled by the subcommittee staff shows that there were 30 courtordered devices used in 1969 and 180 in 1970. This compares with 94 executiveordered devices in 1969 and 113 in 1970.

Mr. Mardian pointed out in his letter to Senator Kennedy that the maximum number of devices in operation at any one time was 64 for the year 1969 and 62 for 1970.

Mr. Kennedy said that the duration figures "pose the frightening possibility that the conversations of untold thousands of citizens of this country are being monitored on secret devices which no judge has authorized and which may remain in operation for months and perhaps years at a time."

He further charged that the figures "flatly contradict" public statements by the Administration.

He declared that a brief filed this year with the Supreme Court by Solicitor General Erwin N. Griswold said that only 36 warrantless telephone surveillances were operated in 1970. He also pointed to a statement on April 16, 1971, by President Nixon that "the total number of taps is less, has been less, than 50 a year."

A member of Mr. Kennedy's subcommittee staff said that Mr. Griswold's figure was apparently drawn from Congressional testimony by J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in February 1970. The figure apparently refers to the number of devices in operation at the time. Mr. Nixon's figure is also believed to refer to the number of devices in use at the time of his statement.

Mr. Kennedy said the letter from Mr. Mardian suggested "an absence of well-defined procedures" to promote compliance with the statutes under which executive-ordered surveillance is conducted.

Thus, he said, he found it "shocking" that the department did not maintain a breakdown of executive-ordered surveillances under the five categories authorized by law.

[From the Baltimore Sun, December 19, 1971]

KENNEDY CASTS DOUBTS ON NIXON'S WIRETAP FIGURES

WASHINGTON-Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) said yesterday that government wiretapping and bugging in national-security cases is substantially greater than President Nixon and other administration officials have led the public to believe.

This type of electronic surveillance is conducted without court-issued warrants, as contrasted with a requirement that court authorization be obtained for government eavesdropping to combat domestic crime.

Mr. Kennedy said figures obtained from the Justice Department bear out his recent contention that "there has been three to nine times as much federal listening going on as a result of warrantless electronic surveillance as there has been on devices operated under judicial authorization."

He made public an exchange of correspondence with Robert C. Mardian, an assistant attorney general, in charge of the department's Internal Security Division.

The Justice Department said Mr. Kennedy's allegations were "erroneous and misleading."

In a statement, the department said: "Any assertion that the total amount of federal electronic eavesdropping without court permission far exceeds the eavesdropping with judicial approval is false. The number of court-authorized devices in 1970 was 180, compared to 113 national-security devices installed. "Court-authorized taps, which are used solely for gathering eyidence for use in criminal prosecutions, are limited to 30 days duratoin. There is no such limit for national-security taps, which are solely for the purpose of intelligence gathering. To compare the two for the purpose of drawing inappropriate and preconceived conclusions does not serve the public interest."

The department said FBI records show that there were never more than 50 wiretaps in operation at any one time in 1969, 1970 and 1971 except in two instances where authorizations overlapped for a matter of days. The microphone surveillance has never exceeded six at any one time in these years, it said.

Mr. Kennedy said figures supplied by Mr. Mardian contradict a statement by Mr. Nixon last April to the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the total number of taps for national-security purposes by the FBI has been fewer than 50 a year during his administration.

He said the figures contradict also a brief filed by the U.S. solicitor general in the Supreme Court saying that only 36 warrantless telephone surveillances were operated in 1970.

A letter he received from Mr. Mardian last March 1, Mr. Kennedy said, showed "that a total of 97 warrantless telephones taps were operated in 1970 -almost double the President's figure, and almost triple the solicitor general's figure."

Mr. Kennedy said that, in addition to the telephone taps, Mr. Mardian's letter showed there were 16 microphone installations used for bugging in 1970.