nected with the communications facilities of any such carrier engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, or (3) within the District of Columbia or any Territory or possession of the United States; and

"(c) The term 'person' includes an individual, partnership, association, jointstock company, trust, or corporation.

"(d) The term 'intercepts' or 'intercept' shall not include anything done in the normal operation or use of a common carrier communications system."

SEC. 2. The proviso contained in section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 (48 Stat. 1103; 47 U. S. C. 605) is amended to read as follows: "Provided, That this section shall not apply to the interception, receiving, divulging, publishing, or utilizing the contents of (a) any radio communication broadcast, or transmitted by amateurs or others for the use of the general public, or relating to ships in distress, or (b) any wire communication intercepted by any individual in compliance with the second paragraph of section 245 of title 18 of the United States Code; nor be deemed to prohibit the use by Federal law-enforcement officials, in connection with the prosecution or prevention of any crime affecting the internal security of the United States, of any information obtained as a result of any interception, not in violation of section 245 of title 18 of the United States Code, of any wire or radio communication."

[S. 2753, 83d Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To allow admission of certain types of evidence in the Federal courts of the United States against defendants prosecuted for treason, espionage, and other crimes involving the national security

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 approved June 19, 1934 (48 Stat. 1103), is hereby amended by changing the period at the end thereof to a colon and by adding thereafter the following words: "Provided further, That this section shall not apply to any future or past reception or interception of any communication nor to any future or past divulging, publishing, or use of the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of any communication (a) if such reception, interception, divulging, publishing, and use, whether occurring heretofore or hereafter, was or is for the purpose of aiding a prosecution in the Federal courts of the United States for treason, espionage, or any other crime involving the national security, or (b) if such communication, whether occurring heretofore or hereafter, is relevant or material to the prosecution in such courts of any person charged with any such crime."

[S. 832, 83d Cong., 1st sess.]

A BILL To authorize acquisition and interception of communications in interest of national security and defense

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice; the Director of the Military Intelligence Division of the Department of the Army; the Director of Intelligence, United States Air Force; and the Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence of the Navy Department are authorized under rules and regulations as prescribed by the Attorney General, in the conduct of investigations, to ascertain, prevent, or frustrate any interference or any attempts or plans for interference with the national security and defense by treason, sabotage, espionage, seditious, conspir-, acy, violations of neutrality laws, violations of the Act requiring the registration of agents of foreign principals (Act of June 8, 1938, as amended (52 Stat. 631)); violations of the Act requiring the registration of organizations carrying on certain activities within the United States (Act of October 17, 1940 (54 Stat. 1201)), or in any other manner, to require that telegrams, cablegrams, radiograms, or other wire or radio communications and copies or records thereof, or, upon the express written approval of the Attorney General, that any information obtained by means of intercepting, listening in on, or recording telephone, telegraph, cable, radio, or any other similar messages or communications, be disclosed and delivered to any authorized agent of any one of said investigatorial agencies, without regard to the limitations contained in section 605 of the Communications Act

of 1934 (48 Stat. 1103). The information thus obtained shall be admissible in evidence, but only when such evidence is offered in a criminal or civil proceeding involving any of the foregoing violations in which the United Statees Government is a party: Provided, That prior to acquiring or intercepting the communications from which the information is obtained, an authorized agent of any one of said investigatorial agencies shall have been issued a permit by a judge of any United States court, authorizing the agent to acquire or intercept such communications. (b) Upon application by any authorized agent of any one of said investigatorial agencies to acquire or intercept communications in the conduct of investigations pursuant to this section, a judge of any United States court shall issue a permit, signed by the judge with his title of office, authorizing the applicant to acquire or intercept such communications, if the judge is satisfied that there is reasonable cause to believe that the communications may contain information which would assist in the conduct of such investigations.

(c) No person shall fail to comply forthwith with the request of any duly authorized person, pursuant to this section, for the disclosure and surrender of any telegram, cablegram, radiogram, or other wire or radio communication, or copies or records thereof in his possession or under his control.

(d) No person shall divluge, publish, or use the existence, contents, substance, purport, or meaning of any information obtained pursuant to the provisions of this section otherwise than for the purposes hereinbefore enumerated.

(e) Any person who willfully and knowingly violates any provision of this section shall be guilty of a felony and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

(f) If any provision of this section or the application of such provision to any circumstances shall be held invalid, the validity of the remainder of this section and the applicability of such provision to other circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

(g) For purposes of this section the term "person" shall include any individual, partnership, association, business trust, corporation, or any organized group of persons, whether incorporated or not.

(h) The Attorney General is hereby authorized to prescribe such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary to carry out the provisions of this section. STATEMENT OF HON. HERBERT BROWNELL, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES

Attorney General BROWNELL. It is very heartening to us in the Department how deeply concerned this subcommittee is over the shameful history of Communist espionage in our Government and in other segments of our society and the betrayal of our vital secrets. You are seeking to find a new and fair solution to a very old problem by your present inquiry into the pending wiretap evidence proposals.

This is no easy task, I need not remind you. The wiretapping controversy has raged for many years. The problem touches each of us. How can we best achieve a proper balance between the safety' of the Nation and the precious liberties of our people?

Every Attorney General over the last 20 years has favored and authorized wiretapping by Federal officers in cases involving our national security. This policy adhered to by my predecessors has been taken with the full knowledge, consent and approval of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

The first point I would like to make to you this morning is that none of the proposals before you gives the Attorney General or any other Government official any additional power to tap wires over and beyond that which has been exercised since 1941.

As you know, much of the evidence now available of the illegal actions of Communists and of their future plans, has been derived from wiretapping by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under supervision of various Attorneys General.

Now we come to the point of the controversy. Wiretap evidence, information so collected, is not admissible in prosecutions in Federal courts. This is not because of any provision of our Constitution. On the contrary, the Supreme Court has held that introduction of wiretapping evidence neither violates rights against unlawful search or seizure under the fourth amendment nor rights against self-incrimination under the fifth amendment. So it is not a constitutional question.

The only reason wiretapped evidence is presently inadmissible in the Federal courts is that the Supreme Court has construed section 605 of the Federal Communications Act, enacted in 1934, as a bar to admitting such evidence even when obtained by Federal officers.

Now information is not an end in itself. The information gained is important to the extent that it can be used promptly to forestall threatened danger to our internal security. It is equally essential that the information we obtain be admissible in court at the proper time and proper place to accomplish the objective of jailing those who have offended our laws.

Now about section 605: Under section 605, as construed by the Supreme Court, the wiretaps might disclose that the accused has stolen and peddled important bomb secrets, or that he was plotting the assassination of a high Government official, or that he was about to blow up a strategic defense plant or commit some other grave offense against our national security. Yet neither the information obtained thereby, nor other information or clues to which the wiretaps indirectly led, could be introduced to convict this defendant. Indeed, if either all the evidence or any part of the vital evidence was obtained through this means, the defendant would go scot-free.

That was the problem in the Coplon case, the so-called Judy Coplon case, where the conviction which was obtained was reversed by the court of appeals. Even though Judge Learned Hand, speaking for the court of appeals, refused to dismiss the indictment because he said the guilt was plain.

Senator WILEY. Would it not be well at this time in your statement to put into the record section 605?

Attorney General BROWNELL. An excellent idea.

Senator WILEY. It is so ordered.

(Sec. 605 follows:)

SEC. 605. No person receiving or assisting in receiving, or transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communications by wire or radio shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof, except through authorized channels of transmission or reception, to any person other than the addressee, his agent, or attorney, or to a person employed or authorized to forward such communication to its destination, or to proper accounting or distributing officers of the various communicating centers over which the communication may be passed, or to the master of a ship under whom he is serving, or in response to a subpoena issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, or on demand of other lawful authority. And no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge or pub lish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person, and no person not being entitled there shall receive or assist in receiving any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio and use the same or any information therein contained for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto, and no person having received such intercepted communication or having become acquainted with the

contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of the same or any part thereof, knowing that such information was so obtained, shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of the same or any part thereof, or use the same or any information therein contained for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto : Provided. That this section shall not apply to the receiving, divulging, publishing, or utilizing the contents of any radio communication broadcast, or transmitted by amateurs or others for the use of the general public, or relating to ships in distress.

Attorney General BROWNELL. It is this loophole that we are trying to plug in our Federal law of evidence that led to reversal of the conviction in the Copon case, though Judge Learned Hand, speaking for the court of appeals, refused to dismiss the indictment because the "guilt is plain."

It is this loophole that all of us are trying to plug so that those guilty of espionage and related offenses will no longer escape punishment merely because they resorted to the telephone to carry out their treachery.

Everyone agrees that invasion of privacy is repugnant to all Americans. But how can we possibly preserve the safety and liberty of everyone in this Nation unless we pull Federal prosecuting attorneys out of their straitjackets and permit them to use intercepted evidence in the trial of national security cases?

Let us not delude ourselves any longer. We have to face up to the fact that the Communists are subversives and conspirators working fanatically in the interests of a hostile foreign power. Again and again they have demonstrated that an integral part of their policy is the internal disruption and destruction of this Government and other free governments of the world.

It is almost impossible to "spot" them since they no longer use membership cards or other written documents which will identify them for what they are. Nor do they look like criminals or persons we would imagine would resemble the old type Bolshevik. They are too smart for that. As a matter of necessity, they turn to the telephone to carry on their intrigue. The success of their plans frequently rests upon piecing together shreds of information received from many sources and many nests. The participants in the conspiracy are often dispersed and stationed in various strategic positions in Government and elsewhere throughout the country. Their operations are not only internal. They are also of an international and intercontinental character, as the chairman has pointed out.

There is another subcommittee of this Judiciary Committee, the Subcommittee on Internal Security, that after a careful study of this question stated:

Thousands of diplomatic, military, scientific and economic secrets of the United States have been stolen by Soviet agents in our Government and other persons closely connected with the Communists.

If we are to cope with these enemies of our internal security, we have to know where they are going to strike next. We have to know who is going to be their next victim, what valuable Government secret will be the subject of a new theft, and where a leading fugitive conspirator has been concealed.

We have to be able to use that evidence in court so that these wrongdoers will no longer continue to prey on the safety and freedom of our country.

Senator WATKINS. Would it not be better, Mr. Attorney General, if we can stop them from striking, rather than going on the theory of where they are going to strike next?

Attorney General BROWNELL. I agree with you completely, and I do not know how you are going to do it without this legislation.

That is the theory they use most, the telephone. They know they can use it with perfect safety. Anything they say over the phone cannot be used against them in court. You can imagine how difficult it is to trail these people. I have tried to describe that. Since these enemy agents will not talk in court or speak the truth, they are forbidden to do that by their own so-called standards, and since the Federal agents are forbidden from testifying as to what they heard over the phone, the Department of Justice is blocked from proving its case and sending them to jail where they belong.

Senator WILEY. If someone were standing a little way off that could not hear what was said over the phone, but could read the lips of the speaker, that would be competent evidence, would it not?

Attorney General BROWNELL. It would, and I have something to say about that in a minute.

It is just a peculiar inconsistency that we have allowed to grow up in our law.

Surely this Nation, as one of the members of this subcommittee has just pointed out, does not need to wait until it has been destroyed before learning who its traitors are and bringing them to justice.

Let us turn to the contentions raised by the opponents of these pending bills authorizing wiretapped evidence to be admitted in the Federal courts.

The first reason they always point out for opposition to these bills is that wiretapping is still a dirty business and that we should not fight Communist spies with their own methods, and that wiretaps might be used to hurt innocent people, that privacy will be invaded and that people will be apprehensive about using the telephone, and that the authority, if you confer it upon these Federal officials, might be abused. These arguments sound persuasive on their face. In some instances they are presented in good faith and deserve serious consideration. But to my mind they just do not stand up on analysis. Let us first consider that claim that intercepted evidence should not be admissible because it is dirty business to tap wires. I might say right here that another argument that they use in this connection is that the wiretapping snooping reminds them of the tactics employed by the Gestapo or the OGPU.

While some of these people would ban this evidence, they seem to be unaware of the point that the chairman has just made, that the law presently admits evidence which is obtained by informers. It presently allows the courts to receive evidence obtained by eavesdroppers at somebody's keyhole or his window. The courts allow evidence of an officer who was concealed in a closet and overheard a conversation. They allow evidence to be introduced by the installation of a recording device on the adjoining wall of a man's hotel or office room. They allow evidence that is obtained by transmitters concealed on the agent's person. And, more than that, the Government witness may testify to every word of his telephone conversation with the defendant, and his testimony may even be distorted by an imperfect memory or character.