belief that the Attorney General and his staff are zealously devoted to the struggle against crime and we commend them for it.

The second crucial reason for opposing the legalization of wiretapping is related to the first; it involves the life and death struggle which we are now carrying on against international communism around the world. It is too often forgotten that in this struggle, where we must hold the respect and continued friendship of allies, neutrals, uncommitted nations and emerging democracies, our ultimate strength is not in guns and subversion, which are the natural trademark of the enemy. Our strength is the great American image of freedom, which is our birthright since the days of the Revolution and the Bill of Rights. We cannot win the continuing allegiance of other nations to our traditions of freedom and democracy, if in the name of law enforcement or "security" we ourselves surrender freedom.

If, in misguided zeal, we arm policemen with wiretapping power we have never before called either legal or moral, we may suffer incalculable losses in our struggle for respect of free peoples around the world. I am much concerned about the great Federal programs to bring young people from Africa and Asia to this country, who even today must suffer the indignity of racial segregation while they are our guests and visitors. I do not want them going home to their native countries to say that in America they had difficulty getting coffee or hamburgers, but always got more parties than they asked for on the telephone line."

In the light of the profound considerations of the integrity and prestige of a free society in the contest for continued world leadership, it is probably unnecessary for me to review the corrosive implications of the wiretapping bills upon organized labor in the United States. But I cannot conclude my testimony without pointing out how harmful would be the authorization of wiretapping by States and localities, particularly in certain areas of the country where police officials view their major enemy not as organized crime but as organized labor and organized desegregation.

In the very recent past, wiretapping has been used against a labor organization in the notorious Henderson incident. Even more recently it has been used in New Orleans against clergymen advocating racial desegregation, in a case which is presently the subject of a Federal indictment under the Communications Act. To those who have carried on the moral struggle for labor organization and school desegregation, the proposal to authorize State wiretapping is truly appalling.

We submit that organized labor cannot stand by and permit such a result. Until the discriminatory use of police powers against labor and its supporters is brought to an end, we are forced to redouble our opposition to measures which would give unprecedented powers of espionage and governmental control to local prosecutors and police

men.

The Attorney General has asserted that S. 2813 provides only "limited" authority for wiretapping, but the claim that there will be any limits to the governmental wiretapping practiced under this measure is, I fear, wholly illusory. For there is no blinking the fact

that S. 2813 would grant the broadest possible wiretapping powers to minor local officials and policemen.

The bill would permit State and local wiretapping to reach crimes as vague and often questionable as "extortion" and "bribery." These crimes can be defined by the States and have been loosely defined on a number of occasions. Once the door is open this far, it can never be shut again. It could not be shut, for example, when an employer or an employer's witness or a White Citizens' Council official made an allegation that they know or believe that extortion or bribery may be practiced. Under the cover of S. 2813, once a local judge issues a wiretapping order, the eavesdropping will never cease until the purpose of the tappers have been fulfilled through the vehicle of local officials and policemen all too ready to serve the prevailing local sentiment against desegregation or labor organization.

May I interpolate another point here?

This morning one of the Senators, I believe it was Senator Carroll, asked whether there was in fact any apprehension among people not connected with the American Civil Liberties Union on the headquarters level about the existence of wiretapping.

I would like to assure you from my own experience that there is general apprehension as you go around the country. In the southern part of this contry, in midwestern cities, and in small towns in various parts of the country I have found time and again people who have said they are supporting the union, they are supporting its efforts to organize and to help these people organize, but please don't call them at home, they will call you from a public telephone.

They are not sufficiently sophisticated to know that public telephones are tapped also. But there is sufficient apprehension in small local communities to know that the telephones are tapped, that somehow the police or the telephone company, or some governmental agency will determine who in the community is supporting the union and will report this back to the employer.

By the same token, people who are supporting integration struggles where these struggles are carried on, are frequently apprehensive that the local police or the local people, who are the obstacles all too frequently, to integration, will use every power they can, whether legal or otherwise, to obstruct the effort to bring about integration. There have been too many cases documented of the police themselves being the instruments of continued segregation, continued discrimination. To put in the hands of the police on the claim of a local judge on a State or municipal level, on the claim that there may be a danger, that there is a danger of extortion or bribery, to give to these same officials the power to eavesdrop on people who may be guilty of nothing more than seeking to bring about integration, is to put a severe damper on the efforts of a great many people who are carrying on a very difficult struggle in small communities where their struggle must be carried on.

Senator KEATING. I would agree with most of what you have to say about that. But is there anything in this bill which put any such power in the hands of local law enforcement officials?

Mr. ROVNER. Yes; we believe that the opportunity for a State or local governmental official to move in to get a court order

Senator KEATING. It always has to go through a court.

Mr. ROVNER. It has to go through a court.

Let me make two points here. First of all, the crimes are not very well defined, extortion or bribery. And the proof that has to be demonstrated is that there may be bribery or extortion going on. Moreover, as a lawyer I would never seek to deprecate the judiciary, but the anxiety, in many communities, of the courts to aid the local government officials, to defer to the law enforcement officials, may make them less zealous about inquiring into possible wrong motivation on the part of local law enforcement officials.

Senator KEATING. Of course, that does not apply to the bill which I am most interested in, which is my own bill, because none of these States which have qualifying State statutes have any segregation at all; they are New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Maryland, and one other. None of the Southern States have court order wiretapping; in fact, some of them prohibit wiretapping.

Mr. ROVNER. I have not looked at your bill recently, not for about a year, I guess. Would it not sanction it if other States sought to come under its coverage?

Senator KEATING. I think if other States passed laws permitting wiretapping under court order and with all of the various protective features that are in the bill, they could later come under it; yes.

Mr. ROVNER. So that our fear, you see, is that it would become an invitation. Now, we have seen all too frequently the use of local governmental authority against labor organization, against integration forces, frequently against it, too, because they are frequently linked. But we have seen this time and again.

And we are most apprehensive about giving legal sanction which would probably amplify what is already being done.

Senator KEATING. My point is that if you tightened up and made more serious an offense the illegal wiretapping to which you have referred, which is illegal, to wiretap to find out who belongs or doesn't belong to a labor union, or who is for integration or against it, that sort of thing, that is all illegal, we are talking about illegal activities. And I am for tightening up and making the crime more serious and making the offense, the penalty, greater. But my feeling is that if we get this present muddle straightened out and actually have a very tightly drawn bill requiring court order and setting forth exactly what must be shown for that court order, and that tap can be only on there a certain length of time, and all of these protective features, that it will lessen, rather than increase, the use of illegal wiretapping.

Mr. ROVNER. Might I say, at the present moment in most of the States where it is being done it is illegal, and it has not served as much of a deterrent-it has served as some deterrent. But I cannot see how making it legal under some circumstances would make it more of a deterrent not to wiretap in others.

Senator KEATING. In my own State of New York, there is illegal wiretapping that goes on. I would be the first to admit that. But the law enforcement officials say it is greatly reduced since wiretapping was placed under regulation.

The law enforcement officials, who certainly know more about it than I do, indicate that illegal wiretapping convictions in a number of cases, convictions of police officers, have been reduced. They don't

consider that there is as much going on today as there was when they didn't have as carefully drawn laws.

Now, I think that point of view is something to consider.

Mr. ROVNER. I think it is. But I think in part, Senator, the repeal of prohibition made for a lot less illegal drinking, it didn't decrease the amount of drinking, it just made it legal. And you would get necessarily a decrease in the number of illegal wiretaps by making a substantial number of them legal that had been going on previously. But more than that, even if you were able to obviate and avoid the misuse of wiretapping, something we seriously doubt, even if you were able to, our primary position is that we are opposed to wiretapping, we consider it to be an invasion of privacy, and we consider it to be moreover an invasion of what I believe Mr. Justice Brandeis says is the greatest right anyone has, the right to be left alone.

This is probably what distinguishes the United States and a few other freedom-loving countries with long traditions from almost any other country or system in the world, that there is a basic and inherent right of an American citizen to be left alone.

Senator FONG. The present situation of the law is that it is not illegal to eavesdrop in any jurisdiction. Now, as I understand the law, in section 605 of the Communications Act there must be a disclosure after the eavesdropping. Now, if there is only eavesdropping, which you are now speaking about, if a man wants to find out whether someone is promoting the cause of the union, or is fighting segregation, we have no question of disclosure, we have an eavesdropping evil, which at the present time under the present law is being carried on.

Mr. ROVNER. We are perfectly in agreement that the conjunction should be changed to "or" rather than "and." We think that the vice is the eavesdropping. The subsequent disclosure simply compounds it. But the vice is the snooping.

Senator FONG. If we say that the vice is the eavesdropping, then this law here doesn't even up the law by saying that eavesdropping is a crime, the bill which is before us doesn't specifically state that eavesdropping is a crime.

Mr. ROVNER. If it went no further than that, Senator, we would be here supporting it unqualifiedly.

Senator FONG. The only trouble is that some feel that once you make the conjunction "or," then the whole enforcement of crime would break.

Is that right, Senator Keating?

Senator KEATING. Well, the Attorney General feels, primarily in the field of national security-and I must say I agree with him on itthat if you had the actual interception an illegal act subjecting a person to penalties, as he very frankly says, the FBI would be acting illegally today in a limited number of national security cases. And I am not prepared to put those shackles on the FBI in their effort to find out who are the enemies of our country and do something about it.

Mr. ROVNER. At the outset of our statement, Senator, we expected from the general attitude that we have and the general view that we have surveillance for prevention of national security crimes.

Senator KEATING. But you are talking now about the change in the Federal Communications Act, changing the word "and" to "or."

And if you did that, it would make illegal what the FBI is doing today in the field of national security.

Mr. ROVNER. Perhaps it would be wise at the same time to put through an exemption from that for the national security crimes specified in 2813. But we don't question for a moment that law enforcement is easier if wiretapping and eavesdropping is available.

Senator FONG. But in substance, the latter part of your statement here deals with the question of eavesdropping where labor is concerned and where the question of integration is concerned?

Mr. ROVNER. Yes, sir.

Senator FONG. Now, if we don't do anything now, we will be in that situation in which there will be a lot of eavesdropping as far as labor is concerned and as far as integration problems are concerned, and nobody can do anything about it, because section 605 has the conjunction "and" instead of "or."

Now, if this bill or a portion of it is passed which tightens the eavesdropping feature to say that eavesdropping is a crime, it doesn't serve your purpose in the case of labor eavesdropping and integration eavesdropping?

you

Mr. ROVNER. It serves it, sir, but we feel that at the same time close off one you open another one, and that is putting into the hands of local law enforcement people and local judges throughout the country the opportunity perfectly legally to do this without any inhibition at all, providing only they go through the ritual and litany of reciting the possibility that extortion or bribery, however that may be defined, may be going to be committed.

Once they have gone through this ritual, they would then be doing legally what they cannot now do legally.

They may make recordings of it, they may play it to another person. So we feel that the existing bill, 2813-in its present form our basic objections to it-the first one is the principal objection, we disapprove of wiretapping by private parties or by the Government. We support a prohibition of it. With regard to eavesdropping or wiretapping for the prevention of national security crimes, we do not-we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that perhaps the present international crisis would justify the use of eavesdropping and wiretapping to avert these crimes.

But we feel in regard to this specific bill, when you go from the Federal level to the State level we can find no justification, particularly since the Nelson decision, for any State authority, any State permission to wiretap.

We would favor with regard to States simply changing the conjunction to "or." We feel it is bad practice, bad principle in a democracy to wiretap. We feel on top of this, with regard to the State, you have not only this objection but the additional objection that it opens the door to a great deal of mischief.

We feel that to some degree this mischief and this misconduct is going on. But we feel that what would happen here would be giving it the sanction of law. And we think this would be quite harmful, that it would generate more apprehension than currently exists. And this is simply a second reason why the labor movement and why the civil rights groups have an even stronger interest in this bill over and above I shouldn't say over and above-but let me say in addition to,