Senator CARROLL. I am not fully and thoroughly conversant with all of the new electronic systems, but I would assume that this could be done by a person outside of the house. I believe we have had testimony on that to the effect that they could do it maybe 50 feet away from the house.

Mr. HUDGINS. I have read something about the so-called parabolic microphone which could be heard from 50 feet away, but the difficulty with that is that you hear all of the noises 50 feet away. I think they would have difficulty getting any intelligible conversation unless it was very quiet everywhere else except at the one point they wanted to pick

up.

Senator CARROLL. Thank you.

Mr. CREECH. Mr. Hudgins, I should like to ask you this question. S. 1221 imposes a duty on the telephone company to report to the appropriate law enforcement agency any information coming to their attention by violations of wiretapping laws, and any failure to make such a report is punishable by a fine up to $500. I would appreciate your comment on this section of the bill and any reference you desire toward it.

Mr. HUDGINS. All I can say at the moment on that is that in our State, where wiretapping is banned by statute, if we find such a thing it is reported to the law enforcement officers at the moment. We do not think we should be put in the law enforcement business.

Senator CARROLL. You say that you do report it as soon as you find it?

Mr. HUDGINS. If we find an actual tap, yes, sir, we do.

Mr. CREECH. Your employees are under such instructions-all of them are instructed to report any violation that a wiretap is present? Mr. HUDGINS. That is right.

Mr. CREECH. You say that you report it, do you report it to the district attorney or to the local law enforcement officers?

Mr. HUDGINS. I cannot answer that question. I think it is to the district attorney's office.

Mr. CREECH. Do you keep any record of these reports to the district attorney's office?

Mr. HUDGINS. No, sir. As I mentioned in my testimony the occurrences have been so rare that we have not kept any statistics or records on them at all.

Mr. CREECH. What check does the telephone company keep on the law enforcement officers who are making wiretaps under your local and State authority-do you take any action to assure that the wiretap is authorized and request them to show the court order?

Mr. HUDGINS. In our State wiretapping is illegal and we have not had that.

Mr. CREECH. There is only one State in your area which does not ban it, Texas?

Mr. HUDGINS. Our company is in part in one part of Texas. There we only operate in El Paso County, which is actually the city of El Paso itself.

Mr. CREECH. You are not familiar with the position taken by the Bell Telephone Co. in Rochester, N.Y., and elsewhere?

Mr. HUDGINS. I am sorry, I am not, sir.

Mr. CREECH. You indicated in your statement approval of the reporting requirements in S. 1495. Do you think, sir, that these reports

should be made to the Justice Department? We heard one witness propose that should be the appropriate agency. Another witness proposed the Federal Communications Commission, while a third proposed that the reports should go to the court-do you have any preference in that matter?

Mr. HUDGINS. Well, I do not have any preference, but I have a great deal of difficulty making a regulatory body, such as the Federal Communications Commission, a law-enforcement body. I mean, I think they should be reported, but not to the Federal Communications Commission.

Mr. CREECH. Does the telephone company have a monitor to determine the telephone that is being used in the furtherance of a crime? Mr. HUDGINS. I did not understand your question.

Mr. CREECH. Do you have a monitor on the telephone to determine whether it is being used in the furtherance of a crime?

Mr. HUDGINS. Do you mean, can we monitor a line to determine that?

Mr. CREECH. Yes, sir.

Mr. HUDGINS. As to whether it can be done-we have no such equipment as such, no. In fact, I think you have heard some testimony that a tap itself is very, very difficult to determine with the electrical equipment and the apparatus that we have in our plant.

Senator CARROLL. I think the question was, are you able to monitor a line to determine whether or not there is a violation of law?

Mr. CREECH. Yes. Are you able to do it, and do you ever do it? Mr. HUDGINS. We do not do it, because we are not in the crime detection business and wiretapping again is illegal in our State. If it had to be done physically it could be done, certainly.

Mr. CREECH. Does the telephone company ever refuse service to an individual on the basis of his having used the telephone previously for any illegal purpose?

Mr. HUDGINS. Yes, sir, we do.

Mr. CREECH. You do?

Mr. HUDGINS. Yes.

Mr. CREECH. By the same token, do you refuse service to an individual whom you suspect of using a telephone for illegal purposes? Mr. HUDGINS. No, sir. I do not think we could do that, unless it is known. I think we would not.

Mr. CREECH. Do you have such instances where a man was found to be a bookie, and you have refused to give him a telephone line later?

Mr. HUDGINS. That is correct.

Senator CARROLL. Do you do that by authority of State law or by your own decision?

Mr. HUDGINS. Well, it is by a filed tariff.

Senator CARROLL. By what?

Mr. HUDGINS. Our filed tariffs with the State Commission.

Senator CARROLL. In other words, assuming all things to be equal, you could not deny a private citizen the right to have a telephone? Mr. HUDGINS. No, sir.

Senator CARROLL. But if you did deny a person the right to have a telephone you would have to justify your action. Mr. HUDGINS. That is right.

Senator CARROLL. That is, to refuse to give him the telephone? Mr. HUDGINS. That is right.

Mr. CREECH. At the time we invited you to appear there were only three bills pending before this subcommittee, and you have covered those very adequately in your statement. Recently we gave you a copy of Senator Hruska's bill-I wonder if you would care to comment further about this bill.

Mr. HUDGINS. Well, I think I mentioned that briefly, sir. I received it last night. And while it is not a long bill I have not had a chance to go into it thoroughly. I think, however, that I could say the same thing about that as I said about S. 1221 and S. 1086. It has some restrictive measures which those two bills do not have, in that it specifies it must be a particular telephone, and that telephone must be one over which it is suspected that a crime will be-or it will be used in the commission of a crime.

But we think it is a little too broad, just as we feel that S. 1221 and S. 1086 are.

Mr. CREECH. Mr. Waters has some questions.

Mr. WATERS. There was an indication in one witness' testimony that a subscriber could have a complaint, and an investigation would be made by the telephone staff, and the district attorney, the appropriate law enforcement officer, would be informed; but that there was some question as to whether or not the subscriber would be informed. Can you tell us whether or not the subscriber is informed if the district attorney does not suggest that be done?

Mr. HUDGINS. In our company, if there is no tap discovered, we, certainly, go back to the subscriber, or the customer, and tell him. We have inspected his line from beginning to end and we have found no tap, nor evidence thereof.

In the few cases where we have found-and believe me they have been few-we then have turned it over to the district attorney. We do not tell the subscriber.

Mr. WATERS. Whether you tell the subscriber-do you, if he specifically asks?

Mr. HUDGINS. We refer him to the district attorney's office.

Senator CARROLL. Along that line, if I were a subcriber and called the telephone company and said, "I think my line is tapped. I wish you would check it," they would check it, would they not?

Mr. HUDGINS. That is right.

Senator CARROLL. They would give me that report?

Mr. HUDGINS. That is right; they are checked by the supervisors in the plant department.

Senator CARROLL. And if I felt that there was a tap on my line, I would call the telephone company and ask them to check this out for me. If there was a tap on the line, you would not hesitate to tell the district attorney, would you?

Mr. HUDGINS. Well, as I say, wiretapping we believe to be illegal in our State. Our policy in the one or two cases where we have found it, we told the district attorney's office that there is a tap there, since it is illegal.

And if the customer insisted, we would tell him that it had been referred to the district attorney's office.

Senator CARROLL. And you go out and remove the tap?

Mr. HUDGINS. I think that is right.

Senator CARROLL. And you tell him when you remove the tap.

Mr. WATERS. There was some testimony by a preceding witness that in Rhode Island the attorney general, the State law enforcement officer, wanted some information, and the telephone system there had as one of their employees a former FBI agent, who gave permission to the enforcement official to go in and tap the wires. Would you care

to comment on that?

Mr. HUDGINS. Well, Rhode Island is one of the places where I have not worked in my 32 years, but we have heard that comment this morning. We checked with the New England people. I do not know where the previous witness got his information.

It is true that they have in their employ, in the Rhode Island division, a former FBI man, but as far as being a tribunal as to who was to decide whether wiretapping would be done or not, that is absolutely not so.

Mr. WATERS. Your information is that it was not done under the circumstances related to us?

Mr. HUDGINS. That is right.

Mr. WATERS. With reference to the technical advances which have been made by your research facilities. I wonder if you can tell us whether or not any consideration has ever been given to a determination of methods by which to ascertain whether or not conversations had with specified individuals were being listened to by some person other than that individual?

Mr. HUDGINS. I don't know whether any work has been done in that field or not, sir:

We constantly try to give the kind of telephone service to make it more difficult for these things to happen. But I know of no such device which you could determine whether a line is being tapped or not. Mr. WATERS. Has any attempt been made to develop such a device or method?

Mr. HUDGINS. I can't answer that question. Not to my knowledge, sir.

Mr. WATERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CARROLL. Just one or two more question.

If we should modify the Supreme Court decision by statute permitting, in the State of Colorado, bugging and interception, do you anticipate any increase in the demand of police law-enforcement officers of district attorneys to tap into lines?

Mr. HUDGINS. I could only guess, Senator, and my guess would be "Yes"; there would be an increase.

Senator CARROLL. That leads me to the next question. Do you have much demand now-and I am referring to my own area in Denver, Colo.-are there many requests to get permission from the telephone people to move in on the major cases?

Mr. HUDGINS. Very, very few, to my knowledge.

Senator CARROLL. Now, isn't it true that a skilled investigator, or a law enforcement officer, if he really wants to tap, will do it anyway, won't he?

Mr. HUDGINS. Yes; I think that is true. I don't think it is as easy as has been indicated in this field, Senator. I think it is a very difficult thing to do, and you must be dealing with an experienced person in the field of wiretapping.

Senator CARROLL. I don't have reference to the vaults and the locked doors.

Mr. HUDGINS. That isn't where they tap in, but this is where the records are kept which would give them the information where they could tap in. This would show the terminal appearance, where the line appears, and without that information they have to do a trialand-error method of finding this.

Senator CARROLL. They usually have to skin up a pole and find the box where the tap goes in.

Mr. HUDGINS. Yes; or a terminal in a building or office building or something of that kind.

Senator CARROLL. Any further questions?

Mr. WATERS. I have no further questions.

Senator CARROLL. You have been most helpful to us and thank you for coming. I am sorry we couldn't reach you earlier, but it was good to hear the testimony of the learned professor this morning and to have your views, also.

Mr. HUDGINS. Thank you, sir. It has been a pleasure.

Senator ERVIN. Call the next witness.

Mr. CREECH. The next witness will be Prof. Robinson O. Everett, professor of law, Duke University, Durham, N.C.

Senator ERVIN. We are delighted to have you with us.

STATEMENT OF PROF. ROBINSON O. EVERETT, PROFESSOR OF LAW, DUKE UNIVERSITY, DURHAM, N.C.

Mr. EVERETT. Thank you very much, Senator Ervin.

I want to say what a privilege it is to appear before the subcommittee. It is the first opportunity I have had to appear before a subcommittee or a committee of the Congress and it is quite an experience for me.

I might say this topic you are considering is one in which I have long been interested. A couple of years ago I wrote an article dealing with the general problem of the development of procedures of scientific investigation and the protection of the accused's rights in light thereof and as part of this topic I dealt with wiretapping and eavesdropping, electronic eavesdropping. In the thought that this might be of interest to the subcommittee, I have submitted a reprint of that article.

Also, I have made a statement with reference to the three bills that were submitted to me earlier for consideration. Incidentally, my criminal law seminar at Duke University also has had the benefit of seeing these bills and so I have utilized their ideas as well as my own.

I hope the discussion on my part will not be too academic. I think you can corroborate, Senator Ervin, that we don't have as much organized crime in North Carolina as is apparently the case in some areas of the country. I would say that for all practical purposes we don't have it at all and consequently there apparently would not be the same pressure in North Carolina to use wiretapping and eavesdropping techniques that would exist in such places as New York, Chicago, or any of the large metropolitan areas.

Now, basically, my position with reference to the problem of the legislation proposed before this subcommittee can be outlined rather briefly; and then later I will refer to my prepared statement.