interpreted to prohibit State law enforcement officials from intercepting telephone conversations.

In 1942-4 years later-our State legislature enacted new laws which, in only slightly amended form, constitute the law in New York today. These laws prescribe those safeguards that surround legal wiretapping in our State. And, if my memory serves correctly, not a word was said in 1942 to suggest that New York did not have the right to authorize use of this vital law enforcement weapon.

This is not strange because, in 1934, when Congress passed the act, consisting of some 20,000 words regulating the telegraph, telephone, and radio industries, there was no mention of wiretapping as an implement of law enforcement. You may finecomb the debates and the proceedings of Congress, prior to the passage of the Federal Communications Act, but you will find no intimation that the Congress intended to supersede the police power of our States.

Indeed, both prior to and since 1934, efforts have been made in the Congress to enact a ban on telephonic interception that would apply to State law enforcement officers. These efforts failed but they certainly would never have been attempted, if legislators had any notion that they had made law, in passing the Communications Act, as the Supreme Court in the Benanti case insisted they did.

As recently as 1955, when I appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, at a public hearing, Congressman Emanuel Celler, then and now chairman of that committee, had the following to say about court-ordered wiretapping in New York State. I quote from the transcript:

I think the general idea of this committee is that we would not interfere with the practices, the legal practices, that obtained in the various States. So you can set your mind at rest as far as New York is concerned. That is New York's problem and I don't think we would attempt to make the Federal statute paramount. I don't know that we could. If there are any restrictions inconsistent with the New York statute, I am sure the New York statute will prevail insofar as New York is concerned.

On January 16, 1958, Senator John McClellan made a statement, in connection with the submission of a bill which sought to amend section 605 for the purpose of clarifying the rights of State law enforcement agencies to use wiretaps. I quote pertinent paragraphs from that statement.

The Supreme Court in its recent decision in the Benanti case ruled that wiretap evidence obtained by State officers under authority of State law was inadmissible in the Federal courts.

The Court did not rule on the constitutional questions. Its decision was -based solely on an interpretation of the intention of Congress when it passed section 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934.

It is my belief that Congress never intended to cripple and hamper law enforcement agencies in their efforts to stamp out crime and punish criminals. Congress has never intended to permit the criminal to use the means of modern communication with impunity by enjoining law enforcement agencies from intercepting his communications. To accept such interpretation would mean that Congress intended to give criminals free license and encouragement to use communications without fear or handicap.

It is an interpretation that I cannot accept. In the field of criminal detection and prosecution, the law enforcement agencies are constantly waging a war against criminals who attack society. To do so effectively, it is necessary and essential to intercept their communications.

Many States, such as New York State, have enacted laws to enable their enforcement agencies to intercept communications under proper safeguards and to eliminate the dangers of promiscuous and improper use.

May I make one additional point with respect to congressional intent, as it affects wiretapping. Since 1934, Congress, regularly and frequently, has utilized transcripts and recordings that prosecutors have obtained through court ordered interceptions. In my files, I have many letters from Senators and from Congressmen thanking our office for the use of such transcripts. It is conservative to estimate that 100 or more Senators and Representatives have been parties to hearings where the conspiracies of criminal groups were divulged to the public through the medium of legalized wiretapping. Not one of these legislators, nor any other Senator or Congressman, has ever raised his voice in protest or objection to the use of this valuable information. Are we not justified, therefore, in concluding, logically and indisputably, that Congress, in enacting section 605 of the Communications Act, never intended to make the use of such interceptions a criminal offense?

Unless our basis for reaching that conclusion is unsound, unless Senator McClellan is incorrect in his interpretation of congressional action, unless Congressman Celler was not warranted in giving us the assurances he did and unless we are ready to believe that Congress, since 1934, willfully engaged as accomplices in illegal conduct, may we not with confidence expect you to pass the third bill before

you.

S. 1086, introduced by Senator Keating on February 28 of this year, is brief and to the point. It sets the record straight with respect to congressional intent, as related to the Federal Communications Act of 1934. It restores to the States the right which they possessed, without dispute, prior to the Benanti decision-the right to intercept telephone conversations, when done pursuant to a court's order based on a judge's determination that

reasonable grounds exist for belief that such interception may disclose evidence of the commission of a crime.

How valuable in the fight against organized crime is this court authorized power to intercept telephone conversations! Without it, and I shall confine myself to top figures in the underworld, I do not think that our office could have convicted Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Jimmy Hines, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro, Joseph "Socks" Lanza, George Scalise, Frank Erickson, John "Dio" Dioguardia, and Frank Carbo. Joseph "Adonis" Doto, tried in New Jersey, was convicted and deported on evidence supplied by our office and obtained by assiduously following leads secured through wiretapping. These men would be major figures in anybody's "Who's Who of Gangsters."

Senator KEATING. As an experienced prosecutor, you feel without the ability to wiretap in these cases you could not have obtained convictions of these gangsters?

Mr. HOGAN. I have no doubt that is true. A previous witness called attention to the fact that New Jersey didn't have this privilege. After the conviction of Joe Adonis, the attorney general of New Jersey sent me a letter stating that without the evidence we supplied him they could not have convicted this man who has been a gangster and racketeer for 20 years.

Moreover, time and time again New Jersey newspapers have graciously published editorials to the effect that our office, in New York

County, was doing more to eliminate organized crime in New Jersey than New Jersey prosecutors.

I am sure if they had this wiretapping weapon they could do what we have been doing. But we reached over-stretched our jurisdictional girdle, if you please and got the evidence against Frank Erickson in New Jersey. His entire operation took place in New Jersey except that he paid off the bettors in New York. That was a sufficient handle to give us jurisdiction and we prosecuted, even though his major gambling enterprise was concentrated in New Jersey.

Now that was true in the Adonis case also. Ninety percent of his activity occurred in New Jersey. But he sent limousines over to New York to pick up the big bettors-that was enough for us. Without this wiretapping privilege, given to us by our constitution and by our courts, we couldn't have made a start against Erickson and against Adonis.

Senator KEATING. Mr. Chairman, I will say to this distinguished witness, Mr. Hogan, that I must leave but I certainly will read the rest of his testimony and I am very grateful to you, Mr. Hogan, for appearing here to help us.

Mr. HOGAN. Thank you, Senator.

I will continue if I may, Mr. Chairman.

Senator ERVIN. Yes.

Mr. HOGAN. Ten years ago we had a so-called basketball investigation that unearthed corruption in this college sport on a nationwide scale. This scandal involved 15 professional fixers, 33 players, 6 colleges, and 49 college games in which score-rigging deals were negotiated in New York and in 22 other cities in 17 States.

In the 14-month investigation, information obtained over the wires enabled us to piece together an accurate picture of the workings of this bribery ring. The recordings of incriminating conservations led some recalcitrant witnesses to break and to cooperate against the fixers and higherups. Thirty-eight arrests resulted and of these 36 were convicted, including 14 of the 15 fixers. The 15th died before his trial was completed.

I don't think we could have made a dent in this criminal enterprise, which was affecting college sport all over the country, without this privilege accorded to us by our statute and by our constitution.

Wiretaps were used to advantage in successfully prosecuting a halfmillion-dollar stolen bond ring, led by one Irving Mishel, who acted as a broker for burglars specializing in stolen securities.

Wiretaps also enabled us to break up an intricate conspiracy involving a ring of crooked gambling policy operators who succeeded in fixing the figures upon which their game was based, so as to reduce their payoffs on winning numbers to a minimum.

This scheme depended to a large extent upon manipulation of daily clearance figures of the Cincinnati Clearinghouse and upon a network of daily telephone calls between Ohio, New Jersey, and New York. The use of the telephone to further the criminal conspiracy proved to be the gangsters undoing-and they were gangsters, not just gamblers.

Gambling of this size is a mob enterprise and the interception of telephone calls was the only way we could reach this three-State mob. Eight of them were convicted upon charges of conspiracy and contriving a lottery, including the secretary of the Cincinnati Clearing

house, one of the most reputable citizens of Cincinnati, who was being paid a thousand dollars a week for supplying a number, the third digit of the payoff, each day. He would select the number that had the least play on that particular day.

Recorded wiretap conversations were most helpful in bringing about the conviction of the New Jersey insurance broker, Louis Saperstein, and the indictment of his underworld associates, Scalise and Cilento.

These underworld associates, operating between New York and New Jersey, were able to siphon off from a labor union welfare fund the sum of $300,000 in less than 3 years.

I may add that this is another case where the New Jersey authorities were blissfully unaware of what was going on. It came to our attention because we got a court order based on detective surveillance, which permitted us to intercept the conversations.

Wiretap evidence is probably the most important element in any attempt to deal with fake charity racketeers who operate multiphone boilerrooms, so-called, from which solicitations of funds bring in fantastic amounts from a gullible public. I don't think you could even make an attempt in that area without this privilege.

The racketeers don't leave the boilerrooms. The telephone is their instrument of crime. Their complete sales pitch is made over the telephone. The only time they leave the room is to put the cash and the checks in the bank.

Our files are full of cases where, but for wiretaps, some of the worst racketeering offenders might well have gone unpunished.

Without wiretaps, for example, we never could have convicted the powerful waterfront labor boss, Mike Clemente, and his two lieutenants, Saro Mogavero and Louis Gaccione.

John DioGuardi, labor racketeer and former associate of "Lepke" and "Gurrah," returned to his haunts in the garment area of New York after serving a term for extortion. Surveillance, including wiretapping, was undertaken since he seemed to be blossoming out as a power in a number of labor unions. This surveillance was productive. Two of Dio's lieutenants in one of the unions, Anthony Topazio and an ex-burglar, Joseph Cohen, were convicted for trying to shake down the owners of a flower bulb concern. They were sentenced to the penitentiary.

Another associate of DioGuardi, Samuel Zachman, tried the same extortion racket in the messenger service industry. He and his partner, Nicholas Leone, were convicted and sentenced to State prison as a result of wiretapping.

In the field of labor extortions, in 1954 alone, we convicted six faithless leaders from a single union-the International Brotherhood of Teamsters: Aaron Kleinman, secretary-treasurer of local 875; Nat Carmel, vice president, local 875; Jack Berger, president, local 875; Sam Zakor, business agent, locals 875 and 275; Milton Levine, president, local 275; business agent, local 875; and Jack Priori, business agent, locals 875 and 275. All pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy or extortion.

Our office has long been interested in Frank Carbo, a boxing racketeer and gunman. Court-approved telephone wiretap plants were installed, some of which were monitored around the clock, to keep track of Carbo.

Many important underworld meetings were arranged on the telephone so that our detectives were enabled to cover the meetings and identify the participants of these meetings in cities as far away as California.

The following arrests were made: Carbo was charged with being an undercover fight manager and with the crime of conspiracy; Gabe Genovese, undercover fight manager; Harry Siegel, undercover fight manager; Samuel Grossner, unlicensed fight manager; Bert Grant, charged with bribery of a participant in a professional sport.

Carbo has pleaded guilty, Genovese has been found guilty. The other cases are pending.

May I say that these cases will continue pending until, I suppose, a court decides it can extend no more judicial grace to us. Ultimately, they will be dismissed unless there is relief from the Congress. In addition, James D. Norris, an underworld buff, resigned as president of the International Boxing Club as a result of this activity and there are a half dozen matchmakers and promoters who lost their licenses when the interceptions were turned over to the New York State Boxing Commission.

I have tried to indicate, by this sampling, how very valuable this privilege is. This handful of major investigations in which my office has used court-ordered interceptions will, I hope, not misguide this committee into believing that telephonic interception is common, and that the privacy all of us cherish is constantly endangered. We avail ourselves of this legal privilege almost exclusively in the field of organized crime and, for the most part, only when other avenues of investigation are closed to us.

I have with me a compilation of our office figures for 10 years— from 1950 through 1959. This chart, a copy of which I shall give your reporter, shows the extent of our criminal business, the number or arrests resulting therefrom, and the disposition of the charges. We average about 34,000 criminal matters each year.

You will note we had 343,745 matters for the 10-year period I have indicated; and, in that period, the number of wiretap orders, including renewals, amounted to 727. The number of interceptions, for the period covered, averages less than 75 a year.

At hearings held before the New York State Investigation Commission, about a year ago, Stephen Kennedy, then our city police commissioner, testified that, from 1952 through 1959, his department obtained an average of less than 300 court orders annually, in the entire city of New York, consisting of 5 counties. The police interceptions in New York County, of which I am district attorney, averaged about eighty annually. If city police and district attorney orders are lumped together, we have in the neighborhood of 150 per year in New York County. As our law only authorizes taps to last for a maximum of 2 months-at which time.they must be renewed, and that renewal constitutes a new order-this means that we have an average of between 25 to 30 interceptions going on at any one time in our county-a county of more than 1,800,000 telephones. This should afford the committee some mathematical basis for evaluating the socalled dangers of wiretapping: one wiretap to about every 60,000 telephones, and these, of course, only in cases in which we can demonstrate the basis for our belief that evidence of crime may be revealed. That comes to less than one-six hundredth of 1 percent.