the fundamental right of privacy and personal security guaranteed by the fourth and fifth amendments to the Constitution, we appear here to voice our opposition to the passage of such a law.

Witnesses representing every major and civil liberties organization have appeared before you to oppose bills which in any way would permit the unethical, corrupting, and vicious practice of wire tapping. Our organization agrees with the views which you have already heard expressed by so many persons eminent in their respective field. We agree with the condemnation of wire tapping expressed by Justices of the Supreme Court, by lawyers, religious leaders and laymen, and by the newspapers which have printed editorials urging Congress to go slowly in taking steps to wipe out the great reform accomplished when wire tapping was made illegal in 1934.

But distasteful and dangerous as is wire tapping in the opinion of almost everybody, you will want to consider the bills before you on the basis of facts. I appear today to present such facts which I hope will be helpful to you in determining some of the harmful results of wire tapping. These facts are the result of careful research in the records of Congress, in court records, and in the writings of authorities.

Earlier witnesses appearing to oppose the wire-tapping bills have indicated the danger when Federal agents are put in a position where they could unfairly or oppressively apply against labor the information gained by tapping the wires of labor unions or labor-union officials. This information would have a high market value if it should be made available to employers by virtue of an investigator leaving the Government service to take other employment. Congress will hardly tolerate a state of affairs by which dossiers may be built up by Federal investigators on the personal lives of union members or officers or anyone else, only to have such dossiers later improperly influence employer-employee relations. Congress will hardly tolerate turning branches of the Government into teachers and practitioners of evil. There is no evidence to show that wire tapping would not now have this effect. However, there is an abundance of evidence and experience which suggests that even a limited use of wire tapping would have this effect.

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has revealed in testimony before several committees of the House that he had created a division within his bureau which is compiling and filing information about persons not now suspected of having committed crimes. (See, for example, testimony on emergency supplemental appropriation bill for 1940, and Department of Justice appropriation bill for 1941.) The appearance in America of the dossiers, indexes, and other repressive police technique which have characterized the secret police systems of Europe, has been widely commented upon. Some of these comments were summarized in the C. I. O. News of March 18, 1940, at page 6:

The revival of the General Intelligence Division of the F. B. I., the request for $100,000 "for confidential work of unforeseen character," midnight raids, the use of wire-tapping devices, and the card-indexing of individuals-these have created fears which are expressed in such publications as the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Enquirer.

A card index of "suspects," the creation of an intelligence division wrapped in mystery-in these Hoover exceeded his authority. But that is only half the story-for on March 13, the Associated Press carried an interview with

the F. B. I. chieftain in which he tacitly admitted violations of the Federal laws:

Since 1931, he said, the practice of wire tapping has been followed by his agency *

It is pertinent to note that this secret police activity fulfills the misgivings of such men as the late J. Swager Sherley, the distinguished public servant from the State of Kentucky, whose death has been so widely mourned within the past week. When the establishment of a secret police system was first debated-as reported in the House hearings on sundry civil appropriation bill for 1909, page 776— the then Congressman Sherley said:

It does not strike some of us as being in accord with the American ideas of government to undertake, by a system of spying on men and prying into what would ordinarily be designated as their private affairs, to determine whether or not a crime has been committed and to make the efficiency of a department dependent * upon the nosings of the Secret Service men. There seems to be a growing tendency to look to the employment of special agents whose chief attribute is their ability to spy.

* *

Not only has an un-American system of spying and prying been established-to use Mr. Sherley's phrases-but the area of such activities has been greatly extended through the rapid spread of Federal investigators into industrial fields when leaving the Bureau of Investigation and other Government detective agencies. If it is bad for the Government detectives to spy and pry, it is doubly bad for the Government to teach the tricks of the trade to men who may go out to practice them for selfish gain, or to benefit one individual at the expense of the rights of many others.

In 1938 Attorney General Cummings testified that there was a large turn-over of Federal Bureau Investigation agents due to inadequate compensation. He stated that during the 3-year period before his testimony 99 special agents had left the service-about 15 percent of the total number employed in 1938. This testimony may be found in the hearings before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations, deficiency appropriation bill for 1938, at pages 395–396.

When agents leave the service of the Government, the Government. ceases to have any effective control over those agents. The Government cannot take away the secret information obtained by agents during the course of their investigations, nor can the Government take away the techniques it has taught the agents, by which they may be able to obtain such information in the future. This fact was noted in a book called Secret Agents Against America, by R. W. Rowan, from which the following passage is quoted :

* *

it was

In the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation explained that every agent takes an oath never to divulge the nature of any case before or after resignation, but it was further remarked that it was an oath that could not be enforced once an agent had resigned (pp. 140-143).

** **

This admission of the Government's inability to control the actions. of former agents evoked in connection with a case before Federal Judge Knox who, according to the same author, at pages 146 to 148, rebuked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for carelessness.

Where do F. B. I. agents go when they resign or are discharged by the Department of Justice? The answer to this question is pertinent to the problem of whether or not agents should be trained in the art of using secret interception equipment and allowed to store up secret information obtained thereby. Former Attorney General Cummings

stated before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations, second deficiency appropriation bill for 1939, pages 395 and 396:

These agents (who have left the F. B. I.) accepted more remunerative positions in a number of large commercial concerns representing the automobile industry, department stores, the radio industry, du Pont industries, local investigative agencies, and many others.

As an example of the constant movement of Federal invesigators into industrial positions, which necessarily involve relations with labor and labor groups, one may turn to volume 6, page 1900, of the hearings before the Unfair Labor Practices Committee. There General Motors executives testified that they had replaced the services of undercover labor spies, furnished by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, with former F. B. I. agents.

It may be noted in regard to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, Inc., which has specialized in labor espionage, that high executives of this organization also testified before the same committee. Mr. Robert A. Pinkerton and Mr. Ralph Dudley, while explaining that they had sometimes used scientific devices for intercepting and overhearing telephone and other communications, testified, in part 5, at pages 1585 and 1586:

Mr. DUDLEY. If it was in connection with a case in which we were cooperating with the public authorities and they were using the device and we were assisting them in their work, that would alter the circumstances. I do not think it is uncommon to tap telephone wires by the police departments and the Federal authorities; for that matter, I think it is quite common.

Mr. PINKERTON. the Department of Justice.

** We have frequently, in recent years, worked with

Jacob Spolansky told the House special committee, pursuant to House Resolution 282, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session, part 2, pages 1310 and 1444, that he had worked for years under Mr. J. Edgar Hoover and then had taken up investigative work for the Chrysler automobile interests and the National Metal Trades Association.

Another example of an agent, schooled in wire tapping by the Government, who later went into the industrial field is that of John M. Keith, who gave sworn testimony that in 1936 he occupied a place in the Federal Bureau of Investigation "just one position removed from J. Edgar Hoover." This F. B. I. agent later became superintendent of investigation for Philco Radio & Television Corporation. These facts may be learned from the so-called Bernava case, reported in 95 Fed. (2d) 310, C. C. A. (2d), 1938, record on appeal, pages 50

and 69 to 101.

In two recent political espionage cases wire tapping was allegedly used by former F. B. I. men. Mr. Lee Barton, who is currently testifying before the Senate investigation of wire tapping, told that committee on February 14 that he was a former F. B. I. employee. This agent has been charged by the Senate committee with having tapped the wires of the mayor of Pawtucket, R. I., and of the State attorney general of Rhode Island.

The San Francisco Examiner of March 6, 1940, reported at pages 1 and 10 that Mr. Howard Philbrick, a former special agent of the F. B. I., had become implicated in political espionage activities in California and was being sought for questioning on the subject by a State legislative committee.

Frequent warnings have been given of the infiltration of former investigators into antilabor spy activities. Senate Report No. 1304, made by the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on March 12, 1940, states:

Wire tapping and other unethical devices may lead to a variety of oppressions that may never reach the ears of the courts. They may, for example, have the effect of increasing the power of law-enforcement agencies to oppress factory employees who are under investigation, not for any criminal action, but only by reason of their views and activities in regard to labor unions and other economic movements; this is no fanciful case-such investigations are a fact today. In short, unauthorized and unlawful police objectives may be aided by wire tapping and dictographing practices, the extent of which we are not in a position to estimate without a careful inquiry into all the facts.

This statement relates to suspected present violations of labor's rights by the Federal police. It should be read in connection with the dozens of examples available from past experience.

For instance, Mr. Louis Adamic makes the following statement in his book entitled "Dynamite" at pages 279 and 280. In discussing antilabor activities he reports

Ex-Intelligence Division sleuths and Department of Justice agents *

on leaving the Government service become enterprising dealers in industrial espionage.

Volume 5 of the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, published by Macmillan in 1934, states under the heading "Detective Agencies, Private," page 110:

Most agencies have been organized and are staffed by ex-policemen and Secret Service men, and heads of the larger agencies have held the highest detective jobs with the Federal Government. A former head of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, for example, used Government stationery on an antilabor investigation undertaken by his agency for a private client.

Court records show that during the last World War unions and others suffered from wire tapping by the police. In the case of People v. Hebberd, a high executive of the police became the subject of prosecution after it was charged that he had intercepted private telephone communications of leaders and members of labor unions (96 Misc. 617, 162 N. Y. Supp. 80, 1916).

Attorney General Cummings and his assistant, Carl McFarland, prepared a book entitled "Federal Justice," which both shows that Mr. Hoover, the present Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was in charge of activities against labor groups and others during the period of the Palmer raids (see p. 429, footnote 26), and that the activities of this period were in the main directed against labor. The Attorney General's book states at page 382:

The campaign

*

seemed centered upon labor organizations. To many this was a sordid period, echoes of which are still heard upon occasion.

A previous witness, Miss Josephine T. Adams, as well as spokesmen for labor unions, has pointed to the statement by Mr. Hoover to the effect that his men "would turn crooks in no time" if wire tapping were to be permitted them. It is fair to assume that the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was led to make such a statement as the result of first-hand experience with the demoralizing effects of wire tapping. There is ample evidence that wire tapping has been taught Government employees, at the public expense, in schools maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by other Government departments.

In the Bernava case (record on appeal, p. 70), already cited, Special Agent Edward R. Davis, of the F. B. I., testified that he had been trained in wire tapping at a school conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Former Agent William Kelly, who tapped the wires of a union official in Oklahoma, testified before the National Labor Relations Board (record of hearings, pp. 14251, 14255, Midcontinent Petroleum Company case) that he had received training in wire tapping at a school in Washington maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Other Federal investigative agencies have also maintained such schools. Examples of this teaching by the Government of the art of telephone espionage and the use of the apparatus of message interception may be found in the record on appeal in the case of United States v. Bruno (105 Fed. 2d 191, C. C. A. 2d). A Treasury agent testified in 1938:

I took the course and instruction at a school maintained by the Government in Detroit. The course which I studied was that of supervising telephone wires and also installing taps on telephone wires (Record on Appeal, p. 137).

Another agent testified at the same time:

I took a course in the installation of mechanical devices affecting telephone wires at the Government's school maintained for that purpose in Detroit, Mich. (p. 142).

While a third agent testified:

I have been in the Government service for about 7 years and have taken a course of instruction in New Orleans, La., on placing taps on telephone wires (p. 161).

This testimony was offered 4 years after Congress had outlawed wire tapping by the act of 1934. Numerous other examples of this systematic training in wire tapping provided by the Government could be cited, would they not burden the record of the subcominittee. The record is already replete with examples of wire-tapping activities on the part of Government investigators during the more than 6 years that wire tapping has been illegal, and punishable by as much as 2 years' imprisonment and a fine of $10,000.

Is it likely that those taught the use of wire tapping with the sanction of the United States Government will abandon the familiar practice when they enter the service of private employers? If allowed to a privileged class of Government detectives, will not wire tapping continue to be used in controversies between employers and employees or in other civil controversies?

Labor and the public, furthermore, are the potential victims of present Federal investigative agencies. If the F. B. I., for example, has not hesitated to tap wires when the law of the land made it a crime to do so, what reason is there to believe that the Government detectives would be restrained from breaking future laws by any socalled safeguards which might be embodied in the bills now before the subcommittee? As has been shown in the earlier part of my statement, former or present Federal investigators have proceeded against labor in the past, and their attitude toward labor is apparently such as to make those persons likely to continue to do so in the future. To give the sweeping power to tap wires is to invite the repetition of the abuses of the past or to create new abuses of the future.

It was only a few weeks ago that in an editorial printed in Collier's magazine there was the suggestion that, unless checked, the Federal