Mr. PICKLE. I ask that that memorandum be made part of the record. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection it is so ordered. (The memorandum referred to follows:) MARCH 7, 1972. I, George E. Angerman, hereby furnish the following voluntary statement to Albert J. McGrath and Mark J. Raabe who have identified themselves to me as members of the staff of the Special Subcommittee on Investigations, Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives. This statement is freely given, no threats, intimidation, promises or inducements having been made to me. I was born on February 8, 1916 at San Diego, California, and presently reside at 11613 Grainsborough Road, Potomac, Maryland 20854. I am currently employed by the C and P Telephone Company as a Staff Associate at the training facility in Adelphi, Maryland. I have been employed by this company for 35 years. During the time of the incident related below, I was a service foreman assigned to the midtown area which encompassed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Building at 1919 M Street, N. W. and its Annex. Sometime in February 1970, the exact date I do not recall, I was telephonically instructed by an employee of the company's marketing or commercial department to install a line or lines from the third floor of FCC space and terminating in the office of Mr. Goldsmith, the FCC's Security Officer, whose office was located on the eighth floor of the same building. I was told to perform this work after hours and to see Mr. Goldsmith for specific instructions. In view of the very unusual nature of this request, I spoke to a top level management official of the company, whose name I don't recall, who instructed me not to accede to this request unless I received the usual formal work order. Upon receiving same, I took the following action: I went to the FCC building accompanied by another company employee who was to perform the necessary installation work. We met Mr. Goldsmith and he showed us the line or lines, I believe it may have been three lines, which he wanted carried to the eighth floor. This request necessitated three connections: in the third floor wire closet; the main frame in the basement; and the wire shaft on the eighth floor. These lines were connected with a telephone instrument which was located in the office of Mr. Goldsmith. An installation of this nature enables an individual using this instrument to not only make and receive calls, but also enables him to overhear any conversations of persons using the line or lines in question on the third floor. Approximately one month later I received another work order requesting the removal of the instrument from the eighth floor. This was done. In connection with this entire transaction I must reiterate that it was most unusual in nature and accordingly I felt compelled to handle the matter personally although ordinarily with small jobs of this nature I woud assign them to a subordinate. The unusual facets were (1) the request to run a line or lines up five floors; (2) the order to perform this small job after hours; (3) the instructions to contact the Security Officer for installation instructions (ordinarily such advice is received from another FCC official); and (4) the short duration of the installation (I was advised the installation was to be for about a month and therefore only made temporary connections.) I have read the foregoing statement consisting of this and two other pages and it is true and correct to the best of my recollection. This statement was read by George E. Angerman on March 7, 1972 in our presence and he stated that the contents are correct to the best of his knowledge and belief, however, upon advice of his company's attorney, for unstated reasons, he did not desire to sign the statement. MARK J. RAABE. Mr. PICKLE. May I continue the question to Mr. Shockro, Mr. Goldsmith, or Mr. Paglin? You then arranged for this "extension" or "wiretap" through a C. & P. official or vice president of the telephone company, and-as Mr. Manelli read-he testified this was an unusual situation, "up five floors, after hours," and everything. Mr. GOLDSMITH. I believe counsel has the wrong identification. The name of the vice president is Finegan. I believe you are talking about an unsigned statement by someone named Angerman. Mr. MANELLI. Angerman made the statement. Mr. PICKLE. Finegan is the vice president? Mr. GOLDSMITH. The installer is Angerman. Mr. PICKLE. The vice president was contacted, and they talked to their attorneys. Would you say this would make C. & P. a party to this controversy? Mr. PAGLIN. You said they spoke to their attorney. I have no such knowledge. In my knowledge, what happened, in view of the circumstances, the sensitivity as I discussed this morning, was that I called Mr. Finegan and asked whether physically such an installation could be arranged, was it feasible. Mr. PICKLE. You didn't ask whether it physically could be done? Mr. PAGLIN. I indicated it involved a personnel security matter and we wanted it handled in other than the ordinary manner because at that time or later I indicated, as came out earlier in testimony, I wanted the billing handled specially and not as handled on normal billing. He indicated it could be done and I never spoke to him or anybody from C. & P. since. Mr. PICKLE. If a C. & P. attorney and vice president of the company were familiar with the request and, we assume, had briefed it, they were a party to the negotiations, it would seem and many people might say it put the FCC in a compromising position. Here is a head of a utility company who knows that you are engaged in an act that is questionable, if not illegal. Mr. BURCH. That is an assumption, I can't go along with that assumption; I didn't go along with anything like that. Mr. PICKLE. I didn't charge it, I say many people would say, there could be that kind of interpretation that the company does know you were engaged in an act that would certainly be questionable; and to the extent they would either know it, it could be by speculation carried to the extreme. The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions? Mr. MANELLI. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, hold fast for a moment. In closing the hearing, I would just like to make these few remarks. Chairman Burch, we will take this matter under advisement to see what has gone on here. Certainly we appreciate your concern that privileged information should not be leaked to persons outside the Commission who have no legitimate right to possess it, and we know that you do have a serious problem in this regard. On the other hand, mere suspicion and speculation of possible guilt does not establish that a person is in fact guilty-not yet in America. A person does not sacrifice his right to privacy and his constitutional privileges by virtue of becoming a Government employee. Here we had an instance of what I think was clearly illegal wiretapping being carried out on the premises of the very Government agency which should, above all others, be highly sensitive concerning the laws governing such matters. Furthermore, the monitoring activity was also, in my view, clearly contrary to FCC Administrative Order No. 12. That order had been in effect for 8 years at the time this activity was started. It is difficult for me to understand how such investigative techniques-that is, the setting up of a secret tape recorder or the alternative of a secret telephone extension-could have been so casually proposed and considered by you and your staff without some more careful consideration of the law and your agency's own regulations. We have, of course, the further distressing factor of a clear misstatement of fact being supplied to a congressional committee in response to a formal request for information which the committee required to discharge its proper legislative oversight function. All of these matters are very serious. And they have become more serious in view of the position that has been taken this morning that such activity is not really illegal. This has severe implications, not only for the FCC but for other regulatory agencies as well. I think that you went into this without any deliberate desire to break the law or to invade the rights of any person, and that mitigates the circumstances at least partially. I sincerely hope that such an incident will never be repeated, either at the FCC or at any other branch of Government, because I hope that this committee will continue to have oversight and closer oversight than in the past over all the agencies downtown. I hope we can pass the bill I proposed in 1970 which will make it much easier for the agencies to do their job. I think it is an important bill; I thought so then and I think so now. This is all I have to say, and this will conclude the hearings at this time. Mr. SPRINGER. I just want to say in conclusion I support the chairman's legislation and I intend to introduce it tomorrow. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. This concludes our hearing. (Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m. the subcommittee adjourned.) |