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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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 Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 6:35 pm Post subject: Never Thought I Would Say “Thank you Jimmy Carter” Until Now |
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I never thought the words “Thank you Jimmy Carter” would come out of my mouth, but it just did!!
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U.S. OFFICIALS DEFINE POLICY ON SEARCHES The New York Times November 9, 1980, Sunday, Late City Final Edition
LENGTH: 1009 words
HEADLINE: U.S. OFFICIALS DEFINE POLICY ON SEARCHES
BYLINE: By ROBERT PEAR, Special to the New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 1980
BODY:
Justice Department lawyers say that the President still has the ‘’inherent authority'’ to order searches without warrants to collect foreign intelligence within the United States, despite the criminal conviction this week of two former officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who said they had approved such searches in 1972 and 1973.
Kenneth C. Bass 3d, chief of the department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, recently advised the Director of the bureau that ‘’the President has inherent authority to authorize warrantless foreign intelligence searches'’ in cases involving spies or other agents of a foreign power. Mr. Bass added that ‘’as a general rule'’ intelligence officials would seek advance approval for such searches from a new court that conducts all its business in secret.
Mr. Bass’s comments, the most authoritative statement of the Government’s position on a sensitive constitutional issue, were contained in a memorandum that he sent on Oct. 14 to William H. Webster, Director of the bureau. A copy of the memorandum was admitted as evidence at the trial of W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, the former F.B.I. officials convicted Thursday of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.
Testimony in the seven-and-a-half-week trial showed that Mr. Felt and Mr. Miller had authorized a series of break-ins in an effort to find fugitive members of the radical Weather Underground organization. The group took responsibility for numerous bombings of public buildings in the early 1970’s, including the United States Capitol, the Pentagon and the State Department.
‘Concurrent Jurisdiction’
Mr. Bass said in an interview yesterday that ‘’the Government has never conceded that the President lacks constitutional authority to authorize surreptitious entries in foreign intelligence cases where there is an agent of a foreign power involved.'’
He added that Federal judges had ‘’concurrent jurisdiction'’ with the President to approve physical searches for intelligence purposes. Accordingly, he said, ‘’the Attorney General has determined that the Government will, as a general rule, seek prior judicial authorization for intelligence seaches,'’ except where such a procedure would ‘’frustrate the executive’s duty to protect the national security.'’
Requests for intelligence search warrants will be filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a special seven-judge court created by Congress in 1978 to review requests for wiretaps and other types of electronic surveillance. Mr. Bass said that Congress had not given the tribunal explicit statutory authority to approve physical searches, but he added that members of the court, as Federal judges, had ‘’inherent powers'’ to review and approve intelligence searches that affect constitutional rights.
The searches authorized by Mr. Felt and Mr. Miller affected the rights of friends and relatives of the Weather Underground fugitives. Defense attorneys said that search warrants were not required because the ‘’black bag jobs'’ were part of a foreign intelligence investigation of possible links between the radicals and hostile foreign countries.
1978 Executive Order Cited
An executive order issued by President Carter in January 1978 established the standard that governs the use of searches for intelligence purposes today. Such searches, it said, ‘’shall not be undertaken against a United States person without a judicial warrant, unless the President has authorized the type of activity involved and the Attorney General has both approved the particular activity and determined that there is probable cause to believe that the United States person is an agent of a foreign power.'’
A ‘’United States person'’ is a citizen or a permanent resident alien. The searches authorized by Mr. Felt and Mr. Miller would probably not meet the current standard because, according to evidence at the trial, they were not specifically approved by the Attorney General or the President, and the occupants of the apartments searched were not suspected of being foreign agents.
The creation of Mr. Bass’s office by former Attorney General Griffin B. Bell last year illustrates the Carter Administration’s efforts to impose the rule of law on intelligence operations. Attorneys for Mr. Felt and Mr. Miller said that their clients had no clear guidance on the requirements of the law pertaining to search and seizure in 1972 and 1973.
Odell O. Valentine, the foreman of the jury that convicted Mr. Felt and Mr. Miller, said that the verdict was ‘’based on the Fourth Amendment, the privacy of your home.'’
No ‘Foreign Connections’ Found
‘’We looked through all the evidence,'’ he said, ‘’and couldn’t find any evidence showing that the break-ins had foreign intelligence'’ objectives or proving that the victims had ‘’foreign connections.'’
Another juror, Amelia C. Mebane, said: ‘’We tried very, very hard to reach some other kind of conclusion, to find some excuse for going into those homes, some part of the law that we could apply favorably to these men, but we couldn’t. We really tried to make it a national security case, but we just couldn’t.'’
Mrs. Mebane, a 52-year-old Federal employee, also said that ‘’we needed documents'’ showing that Mr. Felt and Mr. Miller ‘’went to the President and that the President gave them the O.K. to go into those homes, but we didn’t find that and Nixon didn’t say it.'’
Like several other jurors, Mrs. Mebane said that she had given no special weight to the testimony of former President Richard M. Nixon. ‘’I don’t know that we reacted to him any different than we did to any other witness,'’ she added. |
SBD |
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Schadow
Vice Admiral
Joined: 30 Sep 2004
Posts: 936
Location: Huntsville, Alabama
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| Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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An interesting sidenote on the fates of Felt and Miller is the fact that Ronald Reagan granted the two men full and unconditional pardons on 15 Apr 1981, just two weeks after Reagan was shot. Reagan's remarks about the pardons follow:
| Quote: | Pursuant to the grant of authority in article II, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States, I have granted full and unconditional pardons to W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller.
During their long careers, Mark Felt and Edward Miller served the Federal Bureau of Investigation and our nation with great distinction. To punish them further — after 3 years of criminal prosecution proceedings — would not serve the ends of justice.
Their convictions in the U.S. District Court, on appeal at the time I signed the pardons, grew out of their good-faith belief that their actions were necessary to preserve the security interests of our country. The record demonstrates that they acted not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government.
America was at war in 1972, and Messrs. Felt and Miller followed procedures they believed essential to keep the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General, and the President of the United States advised of the activities of hostile foreign powers and their collaborators in this country. They have never denied their actions, but, in fact, came forward to acknowledge them publicly in order to relieve their subordinate agents from criminal actions.
Four years ago, thousands of draft evaders and others who violated the Selective Service laws were unconditionally pardoned by my predecessor. America was generous to those who refused to serve their country in the Vietnam war. We can be no less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation. |
Ironically, Mark Felt is the man who recently revealed that he was Woodward's "Deep Throat". Really ironic is the fact that shortly after the pardons were issued, ex-President Richard Nixon sent the two men bottles of champagne with notes saying, "Justice ultimately prevails".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Mark_Felt#Pardoned_by_Reagan
Schadow
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Capt, 8th U.S. Army, Korea '53 - '54 |
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