◆ SpookStack

"· Approved For Release 2008/11/06: CIA-RDP04M01816R000502010009-4 38 meet standards of consideration and limitation similar to those the Judicial Branch would impose on itself. 27/ The law we have described is of recent vintage. As was pointed out earlier, it was far from clear until 1967 that the judiciary would become involved in issuing warrants for surveillance even in criminal cases. Not until-after Katz ·- did courts begin to consider and delineate the requirements ·of specificity, personal responsibility, and limited duration that today limit the exercis& of Executive Branch powers~ It seems fair to conclude that. at the time the East Coast --------------------------. Project began, it was assumed that the President could, without issuing explicit delegations of power, allow others ...____ ___________ -:----:--------- to speak for him in this field. So far as the CIA was concerned, the words of anyone who appea;~g __ tQ __ pe auth~-~~~!d to speak for the President had the same legal effect as the - . . -----·--····" .. .. . . President's own words. 27/ No. 74-1882, D.C. Cir., decided May 17, 1976, slip op. 31. Enrlichman involved an inexplicit mandate which gave a general instruction to accomplish a particular end but did not discuss the means or techniques to be used to reach that end. Unlike the Ehrlichm.an case, there was an aura of presidential authority permeating tfie mail opening program for the two decades in which the technique was used. In addition, the program was not carried out, as the physical search was in Ehrlichman, by "an amorphous, ad hoc unit with no tradition of public service and no clear linesof responsibility," slip op. at 30, but by the unit of government established by Congress for the conduct of foreign intelligence ope~ations. A roved For Release 2008/11/06: CIA-RDP04M01816R000502010009-4