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A ee ee teeter Rine e - He can expect a moonlit night. An ocean cruise. A hole in one. A first at Sebring. A Broadway hit. Everything seems commonplace next to Colt 45 Malt Liquor. Aree tennant itenaonte: Seine it Aas © west Kn men ana heen naman aera re eee 7 law enforcement: the rest will be be tween innocent: persons. But that won't prevent the invasion of their privacy by eavesdropping policemen. Mr. Turner's disclosure that he practiced wire tapping as an FBI agent is a fascinating bit of intelligence ‘when you consider that J. Edgar Hoover has called the practice unethical and detrimental to sound po- lice practice. Jf I remember correctly, he said, “The discredit and suspicion of the law-enforcing branch which arises from the occasional use of wire tapping more ‘than offsets the good which is likely to come of it.” TURNER: He's quite right—though it doesn’t alter the fact that the Bureau uses it as a matter of course. Very litdle positive information comes across a wire tap, however, unless it's from an inno- cent and naive person, and those aren't the people police are after. When 1 was with the Bureau, we used the tap almost entirely on cases of subversive activity, but we rarely picked up anything useful. The same time and energy could have been better spent on some other tech- nique. The FBI doesn't really depend on the tap very much; the agency rarely has more than 100 taps going at any one time. PLAYBOY: That sounds like a lot of wire tapping. TURNER: Not when you consider that the New York City police have at least that many going at one time just within the city limits. But I think the argument over wire taps sometimes distracts from a more invidious practice: the planting of hidden microphones. A bug picks up not only phone conversations but every- thing, including pillow talk. And invari- ably a trespass is committed to install it, which is not the case with wire taps. As you may know, the FBI publicly ac- knowledges “thé niiffiber of taps “it~ Was across the country at any one time. Once I was ordered to pull out a tap because one was being installed in another city; this would keep the books in balance. Bat To owas at the same time ordered to install a bug to replace the tap. The FBI does not aumounce the number of bugs it has going. PEMBERTON: And our technological revo- lution is spawning dozens of new caves- dropping devices every year. Sooner or later, inevitably, miniature cclevision transmitters like the ones in Dick Tracy will be developed and we will have en- tered the era of 1984 with Big Brother's eye on us day and“ nighy. And don’t think certain police officials will hesitate to use it. In California they even bugged a bedroom shared by the speaker of the California Assembly and his wife. Any assumption that wire tapping and eaves- dropping has been or will be confined to criminals is naive. cere ee Pile Re ee ce ee ttle fascist at the other end a juicy ‘earful! COOK: Everybody I know who is at all vulnerable asses bis phone is tapped. TP yawve ever opencd your mouth in pro- test, raised your voice on a controversial issuc. you tiatke it for granted that your phone is tapped. But I don’t know what can be done about it. It's alarmingly widespread—and_ becoming more so every day. PEMBERTON: I know an enterprising re- porter for the Chicago Sun-Times who called on 11 private detectives picked at random from the phone directory. He asked cach to set up a wire tap and made his reasons progressively more despica- ble. Finally he asked a detective to bug a priest's confessional, rather hoping he would get a punch in the nose for even suggesting it. But the detective blandly agreed. Only one nan turned him down, and even he offered to help arrange a tap. The reporter ended his investigation con- vinced that almost every one of the city’s 200-odd agencies not only could have but would have sct up a tap on absolutely anyone. It's a ghastly commentary. But how can the government prosecute when it's hypocritically breaking the same law? PLAYBOY: How do you feel about the le- gility and morality of other invasions of “privacy in the name of law enforcement —such as the mail cover. for example, by means of which policemen keep a log of all incoming and outgoing mail with the collaboration of postal officials? TURNER: The Postmaster General recently put a stop to that practice, I'm happy to Say. At least he’s said he has: I'm always a bit skeptical. I have every reason to be- lieve that a Federal agency puta mail cover on me not long ago. I sent two MmuUnUscripts LO Magazines in New York, and shortly ‘afterward. two Federal agenis called"6n the editors and asked to see the manuscripts. They had no legal way of knowing such manuscripts even existed, much less that they had arrived at those specific editorial offices. Un- doubtedly they had gotten wind of the fact that Twas working ona couple of pieces about the FBI, and had correctly surmised the obvious: that they were not entirely sympathetic. Knowing that many editors could: be intimidated by x cull from Federal agents, they decided to try it, but one of the editors balked: arid that piece was published. [ don't know why the agents were so concerned: it was only a critique of the FBI for its incom- petence in failing wo prevent the Kennedy assassination, PLAYBOY: In addition to mail covers, postal inspectors have also resorted to spying on their own employees through one-way mirrors and peepholes in toilets. And the Walter Jenkins case revealed that the cama marhadte avn etd. adele ewe eee ee i | | Perna |