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Surreptitious Entries Black Bag Jobs — Part 4
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Mr. Apa. I do not think that there were improper actions taken
under the program, even under the program as it existed. Mr. Kelley
has 20 stated his recognition of that fact. The Attorney General cer-
tainly has, Yet the majority of the actions taken, even the Department
concluded were lawful and legal, proper investigation activities, but
are-—-—— e
Senator Harr of Michigan. You see, my feeling is that it isn’t a qu
tion of techniques that are bad. The concept of the program seems to
do violence to the first amendment because everything you did sought
to silence someone or threaten someone to silence, or deny someone &
~ platform, or create an atmosphere in which people were in fact afraid
to assemble. Now, sometimes law enforcement. legitimate law enforce-
ment, has what we call this chilling effect, when it is legitimate law
enforcement. Oftentimes that chilling effect is a necessary, though
regretable, side effect. But what I am talking about, and what these
files are full of, are actions the only purpose of which is to chill. It
isn’t in pursuit of any crime at all. Indeed, when a court of general
jurisdiction approved the use of that university premise ]
speaker, the Bureau had stirred so much controversy with its
anonymous letters, when that judge wrote an order, after the sponsor-
ing group went to court, what was the Bureau's reaction from head-
quarters? Investigate the judge.
Mr. Apaws, I’m not familiar with that fact,
Senator Harr of Michigan. Well. neither was I until last night.
Mr. Apasra. The instruction was to investigate the judge
Senator Harr of Michigan. This is the sort of thing that I came out
of the hospital to find, and it is the sort of thing, as I said yesterday,
that my children have been telling me for years you were busy doing,
and I simply didn’t believe them. And they were right and I was
wrong.
Mr. Apams. Well, there were about 3.200 activities. and about 2.300 I
believe or so were approved under the COINTELPRO, and over 59
percent were addressed to the Communist Party. That leaves 1,000.
And out of 1,000, perhaps, I don’t know what the actual figure was
of ones that just clearly stand out as improprietous under the pro- _
. even as it existed at the time, but I do feel that—well, it is a
very difficult area.
Senator Hart of Michigan. My time is up, too, I am sure, but
regarding the Communist Party, if your theory continues to be that
any socially active group of citizens who organize. whether women’s
libbers or fight the bomb or anything else, might be a target for
infiltration by the Communist Party and therefore you can move
in your agents. That means, almost not as an overstatement, that any
and every citizen's activity could be made the target of the kind of
activity that I have just described, because every individual is apt.
during his lifetime, to engage in violence. If that is justification, then
you are justified in running surveillance on everybody,
Mr. Apams, Weill. that was not——
Senator Huagr of Michigan. Everybody has that privilege, and that
clearly is a police-state concept. -
Mr. Apams, That is not our criteria. ;
Senator Harr of Michigan. All right, but if the criteria is three or
four of us get together and we have a sort of nutty idea, just the
kind of thing the Communists would like to exploit, and therefore you
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