CONTENTS
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Letter of Transmittal

Preface

I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

A. Intelligence Activity: A New Form of Governmental Power to Impair Citizens' Rights

B. The Questions

C. Summary of the Main Problems

1. The Number of People Affected by Domestic Intelligence Activity
2. Too Much Information Is Collected For Too Long
3. Covert Action and the Use of Illegal or Improper Means

a. Covert Action

(1) The FBI's COINTELPRO
(2) Martin Luther King, Jr.

b. Illegal or Improper Means

(1) Mail Opening
(2) NSA Monitoring
(3) Electronic Surveillance
(4) Political Abuse
(5) Surreptitious Entries
(6) Informants

4. Ignoring the Law
5. Deficiencies in Accountability and Control
6. The Adverse Impact of Improper Intelligence Activity

a. General Efforts to Discredit
b. Media Manipulation
c. Distorting Data to Influence Government Policy and Public Perceptions
d. "Chilling" First Amendment Rights
e. Preventing the Free Exchange of Ideas

7. Cost and Value

II. THE GROWTH OF DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE, 1936 to 1976:

A. Summary

1. The Lesson: History Repeats Itself
2. The Pattern: Broadening Through Time
3. Three Periods of Growth for Domestic Intelligence

B. Establishing a Permanent Domestic Intelligence Structure: 1936-1945

1. Background: The Stone Standard
2. Main Developments of the 1936-1945 Period
3. Domestic Intelligence Authority: Vague and Conflicting Executive Orders

a. The Original Roosevelt Orders
b. Orders in 1938-39: The Vagueness of "Subversive Activities" and "Potential" Crimes
c. Orders 1940-43: The Confusion Continues

4. The Role of Congress

a. Executive Avoidance of Congress
b. Congress Declines to Confront the Issue

5. Scope of Domestic Intelligence

a. Beyond Criminal Investigations
b. "Infiltration" Investigations
c. Partisan Use
d. Centralized Authority: FBI and Military Intelligence

6. Control by the Attorney General: Compliance and Resistance
7. Intrusive Techniques: Questionable Authorization

a. Wiretaps: A Strained Statutory Interpretation
b. Bugging, Mail Opening, and Surreptitious Entry

C. Domestic Intelligence in the Cold War Era: 1946-1963

1. Main Developments of the 1946-1963 Period
2. Domestic Intelligence Authority

a. Anti-Communist Consensus
b. The Federal Employee Loyalty-Security Program

(1) Origins of the Program
(2) Breadth of Investigations
(3) FBI Control of Loyalty-Security Investigations

c. Executive Directives: Lack of Guidance and Controls

3. Scope of Domestic Intelligence

a. "Subversive Activities"

(1) The Number of Investigations
(2) Vague and Sweeping Standards
(3) COMINFIL
(4) Exaggeration of Communist Influence

b. "Racial Matters" and "Hate Groups
c. FBI Political Intelligence for the White House
d. IRS Investigation of Political Organizations

4. Accountability and Control

a. Emergency Detention Act
b. Withholding Information
c. CIA Domestic Activity

(1) Vague Controls on CIA
(2) Drug Testing and Cover Programs

5. Intrusive Techniques

a. Communication Interception: CIA and NSA
b. FBI Covert Techniques

(1) Electronic Surveillance
(2) "Black Bag" Jobs
(3) Mail Opening

c. Use of FBI Wiretaps

6. Domestic Covert Action

a. COINTELPRO: Communist Party
b. Early Expansion of COINTELPRO

D. Intelligence and Domestic Dissent: 1964-1976

1. Main Points During the 1964-1976 Period
2. Scope of Domestic Intelligence

a. Domestic Protest and Dissent: FBI

(1) Racial Intelligence
(2) "New Left" Intelligence

b. FBI Informants

(1) Infiltration of the Klan
(2) "Listening Posts" in the Black Community
(3) Infiltration of the "New Left

c. Army Surveillance of Civilian Political Activity
d. Federal Encouragement of Local Police Intelligence
e. The Justice Department's Interdivision Information Unit (IDIU)
f. COMINFIL Investigations: Overbreadth

3. Domestic Intelligence Authority

a. FBI Intelligence
b. Army Intelligence
c. FBI Interagency Agreements

4. Domestic Covert Action

a. COINTELPRO

(1) Klan and "White Hate"
(2) "Black Nationalist" COINTELPRO
(3) "New Left" COINTELPRO

b. FBI Target Lists

(1) "Rabble Rouser/ Agitator" Index
(2) "Key Activist" Program
(3) "Key Black Extremist" Program
(4) Security Index

c. Internal Revenue Service Programs

(1) Misuse by FBI and CIA
(2) The Special Service Staff: IRS Targeting of Ideological Groups

5. Foreign Intelligence and Domestic Dissent

a. Origins of CIA Involvement in "Internal Security Functions
b. CIA Intelligence About Domestic Political Groups

(1) CIA Response to FBI Requests
(2) Operation CHAOS

c. CIA Security Operations Within the United States: Protecting "Sources" and "Methods"
d. NSA Monitoring

6. Intrusive Techniques

a. Warrantless Electronic Surveillance

(1) Executive Branch Restrictions on Electronic Surveillance: 1965-68
(2) Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968(3) Supreme Court Restrictions on National Security Electronic Surveillance: 1972

b. CIA Mail Opening
c. Expansion of NSA Monitoring
d. FBI cutbacks

(1) The Long Subcommittee Investigation
(2) Director Hoover's Restrictions

7. Accountability and Control

a. The Huston Plan: A Domestic Intelligence Network

(1) Intelligence Community Pressures
(2) The Interagency CommitteeReport
(3) Implementation

b. Political Intelligence

(1) Name Check Requests
(2) Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, 1964
(3) By-Product of Foreign Intelligence Coverage
(4) The Surveillance of Joseph Kraft (1969)
(5) The "17" Wiretaps

c. The Justice Department's Internal Security Division

(1) The "new" Internal Security Division
(2) The Sullivan-Mardian Relationship

d. The FBI's Secret "Administrative Index

8. Reconsideration of FBI Authority

a. Developments in 1972-1974
b. Recent Domestic Intelligence Authority

III. FINDINGS

A. Major Finding: Violating and Ignoring the Law

Subfindings:

(a) Violating Statutory Law and Constitutional Rights
(b) Ignoring Illegal Issues
(c) Continuing Legal Activities
(d) Tightening Security for Illegal Activities
(e) Concealing Illegal Activities
(f) Weakness of Internal Inspection
(g) Weakness of Oversight by Senior Administration Officials

B. Major Finding: The Overbreadth of Domestic Intelligence Activity

Subfindings:

(a) Broad Scope of investigations
(b) Imprecise Standards for Investigations
(c) Overinclusive Targeting
(d) "Vacuum Cleaner" Approach
(e) Excessively Long Investigations

C. Major Finding- Excessive Use of Intrusive Techniques

Subfindings:

(a) Insufficient Legal Standards and Procedures
(b) Excessive Collection Coupled with Violent and Illegal Activities of Informants and Difficulty of Limiting Surveillance
(c) Imprecise Labels Lead to Abusive Use of Techniques

D. Major Finding: Using Covert Action to Disrupt and Discredit Domestic Groups

Subfindings:

(a) Targeting Law-Abiding Citizens
(b) Interference With First Amendment Rights
(c) Dangerous Covert Tactics
(d) Actions Against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

E. Major Finding: Political Abuse of Intelligence Information

Subfindings:

(a) Political Intelligence for the White House
(b) Dissemination of Incidental Political or Personal Information
(c) Volunteering Information to the White House and Targeting Critics and Political Figures
(d) Influencing Social Policy and Political Action

F. Major Finding: Inadequate Controls on Dissemination and Retention

Subfindings:

(a) Volunteering Irrelevant Information and responding Unquestioningly to Requests
(b) Excessive Dissemination
(c) Federal Employee Security Program
(d) FBI Retention of Sensitive, Derogatory, and Illegally Obtained Information

G. Major Finding: Deficiencies in Control and Accountability

Subfindings:

(a) Presidential Failure to Limit and Control Intelligence Activities
(b) Attorneys General Failure to Limit and Control FBI Intelligence Activities
(c) Encouraging Political Intelligence
(d) Executive Failures to Inquire
(e) Congressional Failure to Oversee Intelligence Activity and Exert Legislative Control
(f) Intelligence Agencies Act with Insufficient Authorization
(g) Termination of Abusive Operations

IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Conclusions
B. Principles Applied in Framing Recommendations and the Scope of Recommendations
C. Recommendations

1. Intelligence Agencies Are Subject to the Rule of Law (Recommendations 1-3)
2. United States Foreign and Military Agencies Should Be Precluded From Domestic Security Activities (Recommendations 4-27)

a. Central Intelligence Agency (Recommendations 4-13)
b. National Security Agency (Recommendations 14-19)
c. Military Service and Defense Department Investigative Agencies (Recommendations 20-26)

3. Non-Intelligence Agencies Should Be Barred From Domestic Security Activity (Recommendations 27-37)

a. Internal Revenue Service (Recommendations 27-35)
b. Post Office (U.S. Postal Service) (Recommendations 36-37)

4. Federal Domestic Security Activities Should Be Limited and Controlled to Prevent Abuses Without Hampering Criminal Investigations or Investigations of Foreign Espionage (Recommendations 38-69)

a. Centralize Supervision, Investigative Responsibility, and the Use of Covert Techniques (Recommendations 38-39)
b. Prohibitions (Recommendations 40-41)
c. Authorized Scope of Domestic Security Investigations (Recommendations 42-49)
d. Authorized Investigative Techniques (Recommendations 50-63)
e. Maintenance and Dissemination of Information (Recommendations 64-68)
f. Attorney General Oversight of the FBI, Including Termination of Investigations and Covert Techniques (Recommendation 69)

5. The Responsibility and Authority of the Attorney General for Oversight for Federal Domestic Security Activities must be clarified and General Counsel and Inspectors General of Intelligence Agencies Strengthened (Recommendations 70-86)

a. Attorney General Responsibility and Relationship With Other Intelligence Agencies (Recommendations 70-74)
b. General Counsel and Inspectors General of Intelligence Agencies (Recommendations 75-81)
c. Office of Professional Responsibility (Recommendation 82)
d. Director of the FBI and Assistant Directors of the FBI (Recommendations 83-85)

6. Administrative Rulemaking and Increased Disclosure Should Be Required (Recommendations 86-89)

a. Administrative Rulemaking (Recommendations 86-88)
b. Disclosure (Recommendations 89-90)

7. Civil Remedies Should Be Expanded (Recommendation 91)
8. Criminal Penalties Should Be Enacted (Recommendation 92)
9. The Smith Act and the Voorhis Act Should Either Be Repealed or Amended (Recommendation 93)
10. The Espionage Statute Should Be Modernized (Recommendation 94)
11. Broaden Access to Intelligence Agency Files Should Be Provided to GAO, as an Investigative Arm of the Congress (Recommendation 95)
12. Congressional Oversight Should Be Intensified (Recommendation 96)
13. Definitions

Appendix A: Senate Resolution 21

Appendix B: Previously Issued Hearings and Reports of Senate Select Committee

Appendix C: Staff Acknowledgments

Additional Views:

Philip A. Hart
Robert Morgan
Introduction to Separate Views of Senators John G. Tower, Howard H. Baker, Jr., and Barry Goldwater
John G. Tower
Howard H. Baker, Jr
Barry Goldwater
Charles McC. Mathias, Jr