Word: bill
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...part, the President would like to see a provision tacked onto his bill calling for registration and licensing of guns. But he fears it would result in time-killing hearings or a lengthy debate in Congress. Without question, he considers the gun-control provision in the omnibus crime bill to be hopelessly weak. He is not at all happy about the rest of the bill, either, though he reluctantly signed it into law last week. Johnson had considered vetoing the bill, but was assured by eleven governmental departments whose advice he had requested that most sections would hold up under...
Johnson was particularly upset by the bill's Title III, authorizing local and state police wiretapping and electronic surveillance under a court order. Calling on Congress to "immediately reconsider" the provision, he warned that it could lead to "a nation of snoopers bending through the keyholes of the homes and offices of America, spying on our neighbors. No conversation in the sanctity of the bedroom would be free from eavesdropping...
...people accused of federal offenses. While the court held in the Miranda case that a defendant must be warned of his rights before evidence is admissible, the Crime Act says that such warnings are unnecessary as long as any confession made by a suspect is deemed voluntary. The bill also permits police to hold a suspect up to six hours-and longer in some cases-without an arraignment. Noting that these provisions apply only to federal cases, Johnson snowed his displeasure by telling the Attorney General and J. Edgar Hoover that federal suspects should still be given "full and fair...
Other provisions of the bill were closer to what the President requested in 1967, when he called on Congress to strike a blow against crime in America. Among these: $400 million for assistance to state and local police in the next two fiscal years-almost 10% of the total amount now spent on all aspects of law enforcement...
...authorizing funds to improve state and city agencies, said Johnson, the bill "responds to one of the most urgent problems in America today-the problem of fighting crime in the local neighborhood and on the city street...