Word: wiretap
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Annoyed to Tears. He demanded that the accusers who had been leaking documents to the press identify themselves and explain their motives. He revealed that he had already asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to reopen its investigation of the wiretap controversy and give him a clean bill of health...
...threatening to resign, Kissinger simply added to his troubles. Until he overdramatized the situation, not many people took it too seriously. They wanted explanations, not a resignation. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in particular, was extremely friendly to Kissinger. The committee was perfectly willing to forget about the whole wiretap episode in the interest of letting Kissinger function as Secretary of State. But now that he has demanded another investigation of the affair, the committee has no choice but to comply. Its hearings will keep the issue before the public for weeks, and possibly months more...
...handed down in a federal case against Dominic N. Giordano, a Baltimore drug dealer who was indicted in 1970 on narcotics charges. The Justices ruled 9-0 that a lower court had properly dismissed Giordano's indictment because the evidence against him had been obtained in an unlawful wiretap. The 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act gave federal investigators vastly expanded authority to use taps-as long as they were personally approved by the Attorney General or a specially designated assistant. But dozens of authorizations, including those in the Giordano case, were simply initialed...
...reticent. Aide Lindenbaum bluntly blames the foul-up on Mitchell's overwhelming preoccupation with political concerns-particularly with promoting the Administration's law-and-order image. As Lindenbaum has been telling it, Mitchell never bothered to authorize any one of his eight Assistant Attorneys General to sign wiretap requests; he apparently wanted to sign them himself-the better to enhance his chosen political pose as a tough, sleeves-up crime fighter. So, at first, Lindenbaum would prepare the necessary papers, which Mitchell would hurriedly sign. After a while, Lindenbaum took to signing Mitchell's initials...
Similarly, Hoffa sweepingly condemns government transgressions of civil liberties, but seems reluctant to assign blame. He opposes wiretapping, but is unwilling to condemn the Nixon administration directly for asserting its unlimited authority to wiretap without court order: "I'm opposed to all wiretapping, I'm opposed to room bugging, I'm opposed to any kind of spy system against people in this country...