he Carter administration. Consequently, on April 18, 1980, the Senate Intelligence Committee moved to abandon charter reform for the CIA and immediately held legislative sessions on "an abbreviated new proposal." The committee said it would not hold hearings on the substitute for fear that any further debate would prevent the bill from being enacted this year.19 The following day, April 19, the committee agreed to drop its previous demand for prior congressional notice of all CIA covert operations.20
The shortened S.B. 2284, which was described by some in the news media as a compromise, was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee on May 8, 1980. The bill established a broad congressional right to monitor the nation's intelligence activities, focusing mainly on the oversight of the CIA. The revised S.B. 2284 provides the Senate and House Intelligence Committees with the sole authority to oversee the intelligence community, in effect repealing the Hughes-Ryan Amendment of 1974 that allowed eight congressional committees to hear reports on covert activities. The bill also creates a complex reporting procedure that requires the president to keep the two committees "fully and currently" informed of a wide variety of activities. However, the legislation recognizes and encourages the declaration of an inherent presidential right to avoid such reporting in some situations.21
Senator Edward Kennedy has introduced legislation called the FBI Charter (S.B. 1612/H.R. 5030). There is considerable debate by civil liberties groups as to whether S.B. 1612 will prevent future COINTELPRO types of actions by the FBI or whether it would, in fact, authorize the bureau legally to carry out activities that were formerly illegal. The bill:
authorizes FBI investigations of terrorism, defined as acts of violence;
outlaws investigations of individuals and organizations solely because of their political or religious views;
permits wiretapping, mail opening, and the use of undercover agents under certain circumstances;
permits the use of journalists, clergymen, and others as informants who, although they cannot initiate crimes, can participate in crimes to protect their covers;
provides new FBI exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act, including a statutory ban on the release of the names of FBI informants;
permits increased access to credit and insurance records of citizens, without securing subpoenas;
fails to provide a mechanism for citizens whose civil liberties have been violated to seek redress.22
Due to the current 1980 presidential election campaign, no action has yet been taken on S.B. 1612/H.R. 5030. Lobbying efforts, however, continue (see, e.g., Appendix D).
With the CIA unleashed and the possibility that the Kennedy bill, if enacted, will do the same for the FBI, it would seem that the actions described in this study by government agencies to destroy the Black Panther Party and other dissident groups may, in the future, become entrenched in the U.S. government. Tom Wicker has noted that the new CIA charter will more than ever make the agency into an "invisible government. "23 Former CIA agent Philip Agree, who is now literally a man without a country because of his public revelations of illegal CIA activities, has uncovered the core of the problem surrounding CIA abuses, actions that can be equally applied to the FBI and other intelligence agencies:
... the main concern is not really with the CIA, but with the people who run the U.S.¡ªthe CIA acts as their instrument¡ªthese are the people who run the multinational corporations, who own the banks, who control the traditional political process, the professionals who service all of them and the military-industrial interlock. This relatively small group of people have a need for the CIA and what it's been doing over the years. And until changes occur in the U.S. in terms of political power and economic control, there will be a need for the CIA from the point of view of this small minority.24
The philosopher George Santayana warned, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." If illegal government abuses as have occurred in the past against the Black Panther Party and other dissident groups are legalized in the future, as now seems likely, the western world will not be "safe for democracy."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 See pp. [84-88].
2 Testimony of Clarence M. Kelley, director, FBI (U.S. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Hearings before a Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights [November 20, 1974] 93rd Cong., 2d sess., 1974, pp. 44-45.) Kelley also stated his "feeling that the FBI's counterintelligence programs had an impact on the crises of the time and, therefore, that they helped to bring about a favorable change in this country." Testimony of Clarence M. Kelley, director, FBI, December 10, 1975 (U.S. Congress, Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Hearings, 94th Cong., 1st sess., 1975. Vol. 6. FBI), pp. 283-284.
3 IRS News Release (IR-1323), August 9, 1973.
4 See p. [89].
5 Victor S. Navasky, Kennedy Justice (New York: Atheneum, 1971), p. 58. The reference to "getting racketeers on a VA application" is about "the notorious Louis Gallo and his father," who "were indicted for submitting false income statement on a VA loan application for a home mortgage." (Ibid., p. 57.) This book details the history of the Department of Justice under Robert Kennedy, documenting the vigor with which alleged organized crime figures were prosecuted and the comparatively lackluster enforcement of civil rights laws under the same administration.
6 See, e.g., generally Sidney Thomas Lens, Radicalism in America (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1969).
7 Thomas I. Emerson, The System of Freedom of Expression (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 432-433.
8 U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Final Report: Book III. (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off, 1976) (94th Cong., 2d sess., Senate Rept. No. 94-755), p. 7. [pp. 185-223]
9 Ibid.
10 U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Political Intelligence in the Internal Revenue Service: The Special Service Staff A Documentary Analysis (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off, 1974) (93rd Cong., 2d session.), p. 51.
11 Center for National Security Studies. "The National Intelligence Act and the Rights of Americans." First Principles: National Security and Civil Liberties 5 (March/April 1980): 1.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 2.
14 Book III: Final Report, p. 75
15 Ibid. p. 5.
16 "The National Intelligence Act," First Principles, p. 217 Wise, "Free Again," Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1980.
18 "The National Intelligence Act," First Principles, p.3
19 Washington Post, April 18,1980.
20 Ibid., April 19, 1980.
21 Charles Mohr, "Panel Backs Review Over Intelligence," New York Times, May 9, 1980.
22 Campaign for Political Rights, Organizing Notes, 3 (June 1979): 1.
23 Tom Wicker, "The C.I.A. Triumphant," New York Times, May 6, 1980, p. A27.
24 "Interview with Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee," Guardian, April 30, 1980, p. 9.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
THE TEN-POINT PROGRAM
(October 1966)
1. We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine
The Destiny Of Our Black Community.
We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our own destiny.
2. We Want Full Employment Of Our People.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people, and give a high standard of living.
3. We Want An End To The Robbery
By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules [were] promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency, which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4. We Want Decent Housing Fit For Shelter Of Human Beings.
We believe that if the White landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. We Want Education For Our People That Exposes
The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society.
We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History
And Our Role In The Present-day Society.
We believe in an educational system that will give our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7. We Want An Immediate End To
Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We, therefore, believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.
8. We Want Freedom For All Black Men
Held In Federal, State, County, And City Prisons And Jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In
Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black
Communities, As Defined By The Constitution Of The United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution gives a man the right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical, and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community.
10. We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education,
Clothing, Justice, And Peace.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
APPENDIX B
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY PROGRAM
(March 29, 1972 Platform)
1. We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine
The Destiny Of Our Black And Oppressed Communities.
We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to