coverage by N.S.A. of the communications of U.S. citizens using international facilities. . . .
B. Electronic Surveillance and Penetrations. . . . Present procedures should be changed to permit intensification of coverage of individuals and groups in the United States who pose a major threat to internal security. . . .
C. Mail Coverage. . . . Restrictions on legal coverage should be removed. . . . Covert coverage is illegal and there are serious risks involved. However, the advantages to be derived from its use outweigh the risks. . . .
D. Surreptitious Entry. . . . Use of this technique is clearly illegal: it amounts to burglary. . . . [I]t is also the most fruitful tool and can produce the type of intelligence which cannot be obtained in any other fashion (Weissman 321-2).
The top-secret memorandum was approved, then rescinded by Nixon in 1970 (Weissman 327; 51-2). But Nixon's White House approved piecemeal domestic intelligence, including illegal surveillance of American citizens and groups deemed unfriendly to the admin istration. Nixon's administration was the period of the so-called "Enemies List," comprising the names of some 200 per sons, many engaged in opposition political activity, the White House considered appropriate surveillance targets (Bishop 247). Black-letter legality aside, the fact that such deliberate government initiatives rose to the level of national policy debate seems ethically problematic, if search-warrant-related protections guaranteed by (for example) the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination are taken to have ethical provenance.
Henry Kissinger, Nixon's secretary of state, justifies American covert operations against Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973 based on a view of the immorally radical (duly elected) Chilean ideology and government structure (658-9). Elsewhere, Kissinger justifies his domestic wiretaps on gov ernment colleagues while Nixo...