i'm currently writing a biography of a edgar hoover. so if you notice there is a kind of fbi centric line up here that is entirely my doing because these are the people that i wanted to hear from. but the church committee got a lot into the cia, too. maybe we'll talk a bit about that. maybe we will not. but including -- and putting the panel together i had a couple of priorities beyond my own interest in hearing from this particular group. one, i wanted to talk to historians who were working within the federal government and outside of the federal government cared and i also wanted to try to get a couple of generations together on the panel to talk about how our memories and experiences of the church committee have in fact changed over time. i'm grateful to the panelists for agreeing to do this. they are going to speak in the order in which they are seated. i will introduce them all individually in a moment. they are going to speak relatively briefly, give formal remarks about 10 minutes each. and then, since this is a roundtable, we wi

j edgar hoover was dead. i make it -- that made a huge difference.senate have been courageous enough to look at the fbi if j edgar hoover had been alive? i'm not sure. nixon had tried to use the cia to shut down the fbi investigation of watergate. and, there had been a series of leaks. there is an interesting comment that says that leak is not the right word. it had been interesting series of leaks about programs that were troublesome. seymour hersh about the cia doing domestic surveillance when it really is not lawful for them to do it. all of those factors led to the church committee being founded. i just want to join in something both bob and mika said, you have to recognize that some secrets are legitimate. we succeeded -- the church committee succeeded in part because we did recognize that some secrets were legitimate and let the government see our draft reports before they came out, so they could argue. they cannot tell us, but they could argue that something would reveal something that should not be revealed. the parallel house committee which

edgar hoover tagged him a communist. so it wasn't until the late 1970s when congress began holding hearings that, excuse me that america at large began waking up to the fact that there were not only hundreds, but thousands of nazis who had gotten into america with incredible ease after the war. and the justice department was forced to create a whole new office, the office of special investigations to begin investigating nazi figures and deporting them. in my view, it was a horrible case of too little too late. they did yeoman's work in trying to identify 35 years later when the trail of evidence had gone cold nazis living in the united states. but you're left to wonder what would have happened if we had put that same sort of effort into identifying them in 1946 or better yet if we hadn't allowed the nazis into the country to begin with. >>ing so let me -- i'm going to turn to martin here. people have ideas, i want to ask you to line up now and start thinking about your questions and we'll come to you in a few minutes. if

think for a moment of j edgar hoover. i do not equate the current criteria of the fbi with what happened then by any means or his predecessors. but, if you have that mindset terrorism, and this has already happened, the government has a secret court to collect billions of phone records of innocent americans not because they were relevant to any counterterrosm investigation but because the nsa wants to sift through them in the future. this is an extraordinarily broad reading of the statute one that congress never intended and the second circuit rightfully held as such an expensive relevance is unprecedented and unwarranted. also such an interpretation of relevance has no logical limit. the the debate is not just about phone records. if we accept that because it may want to sift through some day to look for some possible connections to terrorists, where does it end? we know that for years the nsa collected metadata about billions of e-mails sent by innocent americans and use that same justification. to allow the government

we have to cancel not renew the great hoover and the sky, not j edgar. what i was talking about was the targeted -- >> your right. >> probable cause that a a crime has been committed or is about to be committed. >> the side. >> either. thank you for coming in and speaking. so my question -- and we touched on this earlier walking the fine line between liberty and secrecy. as you said before -- actually i was wondering if there was a.in time when you guys were working in the church community where you found that something you had seen was not to be shared with the public you found it was better to keep it secret. how do you find her how you feel -- sorry. let me collect my thoughts. how do you feel about keeping certain things secret? walking that fine line between liberty and secrecy tonight where does it end? what do they not need to know? question. >> during your church committee investigation did you come across secrets that needed to be kept secret? 's in your later life how do you look at the balance between secrecy and five. >> yes. that was the gre

edgar hoover. >> which is so charming. [laughter] >> but his reasons were not humane. >> the camps the presence that jan wrote about were run x the justice department. the relocation centers i wrote about were run x the army and it was a turf war and hoover didn't want the army to get in on the action. so he was right. there had been no trouble with hawaii where there was a much greater concentration of japanese americans but hoover wanted to use that to be the army out of it. there were more people in the army then in the justice department. >> i just wanted to say about the hoover thing because it relates to what's going on today today. all around the issue of the rest of the aliens richard was talking about these people were arrested under certain provisions, don't you love the word enemy alien? it's like mars. the enemy alien act of 1745. >> i want to make clear that when they say enemy alien there was no evidence that they were the enemy. >> bats right so what that means is if you have a blood tie to japan you can be

edgar hoover. i've thought back to many 10 of the frightening things he said about investigating people because of their political beliefs communists are all hippies driving volkswagens -- that's one of the things he said. secondly "the new york times" was getting too left in some of their editorials, they were become very close to become ago communist paper and he was making plans to investigate it as such. think of that for a moment. "the new york times" had criticized him editorial. he was thinking of investigating it as a communist paper. now, not long thereafter, he died and we found out more and more about the secret files. he had everybody from presidents to members of congress. what if a j. edgar hoover had had the kind of tools that are available today? and that would be my response to the senator from utah why i am in total agreement with him. we have to think about to the just today but what might happen in the future, because for years section 215 of the patriot act has been used by the

edgar hoover did it. the irs is doing it the james clapper when -- he forgot something.isa court since 1979, has had 34,000 requests for surveillance. they have turned down 12 which suggests that there might not be an adequate filter there. so all i'm saying this is going to pass. the country industry tied right now. >> you mean. >> the house version. >> you think it's going to past the senate. >> it did. >> that's what i think. the tide in the country and a any republican out there running for president detests. this it's all national security now. not privacy. >> charles, it's a political hot potato, the time is ticking, the clock is ticking. it's very healthy that these provisions expire every couple of years. the line is never a fixed one between security and safety it depends on the level of threat. it depends on the level of technology and we want to debated it every couple of years because the line has to move. i think the place where it is exactly the bill that the house had passed. the administration supports it the conservatives in the house support it it the d

edgar hoover comes to mind -- when this kind of information could be used. and, third i've been very concerned, given what our former colleague, senator you udall and i had to do with respect to bulk phone record collection of e-mail. we battled to end this -- and of course this was e-mail that could be read by government agencies. we battled with various intelligence leaders saying that we felt this a violation of people's rights, and it wasn't effective. they asserted for months and months that it was. and finally one day they woke up and said the program wasn't needed anymore. none of this would have even happened mr. president had not senator udall and i made that case repeatedly. the intelligence leadership knew that we were not going to give it up. but that's what goes on if there isn't a check on some of these kinds of procedures. and senator paul made meption of -- made mention of the fact that the intelligence leadership has not exactly been straight with the american people on these issues. and i want to emphasize that we are not talking about the

edgar hoover fbi building. his letters he said the fbi is a joke, the fbi will not be catching us any time soon. >> the fbi, of course, had no idea about the unabomber's identity or whereabouts. and ted kaczynski took great pains to make sure he didn't leave a single clue. >> he would take files and he would file everything down after he built something so that he could ensure that he was getting rid of fingerprints. he was obsessed about leaving fingerprint evidence. >> kaczynski also planted false clues to throw investigators off the trail. >> he went to a bathroom at the bus station in missoula, montana, and he actually took hairs off the floor of the restroom. and then in subsequent bombs, he would take those hairs and put them in between layers of tape. and the whole idea was when the subsequent bombs exploded at a crime scene, we would think that hair might have something to do with the unabomber. when he was out on a run to collect information or to collect components for his bombs, he would make sure he

edgar hoover was dead. that made a big difference, would the senate have been courageous enough to look at the fbi had hoover been alive? i'm the not sure. and nixon had tried to use the cia to shut down the fbi investigation of watergate. and there had been a series of leaks. there's an interesting comment in the opinion that the word leak isn't quite the right word. and we can come back to that. but there had been an interesting series of leaks about programs that were troublesome. seymour hersch about the mailai massacre. and also about the cia doing domestic surveillance when it isn't really lawful for them to do it. and all those factors led to the church committee being founded and going ahead and doing the most comprehensive investigation ever. and i want to join in something both bob and mika certainly both said. you have to recognize that some secrets are legitimate. and we succeeded -- the church committee succeeded in part because we did recognize that some secrets were legitimate and let the gov

my question is, is, is it now time to retire the name of j edgar hoover? >> bob morgan one of the takeovers name off. we decided to wait a while. >> it would be great. why should hoover's name be on the fbi? he was a great bureaucrat. he did so much on harm to this country, not just the people the by confusing presidents to believe that communists controlled the civil rights movement are the anti- vietnam war movement. his name should not be on the public building. now that it is a new building it doesn't have quite the same looking like the soviet union. it is the choice not to put it on the building. >> the drones. the technology earlier it's been a a great change in the last 40 years, and that is one of the. there are those who think the use of drones is a sophisticated assassination. and if you look, if you think about the use of drones in the battlefield or in the battlefield now, it's not undefined place in the battle of the bulge or the battlefields all over the place. it raises amazing moral questions, and we all know what those are in the sense of

edgar hoover was dead. that made a big difference, would congress have looked at it if he was not? i don't know. and nixon had tried to use the cia to shut down the fbi investigation of watergate. and there had been a series of leaks, there's an interesting comment in the opinion that the word leak isn't quite the right word. but there had been an interesting series of leaks about programs that were troublesome troublesome. seymour hersch about the mailai massacre. and all those factors led to the church committee being founded and going ahead and doing the most comprehensive investigation ever. and i want to join in something bob and mika said. you have to recognize that some secrets are legitimate. and the church committee succeeded in part because we recognized that some secrets are legitimate. the government could argue that it would reveal something that shouldn't be revealed. and the parallel house committee, which could have potentially done great good, because it was focusing on the quality of intelligence coming out, but it foundered and ultimately failed because it didn't

edgar hoover when he became too enthralled with his power again, using f.b.i. agents to investigate people, not for information to introduce in court but just to use apparently, persuade them to do what the f.b.i. director wanted. information like that is dangerous. the founders knew that. then there's another "wall street journal" article from may 14 that the f.b.i. says a texas man lied about his links to syria. imagine that, mr. speaker. they catch somebody who is -- who they have evidence to show he's got links to terrorism and syria, and lo and behold, they found out, not only does he have links to terrorism but he may have actually lied to the f.b.i. imagine that. the article points out that bilal abood of mesquite was arrested thursday after a two-year game of cat and mouse with federal agents who questioned him repeatedly before and after he allegedly traveled to syria in 2013. but anyway, the -- let's see, it says a week later, agents interviewed him again he admitted he planned to go to syria to fight with the free syrian army. according to the compla

we have to cancel, not renew the great hoover and the sky, not j edgar. what i was talking about was the targeted -- probable cause that a a crime has been committed or is about to be committed. >> the side. >> thank you for coming in and speaking. so my question -- and we touched on this earlier, walking the fine line between liberty and secrecy. as you said before -- actually i was wondering if there was a.in time when you guys were working in the church community where you found that something you had seen was not to be shared with the public, you found it was better to keep it secret. how do you find her how you feel -- sorry. let me collect my thoughts. how do you feel about keeping certain things secret? walking that fine line between liberty and secrecy tonight where does it end? what do they not need to know? >> during your church committee investigation did you come across secrets that needed to be kept secret? in your later life how do you look at the balance between secrecy and five. >> yes. that was the great challenge of the church community