Intelligence Constraints of the 1970s and Domestic Terrorism: Volume 1, Effects on the Incidence, Investigation, and Prosecution of Terrorist Activity

摘要

Growing concern with privacy rights, together with revelations of abuses of power by government in the Watergate acts, illegal FBI counterintelligence activities, and excesses of the CIA, led in the 1970s to increased restrictions on the collection, retention, dissemination, and use of intelligence information at all levels of government. The present study compares the impacts of post-Watergate restrictions on terrorist-related intelligence activities by comparing investigatory and prosecutorial efficacy in the period 1960-1974 with that in 1975-1980. On December 4, 1981, after this study was completed, President Reagan issued Executive Order No. 12333 on United States Intelligence Activities, which liberalizes authority to assist and cooperate with state and local law-enforcement agencies. Pursuant to this Order, new guidelines for intelligence activities of federal agencies have modified some of the constraints on intelligence activities relating to terrorist incidents or crimes within the United States. This Note does not consider cases prosecuted during the Reagan Administration, nor does it examine impacts of regulatory changes affecting intelligence agencies in this period.