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Persons who are suspect or may be considered dangerous are immediatelyrounded up and detained while the individual is in the country. The authoritieshave no problem because in those countries there is not a free society such as weenjoy, and the people who are detained have no redress. The FBI approachesthis whole field of security-I am not boring you with this, am I?The CHAIRMAN. No, indeed. This is tremendously important.Mr. BELMONT. The FBI approaches this whole field of security and its tre-mendous responsibilities to protect the internal security of the country as asacred trust. In carrying out our investigations and our work in the securityfield, we do it in such a manner under the law that we strengthen rather thanweaken the free society that we enjoy. It is for that reason that our men aretrained carefully, thoroughly, and supervised carefully, to insure that theirapproach to the entire security field, which inevitably touches on control ofthought, is handled with extreme care. Our activities are directed to meet theterrific responsibility we have for the internal security of the country, but tomeet it under the law. We feel that to place security as such above the rightsof the individual or to increase these controls beyond what is absolutely essentialis the first step toward the destruction of this free society that we enjoy.We have been asked many times why we don't pick up and jail all Commu-nists. The very people who ask those questions don't realize that if action,unrestrained action, is taken against a particular group of people, a precedentis set which can be seized on in the future by power-hungry or unscrupulousauthorities as a precedent, and which inevitably will gnaw away at this freesociety we have, and sooner or later will be applied to the very individuals whoare seeking this action. Up until the time of the assassination we religiouslyand carefully and expeditiously furnished to Secret Service immediately on alocal basis as well as on a national basis, headquarters basis, any and all infor-mation that in any way was indicated to be a possible threat against thePresident. This permitted Secret Service to take such action as was requiredagainst these individuals who had by their action set the stage for appropriaterestraint or observation based on something they did. Therefore, they were notin a position to complain legitimately because they had by some word or deedset in motion a threat against the President of the United States. Since theassassination, as I have testified, we have broadened the area of disseminationin an effort to be helpful. It stands without question that we could have said,"No; we won't go any further." But we felt that it was our responsibility to dowhatever we could do and, hence, we have broadened these criteria, and we havedistributed thousands of pieces of information on individuals to Secret Service.(At this point in the proceedings, Representative Ford enters the hearingroom.)We are not entirely comfortable about this, because under these broadenedcriteria after all we are furnishing names of people who have not made a threatagainst the President, people who have expressed beliefs, who have belonged ordo belong to organizations which believe in violent revolution or taking thingsinto their own hands. Unless such information is handled with judgment andcare, it can be dangerous.For example, we know that in one city when the President recently visited, thepolice went to these people and told them, "You stay in the house while thePresident is here or if you go out, we will go with you." We know that thesepeople have threatened to consult attorneys, have threatened to make a publicissue of the matter on the theory that this is restraint that is not justified asthey have made no threats against the President. Now, when you examine thisa bit further, we give these names to Secret Service. Secret Service must dosomething with those names, and Secret Service solicits the assistance of thepolice, quite properly. But I don't need, I think, to paint this picture any further,that when you get away from a specific act or deed of threats against the Presi-dent, and you go into the broader area of what, perhaps, a man is thinking and,therefore, he may be a threat, and you take action against the man on the basisof that, there is a danger.That is why, despite the fact that we have given this additional informationand will continue to do so, we are uneasy. Again, if I may be permitted tocontinue, this is inherent in the entire approach of the FBI to the security field.