Evening star., 1940-12-16
Sabotage LoophoIes

Attorney General Jackson, taking
prompt advantage of the offer of the
Dies Committee to cooperate with
the Department of Justice in the
campaign against the fifth column" !"
has called public attention to a glar-
ing loophole in the laws relating to
espionage and sabotage. He pointed
out that although production of war
materiel for Great Britain is an in
tegral phase of our national defense
program, there is no Federal law
which prohibits sabotage on planes
or other equipment destined for
Britain or on factories engaged in
such production Obviously this is
defect which should be remedied by
Congress at once.
But this is not the only Joker in
our espionage and sabotage laws
Because the Federal Bureau of In
vestigation lacks legal authority to
tap communication wires, alien
agents are in no fear of detection if
they do their plotting by telephone
Representative Celler of New York
is author of a bill which would cor
rect this situation. An exchange of
correspondence between Senator
Wheeler of Montana, chairman of
the Senate Interstate Commerce
Committee, and John A. keefe, gov
ernor of the Montana District of
Kiwanis International. throws new
light on the status of that long
pending legislation.
In reply to a letter some weeks
ago from Mr.. Keefe, inquiring why
the bill had not been taken up by
the committee. Senator Wheeler de-
nounced wire-tapping as danger
Gus" invasion of "the privacies of
home and explained that because
many Senators have seriously OBJ
jected to this" he had decided not
to press the bill. 1--WE are in the
closing days of the session." he wrote.
"1t would not be possible, even
though I reported the bill out at the
present time, to get it through this
session of Congress. **' The subject
is one which requires the most care
full study and consideration in order
that abuses that may prevail under
it will not be worse than the evils
it seeks to correct
There is no doubt about the dan
gers of indiscriminate wire tapping
of the type to which Senator Wheeler
undoubtedly had reference in his
letter, but surely he, and the uni
Identified Senators he says are
opposed to wire-tapping, could not
have read the Celler bill carefully.
1t provides that wires may be tapped
by the F. B. I. only in cases involving
the security of the United States,
and then only by special permission
of the Attorney General The only
privacies which are to be invaded
are those of enemy agents bent on
undermining the national defense.
These enemies do not hesitate to tap
wires when it suits their purposes
and they must be laughing up their
sleeves at the ridiculous spectacle
presented by counterespionage
service unable to fight them with
their own weapons. Senator Wheeler
says that this matter deserves care
full consideration, yet he has per-
mitted the Celler bill to remain
bottled up in his committee since
last summer without affording an
opportunity for it to receive con-
sideration of any kind, either by his
committee or by the Senate. That
one Senator, or a whole committee.
should assume the responsibility of
thus "vetoing" by inaction a House.
approved measure of such vital i'm
portance to the safety of the Repub-
lie is incredible. The Senate has
plenty of time left in which to debate
this bill on it's merits, if it needs
debating, and it will render the Ma
tion grave disservice if it allows
the Celler bill to expire in COM
mittee pigeonhole.