There are lots of stories in the press now about wiretaps that uncovered Nixon agents sabotaging the Paris peace talks in the late 60s. Many of the stories I’ve read say that the tap was on the South Vietnamese ambassador’s phone. LBJ knew of this but didn’t release the information, even though in his opinion Nixon was committing treason.
Assuming the tap info is true, would some kind of warrant be necessary? Could it be illegal for other reasons? I say this because there are also claims that the White House couldn’t release the data because it was obtained illegally.
The guy’s embassy and residency were technically foreign soil, and certainly he wasn’t an American citizen. OTOH, he was talking to American citizens, and it seems likely a tap would have been placed on the line somewhere over American soil.
So, what is the legal underpinning of this kind of action? Somehow I’m doubtful there are any court decisions that address this directly, and maybe no laws. IIRC, the National Security Act of 1947 was pretty damn vague.
Unfortunately, that addresses breaking and entering. It is entirely possible that the phone tap did not involve that at all. Also, there is no mention of citizenship as an issue.
It’s common knowledge that foreign governments will spy on you when you are in their country (even if it is technically their country). They only need to get a warrant if on US soil - and espionage generally doesn’t count. You pretty much only are going to get a warrant if a US citizen on US soil (if national security/espionage is a possibility).
Nixon was not part of the (or any) government in 1968 so whether or not governments spy on each other or not seems irrelevant. It’s not clear as far as I can tell if the “Nixon agents” referred to were government spies who leaked the information to him which was probably treason on their part if not his or if they were his own agents which wold seem must have been illegal though I’m not sure treasonous.
I don’t quite understand the question. Is it about the legality of the US Government tapping the phones of foreign ambassadors which are here in the United States?
Let me clarify why I’m asking this question. It is being widely reported that LBJ did not release the contents of the wiretaps (purportedly on the phones of the South Vietnamese ambassador to the US, presumably in DC) because the information was illegally obtained. I am trying to figure out whether this is true, and I am skeptical that it is true.
There was no information leaked to Nixon. People in his campaign destroyed a chance for peace in 1968 by convincing the South Vietnamese government to withdraw from the talks “until after the election”. Dunno if it was treason or not, buy LBJ thought so.
Yes, you have interpreted my question correctly. But FISA did not exist in 1968. There is another possible complicating factor in that the tap may have been placed somewhere on US soil even though the people being tapped were technically on foreign soil (their embassy).
A related question is whether a non-citizen had rights to privacy in regard to wiretapping on US soil. For example, an embassy employee living in a private apartment, so the “foreign soil” thing wouldn’t be an issue at all.
I can’t speak to what the laws were in 1968, but embassies are not foreign soil. They’re every bit American soil as the McDonald’s down the street. However, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the host country is obliged to afford certain protections to embassy facilities and some diplomatic staff. One can infer from FISA that restrictions on the government undertaking intelligence gathering operations against targets in the US was less prior to the passage of the act, because the general point of the act was to put legal parameters around intelligence activities in the US.
The part that throws me, and doesn’t make any sense, really, is how Nixon, as a private citizen, could undertake intelligence operations in 1968. At first blush, any attempt by a private citizen to spike peace talks would seem to violate the Logan Act, which dates back to 1799, and generally prohibits citizens from communicating with foreign powers in an effort to influence them in any controversy with the United States.
I haven’t seen any of the stories about this alleged episode, but based on what you’ve described, I would also take these stories with a grain of salt.
There are several threads right here about it, and it is pretty strongly documented, including newly released tapes of LBJ discussing the contents of the wiretaps. How Nixon did it is not complex. His representatives (allegedly including Anna Chennault) contacted reps of the South Vietnamese government and told them it was in their interest that Nixon get elected, because he would give them stronger support than Humphrey. It was suggested they pull out of the ongoing Paris Peace talks until at least after the election, and the failure of the talks would boost Nixon’s electoral chances. They did so, and Nixon ran the end of his campaign claiming that the Democrats were so inept that they couldn’t get their own allies to sit down at conference table with the enemy.
Johnson knew this, told Humphrey, and neither did anything about it. And since there are a myriad of stories out there claiming it was because they found out through illegal taps, and these same sources claim the tap was on the SV ambassador’s phone, I’m trying to find out whether the claims of illegality hold water.
I’m guessing they don’t, but that’s not really germane to this thread.