1976 February 19

Daniel Schorr Faces Charges for Leaking Pike Committee Report

 

Award-winning CBS reporter Daniel Schorr leaked a summary of the House of Representatives Pike Committee report on abuses by intelligence agencies to the Village Voice, which it published on February 16, 1976.

Since the House had voted not to release the Pike Committee report on January 29, 1976, Schorr’s leak led to his suspension by CBS and an investigation by the House, which the House Ethics Committee authorized on this day (exactly one year to the day after it created the Pike Committee). Schorr was threatened with jail for contempt of Congress if he did not disclose his source for the Pike Committee report. He did not, but in the end the committee voted 6–5 against citing him for contempt.

The official Pike Committee has never been released (and in fact may not even exist as a full report), although much of its contents were leaked to the press in early 1976 before the leak to the Voice. The Church Committee reports (available on the web) and the leaked Pikc Committee material provide a detailed account of the illegal and outrageous violations of Americans’ rights by the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and other federal agencies.

The Church Committee reports are still a valuable source of information the lawlessness of federal intelligence agencies.

Read: Daniel Schorr, Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism (2001)

See Daniel Schorr discuss his book: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/schorr_5-29.html

Read Schorr’s FBI File: http://vault.fbi.gov/daniel-schorr

Learn more about the Church and Pike Committee investigations: Kathryn Olmstead, Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (1996)

Read the Senate Church Committee reports: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm

Find a Day

Go
Abortion Rights ACLU african-americans Alice Paul anti-communism Anti-Communist Hysteria Birth Control Brown v. Board of Education Censorship CIA Civil Rights Civil Rights Act of 1964 Cold War Espionage Act FBI First Amendment Fourteenth Amendment freedom of speech Free Speech Gay Rights Hate Speech homosexuality Hoover, J. Edgar HUAC Japanese American Internment King, Dr. Martin Luther Ku Klux Klan Labor Unions Lesbian and Gay Rights Loyalty Oaths McCarthy, Sen. Joe New York Times Obscenity Police Misconduct Same-Sex Marriage Separation of Church and State Sex Discrimination Smith Act Spying Spying on Americans Vietnam War Voting Rights Voting Rights Act of 1965 War on Terror Watergate White House Women's Rights Women's Suffrage World War I World War II Relocation Camps

Topics

Tell Us What You Think

We want to hear your comments, criticisms and suggestions!