Swearingen, Wesley — Illegal FBI Break-Ins, Told By a Former Agent
Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have a history of illegal break-ins to homes and offices as well as conducting wiretaps without a search warrant. In the years when J. Edgar Hoover was the Director of the FBI, these warrantless break-ins came to be known as “black-bag jobs”.
This archive edition of Radio Curious is a December 1995 interview with Wesley Swearingen a former FBI agent and author of “FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose.” This book describes some of the “black-bag” warrantless searches in which he was involved, and his opinion of those activities. Swearingen concludes his book by saying that the Hoover era will continue to haunt the FBI because Hoover knowingly undermined the United States Constitution. When I spoke with Wesley Swearingen from his home near Tucson, Arizona, in December 1995, I asked him what he meant by that.
The book Wesley Swearingen recommends is “Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover,” by Anthony Summers.
Originally Broadcast: December 20, 1995
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