1977, U. S. President Carter along with his attorney general, Griffin B. Bell, authorized warrantless electronic surveillance. This surveillance, without a warrant, was used to convict of two spies. The spies were spying on behalf of Vietnam. The spies' names were Truong Dinh Hung and Ronald Louis Humphrey, After their conviction for espionage, Hung, and Humphrey challenged their espionage convictions. They took their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, and that court unanimously ruled that the warrantless searches were not a violation of the spies' rights. The court issued an opinion, which clearly stated that the executive branch has the "inherent authority" to wiretap enemies such as terror plotters and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is "conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons."
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