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.e ... Approved For Release 2008/11/06: CIA-RDP04M01816R000502010009-4 33 17/ purposes. The CIA mail opening program was not authorized with the care and clarity that current practices and, we believe, the Constitution now require. But these principles have evolved so rapidly during the last two decades that they would have sounded strange to those who initiated the program during the 1950s and continued it during the 1960s. A rettoa.ctive application of new-ly emmciated Fourth .Amend- ment principles to persons whose conduct took place before the principles were established could, of course, not deter like conduct; and it would be unfair to punish federal employees for doing things which, as the law then appeared, e were not illegal.. The Supreme Court has held that changes in Fourth Amendment law should not apply retroactively. United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531 (1975). That ~-- principle surely applies to criminal prosecutions against those who may have transgressed the Fourth Amendment no less than it does to the application of the 18/ exclusionary rule, which was at issue in Peltier.~ 17/ Compare United States v. Brown, 484 F.2d 418 (5th Cir. 1973) certiorari denied, 415 U.S. 960 (1974); and United States v. ' Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3d Cir.) (en bane), certiorari denied, 419- U.S. 881 (1974); with Zweibon~.?1I'Echell, 516 F.2d 594 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (!,!! bane), certiorari denied, 425 U.S. 944 (1976). 18/ See also Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 321 (1975), which nolds that certain executive officials are liable in damages for a violation of constitutional rights only if they act in e "ignorance or disregard of settled, indisputable law .... 11 A roved For Release 2008/11/06: CIA-RDP04M01816R000502010009-4