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painstakingly looked into the backgrounds of the 44 “victims. ‘Ultimately, Agents identified the perpetrator and secured his confession, then turned the case over to Colorado authorities who successfully prosecuted it in a state court. At the same time, Congress gave the FBI new federal laws ‘with which to fight civil rights violations,- racketeering, and ‘gambling. - Up to this time, the interpretation of federal civil rights statutes by the Supreme Court was so narrow that few crimes, however heinous, qualified to be investigated by federal agents. The turning point in federal civil rights actions occurred in the summet of 1964, with the murder of voting registration workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney near Philadelphia, Mississippi. — At the Department of Justice's request, the FBI conducted the investigation as it had in previous, less-publicized racial incidents. The case against the perpetrators took years to go through the courts. Only after 1966, When the Supreme Court made it clear that federal law could be used to prosecute civil rights violations, were seven men found guilty. By the late 1960s, the confluence of unambiguous federal authority and local support for civil rights prosecutions allowed the FEI to Play an influential role in enabling African Americans to vote, serve on juries, and use public accommodations on an equal basis. Involvement of the FBI in organized crime investigations also was hampered by the lack of possible federal laws covering crimes perpetrated by racketeers. After Prohibition, many mob activities were carried out locally, or if interstate, they did not constitute major violations within the Bureau's jurisdiction, together in upstate New York. The FBI collected information on all the individuals identified at the meeting, confirming the existence of a national organized-crime network. However, it was not until an FBI Agent persuaded mob insider Joseph Valachi to testify tha: the public learneg firsthand of the nature cf La Cesé Nostra, t American "mafia." ” wom m ct On the heels of Valachi's disclosures, Consress passed two new laws to strengthen federal racketeering and Gambling statutes that had been passed in the 1950s and early 1960s to aig the Bureau's fight against mob influence. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 provided for the use of court-ordered electronic surveillance in the investigation of certain specified violations. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Statute of 1970 allowed organized groups to be prosecuted for all of their diverse criminal activities, without the crines 12