Editing John N. Mitchell (section)

===Law and order===
Mitchell believed that the government's need for "[[law and order (politics)|law and order]]" justified restrictions on civil liberties. He advocated the use of wiretaps in national security cases without obtaining a court order (''[[United States v. U.S. District Court]]'', [[Nixon wiretaps]]) and the right of police to employ the preventive detention of criminal suspects. He brought [[conspiracy (crime)|conspiracy]] charges against critics of the [[Vietnam War]], likening them to [[brown shirts]] of the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi era]] in Germany.

Mitchell expressed a reluctance to involve the Justice Department in some [[civil rights]] issues. "The Department of Justice is a law enforcement agency," he told reporters. "It is not the place to carry on a program aimed at curing the ills of society." However, he also told activists, "You will be better advised to watch what we do, not what we say."{{sfn|Rosen|page=136}}<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/14/opinion/essay-watch-what-we-do.html|title=Watch What We Do|first=William|last=Safire|date=November 14, 1988|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=July 22, 2017|author-link=William Safire}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=91IFAYFhtOMC&pg=PA4|title=Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations|first=James H.|last=Billington|date=2010|publisher=Courier Corporation|location=Chelmsford, Massachusetts|isbn=9780486472881|access-date=July 22, 2017|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=POhHuoGILNYC&pg=PA253|title=Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past|first=Bruce|last=Bartlett|date=January 8, 2008|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=New York City|isbn=9780230611382|access-date=July 22, 2017|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNrMbvyHhrIC&pg=PA267|title=We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era|first=Robert Charles|last=Smith|date=July 22, 1996|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]|location=New York City|isbn=9780791431351|access-date=July 22, 2017|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=whg05Z4Nwo0C&pg=PA4|title=The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations|first1=Hugh|last1=Rawson|first2=Margaret|last2=Miner|date=2006|publisher=[[Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press USA]]|location=New York City|isbn=9780195168235|access-date=July 22, 2017|via=Google Books}}</ref>