Specifically, the authorization was to suspend the protections from the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures.
[2] The impetus for this report was President Richard Nixon's desire for coordination of domestic intelligence on purported 'left-wing radicals' and the counterculture-era anti-war movement in general.
Huston had been assigned as White House liaison to the Interagency Committee on Intelligence (ICI), a group chaired by J. Edgar Hoover, then Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director.
As details of the Huston Plan unfolded during the Watergate Hearings, it came to be seen as part of what Attorney General Mitchell referred to as "White House horrors".
This included the Plumbers Unit, the proposed fire-bombing of the Brookings Institution, the 1971 burglary of the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the creation of a White House enemies list, and the use of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to punish those deemed to be enemies.