WHEN THE approaching Senate Intelleigence Committee hearings reveal the names of the individuals and organizations at the University whose mail was illegally opened and read by the Central Intelligence Agency, there will probably be few surprises behind the official pronouncements of indignation.

The New York Times disclosures last December that the CIA subjected thousands of Americans to a massive domestic intelligence gathering operation confirmed many previously existing beliefs about the CIA. That the CIA breaks the law as a matter of policy, that it exerts a subtle and powerful influence in government circles, and that it is free of any effective scrutiny by the American public, let alone the President and Congress, appear, in retrospect, obvious.

Since last winter the country has been treated to successive glimpses of CIA atrocities proving overwhelmingly that secrecy, unaccountability, and illegal acts are necessary to its operations. These revelations have numbed our reactions to the announcement last week of Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) that some members of the University had their mail opened, photographed, and then placed on file by the CIA.

Church's announcement--admittedly not as outrageous as the disclosures by the Rockefeller Commission this summer--was the first identification of the public figures and institutions affected by the CIA's domestic intelligence gathering operations. This latest news only highlights another dimension of CIA investigations, the sad fact that up until now, many Americans have passively consented to, if not actively supported, these CIA acts by accepting the agency's policies of secrecy, without criticism or public outcry.