Dear Editor
Dear Editor Direct Line Mark Shenker's spoof of what might be called the "McCord-record" ploy ("Busy Signal," NL, July 23) is especially ironic in the light of the subsequent revelation that the...
...an ordinary law will not suffice, for the argument is based on constitutional grounds and Congress alone cannot change the Constitution...
...Trenton Jean Matthews Personal Security The most important conclusion we must draw from the Watergate hearings is the need for a Constitutional amendment to protect citizens from infringements upon their basic rights by the Executive in the name of national security...
...Dear Editor Direct Line Mark Shenker's spoof of what might be called the "McCord-record" ploy ("Busy Signal," NL, July 23) is especially ironic in the light of the subsequent revelation that the President had his own phones tapped...
...On the other hand, to permit such an ill-defined concept as national security to become a warrant for negating the basic rights of the citizen is a grave danger to all of us...
...It will not be easy to formulate a Constitutional amendment to solve the problem, though, because it is impossible to ban all extraordinary measures that under some conceivable circumstances may become necessary for the true security of the nation...
...The protection of citizens against unwarranted violations of their personal liberties is of even greater importance than the punishment of the Watergate wrongdoers, the suppression of campaign frauds or the fate of Richard Nixon...
...The argument was advanced in order to defend the break-in into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist...
...Thus the Court would have to go out of its way-something it is usually reluctant to do-to consider the question of what the President can do to citizens in the name of national security...
...It also raises the question of whether any defendant who telephoned Nixon during the lime the taps were in place might be entitled to use the McCord tactic in court...
...prospective defendants could simply be advised to phone the President directly, and foreign officials would once again be able to get through to their representatives in the United States...
...John Ehrlichman and, in a more sophisticated manner, his attorney John Wilson maintained that the President has a "reservoir of power" enabling him, whenever he considers national security endangered, to violate the guarantees that the Constitution and the laws of the country extend to individual citizens...
...as matters stand now, the High Court will only be asked to decide whether Executive privilege permits the President to withhold documents relevant to the guilt or innocence of persons in a criminal case and to the advice a Committee has to give the Senate about legislation on electoral campaigns...
...after all, the surveillance was executed by the same Executive branch that orders national security wiretaps...
...at the moment, however, there is no prospect that the issue will reach the tribunal...
...Indeed, the danger is greater now than before the hearings, since it has been seriously argued, not only by a person anxious to justify his questionable acts and omissions but by a lawyer of considerable reputation, that the President has such power and that it is in his discretion to decide when national security is sufficiently impaired to justify the setting aside of constitutional guarantees...
...Then al...
...Going a step further, if certain foreign embassies continue to find their switchboards jammed at all hours by calls from Water-gaters...
...That the task is as difficult as it is urgent ts all the more reason to undertake it as soon as possible...
...One might surmise that the Supreme Court would reject the Ehrlichman-Wilson argument if it ever had to decide such a case...
...Berkeley Carl Landauer Professor of Economics, University of California...
...It has been said quite convincingly that if their argument makes burglary legal, there is no reason why murder, ordered by the President in the name of national security, should be illegal...
...they might well demand that the White House reactivate its wiretaps...
...Neither Ehrlichman nor Wilson were able to indicate any limits to this alleged Executive power...
Vol. 56 • September 1973 • No. 17
