The Climate of Repression

...In the interests of "protecting the public," the Government increasingly subjects peace activists to vague and unsubstantiated conspiracy indictments...

...The Senator's obvious nostalgia for the McCarthy years is not surprising, and it would not be particularly disturbing were it not so close to the direction in which the Administration appears to be trying to steer the country...

...This could include sending food to civilians in North Vietnam or marching in an anti-war protest parade...

...We believe—or at least we hope—that the day is long past when such smear tactics could throw many Americans into hysteria, but the purpose of employing such tactics is clearly to pave the way for public acceptance of repressive measures...

...Mr...

...What kind of activity was it that warranted the suspension of constitutional rights, the arrest of bystanders, the detention of thousands in crowded and filthy facilities...

...An episode that should have been disavowed by the Government as a shameful departure from the rules and traditions of due process is, instead, being offered to the nation as a model to be emulated whenever and where-ever demonstrations occur...

...According to an ACLU analysis, the bills would: f Revitalize the Smith Act punishing advocacy, teaching or membership in organizations urging the necessity or desirability of forcible overthrow of the U.S...

...H Enact America's first peacetime "treason" law, by punishing anyone who "knowingly and wilfully gives aid and comfort to an adversary of the United States...

...It is a frame of mind that, by itself, has done more to damage our free institutions than the 'subversion' it is designed to attack...

...Government, by eliminating the constitutional requirement of proving a clear and present danger of incitement to immediate illegal action before such speech or association can be punished...

...When constitutional protection is withdrawn from people in the street, it is only a matter of time before the rights of stay-at-homes will be attacked...

...Though the alleged "conspiracies" have been carried out in press conferences and public gatherings and television interviews—and though the charges are unlikely to be sustained by the courts—they serve the purpose of intimidating or at least harassing dissidents...

...The purpose of the proposed law, says Attorney General Mitchell, is "protecting the public...

...citizens wherever it determines "the national interest, the protection of national security, or the effective and successful conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States" so require...

...A fair number of the Eastland proposals were, in fact, official policy and practice in this country not too long ago...

...Now it is commonplace for top officials to refer to the same people—and almost in the same breath— as Storm Troopers, mobsters, anarchists, and Bolsheviks...

...There is a tendency—a dangerous tendency, we believe—among some complacent liberals to assume that the Administration's resort to repressive tactics will be directed only at those who take their protests into the streets...

...Bail could be denied whenever the Government certified a suspect to be "a likely danger to the community...

...Nixon himself declares: "I approve of the action of the police in what they did...

...The Attorney General apparently sees no illogic or inconsistency in denouncing protesters one day as "Nazi brown shirts" and the next as "Communist oriented...

...1f Give the power of subpoena to any Government agency engaged in hearing loyalty or security cases, but explicitly allow such agencies to keep secret the identity of confidential informants...

...By word as well as deed, the Nixon Administration seems intent on creating a climate of repression and intimidation rivaling—and perhaps exceeding—the ugliest abuses of the Joe McCarthy era...

...The Mayday demonstrators did not come to Washington with bombs or guns or teargas canisters...

...It seemed for a while that the Administration was opting for just this explanation by placing full responsibility on the Washington police department for the tactics it had employed...

...The way to fend off the nightmare of repression is to resist every encroachment as it arises...

...Taken together, the Eastland proposals constitute a handy-dandy kit for imposing a total police state...

...One such sign is the recrudescence of McCarthyite name-calling...

...As the American Civil Liberties Union observed last month, "Nobody denies that stopping traffic is a disruptive tactic which must be dealt with firmly by the use of legitimate law enforcement methods, but hardly anybody is still being deceived into believing that the national existence was at stake...

...A year ago the nation laughed when the Attorney General's wife referred to peace demonstrators as "very liberal Communists...

...We have no way of knowing what measures may be on the Administration's drawing boards, but at least one has already been submitted to Congress...

...Had their effort succeeded—and it is most unlikely that it would have succeeded even without the use of illegal police tactics—it would hardly have brought the Government to its knees...

...In fact, however, the Government gives strong signs of mapping a far broader assault on dissent...

...Courts disclosed that last year Federal and state authorities were authorized to eavesdrop secretly on almost 400,000 conversations involving at least 29,558 individuals...

...In the interests of "protecting the public," the Attorney General also insists—in the face of a growing number of contrary court decisions—that he has and by right ought to have unlimited power to listen in on private telephone conversations whenever he deems "national security" to be at stake...

...It is a proposal for a national preventive detention law, patterned on the statute enacted last year for the District of Columbia, which would permit the Government to jail without bail persons accused of bombing, kidnaping, loan-sharking, racketeering, robbery, dope peddling, assaults during hijackings, or the attempt or conspiracy to commit any of these acts...

...Testifying before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (which Senator Eastland heads), the ACLU's legal director, Melvin Wulf, commented that these bills "are the embodiment of that obsessive frame of mind which sees foreign and domestic subversion as the principal danger to the United States...

...There may not be much distance between Eastland's dream of yesterday and the President's plan for tomorrow...

...f Deny tax exempt status to any organization making a donation to a "subversive individual or organization" or to "militant" or "activist" groups...

...They came in a quixotic attempt, born of frustration and despair, to call attention to the war by tying up traffic and perhaps disrupting the Federal bureaucracy for a day or two...

...Nixon is prepared to go to such lengths to protect the flow of traffic, how much further will he go to protect his programs and policies from the rising chorus of public dissent...

...Just why the Attorney General refuses to obtain judicial authority for his wiretaps is something of a mystery, for the courts are not reluctant to grant such permission...

...I supported it after they did it...

...fBar Federal courts from reviewing whether Congressional committees acted within the scope of their legislative mandates in contempt-of-Con-gress proceedings...

...Washington's decisive opposition to mob force will set an example for other communities," says Attorney General John N. Mitchell, the nation's highest law enforcement officer, and he adds that this view is "fully shared by the President of the United States...

...It is not only shocking but ominous, for if Mr...

...The Climate of Repression The cavalier contempt for constitutional safeguards which characterized the Government's response to the Mayday peace demonstrations in the nation's capital might have been explained—though certainly not excused—as the hysterical over-reaction of law enforcement officers confronted with what they regarded as a massive challenge to "law and order...

...In the ensuing weeks, however, while the courts have tried to cope with the chaotic consequences of thousands of dragnet arrests and trumped-up charges, the President and the highest officials of his Justice Department have elevated these same tactics to the status of high national policy...

...A report recently released by the Administrative Office of the U.S...

...11 Authorize the State Department to bar travel to any foreign country by U.S...

...What lies at the end of that road can readily be discerned from a package of five "anti-subversion" measures sponsored by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi...

...The ACLU found it "shocking that the President, sworn to uphold the Constitution, believes he can turn it on and off like a traffic light on the corner to keep cars moving...

...f Overturn court decisions holding that mere membership in the Communist Party is not a sufficient basis for barring an individual from work in a defense industry...

...We have already traveled an alarming distance down the road to repression...

...And in the event that others come in, not to demonstrate for peace but to break the peace, the police will be supported by the President and by the Attorney General in stopping that kind of activity...