NEW YORK CITY-It could not have been predicted back in 1973. But the lawsuit filed then by the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance is today highlighting some of the most crucial issues in American politics.
When the trial began on April 2, SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes declared: "We are fighting not only for our rights and our ideas, but for the rights of all working people-of the miners now on strike against the coal operators, of the people of El Salvador fighting for the right to run their country ... and of the Americans who do not want another Vietnam." That's how the US government sees it too.
Measures to stifle dissent
As opposition to its policies grows, Washington has floated a series of measures to gag dissent. But every single one is currently at issue in the SWP and YSA suit here.
• The White House is proposing a new executive order on intelligence activities which, in the words of the New York Times (May 2I), would "authorize, rather than restrict, the collection of information and the use of such techniques as searches, surveillance and infiltration.. " The paper has speculated that a prime target could be the solidarity movement with El Salvador.
The socialists are arguing in court that the whole apparatus of unlimited presidential powers, as embodied in such executive orders. is undemocratic and unconstitutional.
• A new Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism has begun open hearings. "Terrorism" is the new code word of the Reagan administration to justify every repressive action it commits or supports. And where do you draw the line? Senator John East explained at a subcommittee hearing: "Many of these support activities that are necessary to successful terrorism are in fact legal and nonviolent. yet it would seem that in order to track terrorism adequately and for an intelligence or law enforcement agency to predict the occurrence of terrorism, it would have to have some sur-
00c Robert Keuch veillance of legal and nonviolent support."
The government's case in the SWP and YSA lawsuit provides a perfect example of this type of smear technique. Defense attorney Edward Williams cross-examined Jack Barnes: "Isn't it true. Mr. Barnes, that you headed up an international operational center of the Fourth International in Paris from 1972 to the start of 19732" Dismissing Barnes's denial that any such body existed, Williams returned to this theme again and again. He even claimed: "There are many documents which have been produced to us by the plaintiffs from their own files which refer to the operational center of the Fourth International... those very words are used."
The obvious implication to be drawn was that the Fourth International and the SWP are involved in some sort of secret military "terrorist" operation for which their political activities are merely a front. But in pursuing this innuendo Williams overplayed his hand. Pressed to specify where "those very words are used," the nearest he could
• A sustained attempt is under way to dismantle the Freedom of Information Act, under which the government was forced to release some of the files detailing its disruption of the legitimate political activities of the SWP and YSA and many other groups and individuals. Already antisecrecy guidelines governing disclosures under the act have been repealed. But that is not enough for Reagan's attorney general, William French Smith, who has asked all federal agencies to suggest "reforms" which would remedy "demonstrated flaws" in the act. It can safely be assumed that the ammunition which the act has given the SWP and YSA suit is one "flaw" Smith has centrally in mind.
• A measure called the Intelligence Identities Protection Act is currently working its way through Congress. The specific aim of this piece of legislation is to protect informers-such as the hundreds who spied on the SWP and YSA since the FBI's investigation began in 1938.
According to the Covert Action Information Bulletin, the bill "would prevent an organization from exposing and expelling an FBI informer discovered in its midst." This goes to the heart of the issues raised in the SWP and YSA suit. Despite the formal termination of the FBI investigation in 1976, a member of the SWP's National Committee was unmasked as an informer only in June 1980. and there can be little doubt that others are still in place.
All these moves boil down to one thing: The Reagan administration is openly prepared to ride roughshod over democratic rights in order to crush opposition to its war drive. This was made abundantly clear in court with the testimony of Justice Department official Robert Keuch last week.
Keuch went through what he listed as "seven bases of authority" for the FBI investigation of the SWP and YSA. Much of this was pretty tenuous stuff. As Judge Griesa commented at one point: "l am not getting much of a basis. It is minutiae. Now, if the investigation wasn't justified on more broad grounds, believe me, it is in trouble.
The judge perked up when Keuch got on to criminal statutes such as the Voorhis Act, which prevents the formal affiliation of the SWP to the Fourth International. FBI agent Arthur Greene had testified only the previous week that one of the "highest objectives" of the FBI's break-ins had been to detect violations of this act.
But Keuch, an official in the Justice Department for over twenty years, is a lot smarter than Greene. He knows, and he knows the judge knows, that no one has ever been prosecuted under the Voorhis Act. So he was quite prepared to dismiss such legislation as "one of the more minor bases of authority for those investigations."
The judge wanted to clarify this: "You are saying that the basic, the real reason, the important reason for the investigation ... over all these years, was not any of those Acts?" Keuch replied, "I think that is correct."
So what was the "real reason, the important reason? Keuch referred to a court opinion some years ago on "the inherent power and responsibilities of the President," which noted that the President of the United States has a fundamental duty under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Implicit in that duty is the power to protect our government against those who would subvert or overthrow it by unlawful means."
Keuch explained with reference to the SWP and YSA: "I believe it was that inherent power that the President was exercising in 1936 and the successive Presidents and successive Attorneys General have exercised and utilized in authorizing investigations into those organizations and individuals who could potentially fall into or who could indeed take unlawful or unconstitutional means to change the form of government.
In other words, the government can do what it wants, when it wants, and to whom it wants. And it isn't accountable to anybody. No wonder a growing number of people aren't too happy about this "form of goverment" and want to change it. Even Judge Griesa thought Keuch's arguments lacked public credibility. His response was to say: "Yes, but-look, I have read the Constitution but I mean, what is the practical reason?... if it is not primarily to conduct criminal prosecutions, what is it to do?" To which Keuch merely responded with more flannel about needing to know "the activities and the aims and intentions of groups who potentially could be acting inimically to our form of government."
And then the judge scored a bull's-eye. OK, he said, these are the authorities you cite for investigating the SWP and YSA. But what about the disruption program? "All I can say," replied Keuch, "is that the Department of Justice was not aware of those activities." And Nixon didn't know about Watergate, right?
If Keuch's testimony lacked a certain public credibility, that is merely a sign of the general problems facing the Reagan administration at this time. Its right-wing political solutions simply do not find a significant echo among American working people.
When the government resorts to police-state methods it therefore does so from a position of weakness and not strength. And every twist and turn it is forced to make in court in response to the charges of the SWP and YSA only undermines its position further.
You won't miss a single issue if you subscribe.
United States
Funeral for Jerry Mathis, one of slain youths.