PERFORMING ARTS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100060012-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: June 13, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/13: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100060012-1
.A.F.TICLE APPEARED THE NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE1-/_ 13 June 1982
PEfWOR O I PRT COM&M-1-A-
TEEV
PO CML L039 TL S
For the past 18 months, we have watched as the Reagan
Administration, spurred on by an alarming coalition of right-
wing preachers and television evangelists, has mounted a
widespread assault on constitutional rights. We, like you, have
talked among ourselves about those threats, and have won-
dered how to respond.
We believe the time. for talk is over. We believe it's time
to act. -
Consider what has happened already:
? A systematic campaign is underway to subject children
in public schools to fundamentalist religious indoctrinatibn; to
conduct prayer sessions, to require the teaching of the Biblical
story of creation in science classes, and to eliminate from
school libraries "immoral" books by authors like Bernard Mala-
mud, Langston Hughes-and Kurt Vonnegut.
? President Rea an has signed a new executive order
that con irms and expands the aut or ty of the CIA and other
intelligence agencies to engage in many of the wo: st abuses
of the Nixon Administration, including wiretapping, infiltration
of oohtical groups, political burglaries and mail openings.
e In the House of Representatives, a petition is circulating
to revive the House Un-American Activities Committee. And
158 members of the House have signed it!
? More and more federal government is claiming the
authority to withhold fr i citizens information about what it is
doing whip expandir,g its power to censor what citizens may
publish. A new executive order vastly increases the power of
officials to stamo documents "classified." whether or not such
documents contain real secrets vital to our nation's secures
And the CIA is pressing Congress for a total exemotion from
the Freedom of Information Act. What the government wants
is the authority to do its business free from democratic debate
or dissent.
? Hostility towards homosexuals is finding its way into law.
In Oklahoma, teachers may now be fired for speaking.out on the
subject. In Louisiana, a pending law would require teachers to
specify their sexual preference when applying for a job. In Con-
gress, laws have been proposed to bar federal funds to colleges
that permit gay rights organizations, and to prohibit legal services
lawyers from representing homosexuals.
? Perhaps most dangerous of all is a new and concerted
effort to limit the authority of the federal courts-.-those courts
.that were designed to give citizens the means to enforce their
constitutional rights. Dozens of proposals are being consid-
ered in Congress that would prohibit federal courts from even
hearing many constitutional cases. If that happens, state legis-
latures would be able to restrict the right to abortion, permit ra-
cial discrimination, or impose religious ceremonies in public
schools---and federal courts would be powerless to stop them,
even if such laws clearly violated the Constitution. Our rights
would remain on paper-but there would no longer be an ef-
fective remedy when they were violated! No more radical effort
to upset our system of checks and balances has ever been so
seriously considered
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/13: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100060012-1