O'Brian Sees Decline Of Individual Freedom

The all-pervasive craving for security at any price is threatening the very existence of democracy, John Lord O'Brian '96 said last night at the first Godkin Lecture.

Speaking in half-filled Sanders Theater to a primarily adult audience and a few students, he warned that "changes in our attitude towards government and law in the last two decades are threatening our traditional liberties,, particularly those guaranteed under the First Amendment."

In the first of a series of lectures ending tonight, he traced this danger to individual freedom to the need for national security, first felt in the United States after World War I.

Citing that the restrictions on the beliefs of immigrants are the first symptom of vanishing freedom, he traced the attack on individual liberties through the Smith Act, the McCarran Internal Security Act, and the government security program.

All of these laws violate the traditional Angle-Saxon theory of law, he argued, for they attempt to prevent anti-social behavior before it occurs, rather than punishing it. By trying to suppress ideas which could lead to future crime the government is moving towards the suppressing of all opinions critical of the existing system, he said.

Unconstitutional Regulations

Turning to the government security program as the most obvious encroachment on individual freedom, he said that the present system not only assumes the employee guilty until proved innocent, and prevents him from knowing the charges against him, but violates the First Amendment.

"Although the Supreme Court has interpreted security hearings as hiring interviews," he claimed that "dismissal from government service is a social stigma and limits opportunities for employment elsewhere."

The process becomes even more dangerous when the loyalty program is extended to industrial workers not handling classified information, for here, he said, the government is conducting secret investigations of the beliefs of private citizens