Civil Liberties Specialists Fear Growing Repression

Local civil liberties experts are increasingly concerned about the effort by the state and federal government to set up their surveilance and regulation of radical groups.

The focus of their alarm is a bill passed by, the Massachusetts Legislature on March 30-the same day it gave final approval to a bill testing the legality of the Vietnam war-which allows police to fingerprint and photograph persons arrested for any reason at a demonstration.

According to Roy Hamer, legislative chairman for the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the bill is particularly distressing in light of the Nixon Administration's recent decision to expand and improve its domestic intelligence apparatus to identify potential terrorists before they act.

Hammer said yesterday that America has entered a period of repression more serious than the early 1950's. "[Senator Joseph] McCarthy was pretty mild compared to the present climate." Hammer said yesterday, "since he was an individual Senator who created his own atmosphere. It was not done under the official sanction of the government."

Hammer said that the Massachusetts bill sponsored by a former Cambridge policeman is part of the same repressive atmosphere, since it "is designed to damp-en the enthusiasm of people involved in demonstrations." But Hammer said that he does not think the bill is unconstitutional.

Captain Joseph Ahern, Chief of the State Police's Subversive Activities Board, denied yesterday that there is anything repressive about the bill. "It simply provides a more positive way of identifying persons, whether it be for criminal purposes, historical purposes or social purposes," he said.

"If anybody has anything to hide," Ahern added, "it doesn't infringe on people's rights."

Behind the Justice Department's campaign against extremist groups is the Administration's belief that they pose a serious threat to the nation's security. At least one Presidential advisor believes that "we are facing the most severe internal security threat since the Depression," the New York Times reported Sunday.

"No one can pooh-pooh good faith of government if it's trying to prevent bomb throwing," Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of law and a specialist in civil liberties, said yesterday, "but the bombings give the Justice Department a handle to do something it has always wanted to do."