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Show abr Suit akc tribune i i i j Saturday Morning October 11, I'tiJJ ; Section Fage.l!! A i. Clarify Intent of Holiday In Memory of Dr. King A national holiday for civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, awaits only President Reagan's signature. But even before the legislation reaches the White House there seems to be significant disagreement as to what the holiday is all about. At his press conference Wednesday night, Mr. Reagan said he recognised the holidays symbolic importance to the black community. And Senate Majority Leader Howard noted that "it is only Baker. right that we set aside a day of national commemoration of the important role that black Americans have played in Americas life and work. But Sen. Dale Bumpers , suggested that the holiday was justified because Dr, King "appealed to the decency of all Americans." And so it went. Different people have different ideas about why the holiday was created and what it stands for. The consensus, we perceive. is that Dr. King the man, will become a sort of umbrella for whatever noble accomplishments black Americans have made and that the nation as a whole will join in the an- derstand those principles. Dr. King was working for a "color blind" America in which the distinction of race and th evils that accompanied them, would be eradicated. That end would not be serv ed bv a holiday honoring CKclusivtly the "important role" of black Americans, as Sen. Baker suggests. The King observance, one of federal holidays to honor a native American, is a rare honor not likely to be accorded anyone else for years to come. For that and other important reasons, any disagreement about what it sfanejs for should be cleared up immediately before misconceptions take hold. nual recognition. We are not so sure that Dr. King himself would have wanted it that way. His widow, Coretta Scott King, said after the Senate vote Wednesday that "We don't want the day to become a day of fun and games. We want it to be a day to reflect on the man and his principles." As we un Although the president seems as uncertain as others who have commented, he will have an exceptional y opportunity at the signing to officially define the holidays intent. In the days before that festivity, someone on the White House staff should be assigned to ? Mrilit. only-tw- The proposal, if approved by the Legislature, would force a criminal who profits from his or her crime by writing an account of it to surrender all profits to the state treasurer, who will hold the money in a trust account for up to six years for the potential benefit of the criminals victim. Litigation would be the determinant of who is a victim and how much, if there is a victim, he or she would be paid from the profits trust account. Presumably, if no claimants showed up within the six years the trust account, possibly with the accrued interest, would be returned to the criminal. There is, naturally, something basically appealing to the concept of making a criminal reimburse victims. particularly when he has realized a proiit because of a victim's Mitfering Still, it must be remembered that no law is any better than its possibli-tie- s of enforcement, and the chances of the state of Utah effectively enforcing provisions of the proposed . the United States, federal laws. District of Columbia laws and human impulses. On Aug 15. two young men of patriotic instinct organized a demonstration outside he residence of the Soviet ambassador in Washington. Floyd Brown, 21, and Will Faron. 19, respectively from Washington (state) and Florida, weie interning in Washington under the auspices of the Young Amei ica's Foundation They organized a demonstration against routine Soviet atrocities and held form outside the sov let resident e, where they set out to burn the Soviet flag For tiieir pains, they were arrested bv the District of Columbia po.te and charged with vitiating a 1938 DC statute that forbids such unfriendlv atts. The statute in cutstion is called. "Interference with foregn diplomatic and consulProhibitar oifices. officers and property " only. cere-mone- , Criminal Activity Proceeds Lien law are remote. Any author, whether the criminal or his ghostwriter, who is aware that such a statute exists in Utah is likely to have this account published outside the state and then limit its distribution to the other 49 stales. This would leave Utah with a very tenuous right of enforcement. Also, the only profits that might be subject to a Utah law would be those generated from sales of the material in this state; all other profits would probably fall outside the jurisdiction of Utah's courts. Additionally, under the proposed legislation in order for a victim to realize any payments from the crime profits trust account the victim would have to initiate litigation. This puts a potential recipient in the expensive position of having to sirloin costly, lengthy and complex court hardly a fair approach if the idea is to compensate crime victims for their injuries and suffering. Compensation of crime victims might be an idea whose time has come, but nut in the fuim envisiuntd ed The two gentlemen have gone to court demanding tnJ! the statute he struck down as unconstitutional. Moreover, they have managed to secure the services of a tough called Raymond D Rattocchi. legal wno among otoer th.r.gs works hard to e as it gal my tlnog J k k Anderson dues, so that, one can see, he is a busv man. de-cl- New York Tin tes Service -- Imagine a WASHINGTON ment in which all the officials govern-significa- dealing with foreign policy and defense many t.nousands of are subject them to ran Jam polygraph tests at all times. The same officials must sign an tr'imidaPng document b nding them to submit virtual'. everything they write on those subMr. Lewis jects to official tensors foe the rest ot thei r lives, even after they have the government It oueds l'ke a con of George Orwell's. It is in i.h t toe Reagan administration's vi Legislatures Judiciary Study Committees proposal of a criminal activitity proceeds lien law; an unenforceable and constitutionally dubious suggestion. ; in Dumb? Ohio Corners the I hicugo Tribune Service You want to hear something really dumb'1 week ago (tie state of Ohio put into effect a Buv Ohio" law. saying that any istate agency has to made in buy thmgOhio even if they co'l more and aren t as good as the same tmngs made someplace else implication, By the law suggest' that M&iii the ordinary citizens ,Mr. Rooney of Ohio, as well as government agencies, ought to buy products made in their own state. The governor of Ohio. Kit hard Celeste, explains what he thinks is the necessity for the law bv saying. ' We have a lot of " m ikes (.duo different' Every state lot of unemployment M nnesntj has a comparable law. What vv..',.d ha pin if the other 4H states enacted smu.ar laws of their own7 What if they simple deeded to strike back at these two'1 What etfect. for example, would a nationwide ' Don I Buy Ohio'" campaign have What if neighbors of Ohio like Michigan, West Virginia and Pennsvhama started driving around with "Don t Buy ( )hto bumpT!i has ' i er stickers V ment means that government has no power to lesUict expiessiuu because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter or its content. .Our people are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship. The essence of this fot bidden censorship is content control Any restriction on expressive activity because of its content would completely undercut the 'profound national commitment to (he principle that debate on public issues should be .Go'. uninhibited, robust and vernment may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views. There is an equality of status and government must afford all points of view an equal opportunity to be heard." The young appellants make, as I suggested. additional points, whicn though technical in nature, are robust in their form of expression. For instance. Fioyd Brown challenged the assumption that the Soviet residence before which they demonstrated was in any accepted use of the term being used for "official purposes." "The only official business they do at the residence is spy," Brown said, going on to suggest that the communists w ill not make good witnesses because "the KGB will never admit that." The trial is scheduled for Nov 29 No doubt appellants will cite copiously comparable laws, for instance in New York, where demonstrators are permitted to come up cheek by jowl with foreign embassies, to express the resentments of civilized friends of freedom. Meanwhile, here is a handy example of conservatives who are beefing up the First Amendment, as all good conservatives wide-open.- . should. (Copyright) Will Anyone Stand Up to Big Brother? ac-tio- n; Rih)ih The young Americans are appealing on rhrep grounds, only the first oftvhich ia jf other than purely technical interest. They maintain that the law Is unconstitutional because it is not "content neutral. Somewhat to the surprise of legal watchdogs, Connie Belfiore, who is the spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office, advised the Washington Times that her office had "never heard" of the distinction Brown and Faron are pleading. Now the wording of the law is: "It shall be unlawful to display any flag, banner, placard or device designed or adapted to intimidate, coerce or bring into public odium any foreign government, party or organization, or any officer or officers therefore, or to bring into public disrepute political, social or economic acts, views or purposes of any foreign government, party or organization or to bring into public disrepute any officer or officers or diplomatic or consular representatives of any foreign government within 500 feet of any building or premises within the District of Columbia used or occupied by any foreign government as an embassy, legation, consulate, or for other official purwithout permission of the chief of poses" police. It is this language of the statute that is being challenged on constitutional grounds. The appellants are saying that, in effect, you have here a law that would not molest people who gathered outside the Soviet Embassy to celebrate Gulag, but would punish people who gathered outside the Soviet Embassy to deplore Gulag. The young people's brief cites most conspicuously the case of Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 1972. The court, in striking down a regulation comparable to D.C.s, declared Above all else, the First Amend Anthony Lewis A And we get Jean Kirkpatrick down oil the ceiling. Bti'klov Universal Press Syndicate u 'J st irw It ;!! not tear your heart w.T'ii a little tear, and will out, hut it remind us of some of the ongoing clifticul-tir- s vve get into reconciling things like the Constitution of the new holiday as belated recognition of the critical turn in civil rights recognition Dr. King, perhaps more than anyone else, forced on a reluctant country, creating a promising era of natioaal harmony still in the developing stage. We do not believe a special day was established to honor the substantial accomplishments of black Americans by the I oure the atlvi er. Advise us how First Amendment and Special Interests Has Enforcement Problems Brushing aside for the moment any possible assault on the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression, the proposed Criminal Activity Proceeds Lien statute presents some other uncertainties. illiam W We see play Webster. Holi. New York Coar.ts football fan and I m to find anyth. ng good about loyalty Now. if I'm wrong and this law does work for Ohio, perhaps the idea will spread It states put up trade barriers between thim-selvcwhy shou'dn't towns, counties and at les'1 Why should Cleveland buy products made in Akron when Cleveland has so hard-press-- d this example ) Under tne patriotic stimulus of loyally to the US. during World War II this better than at any time m its whole hisiorv. The ordv trouble with taking anv 'hat is. Nazi loyalty to Adolf pmasme identical was attribute uirected in Vr the lit another dncction It produced tbe same results, though The fact that the cituit was on behalf of evil doexn I bear on the quality f loyalty Ley il'v to a country, a team, a family, a ci'v. S s', hoc 1, w itheut any que stiun, isn t al-jv s good Is it sadder that there are people in Ohm w so don't have enough to eat because trey arent wot king than o tiiat there are Jer-s- e hungry and unemployed people in New in country-produce- itself If that works. Berea, a relutivelv poor section of the Cleveland area, might start refusing to do business with Shaker Height.--, a wealthy section. Carried to its logical conclusion, this kind of economic isolation that Ohio is practie mg could even spread into the home This could be the salv ation of America If each one of us refused to do business wnh neighbors or anv-onelse, we'd all have to learn how to do things for ourselves to stay ilive We could nt individuals again, become building our own homes, growing tt.r two food and making bv hand the thing' we ne. J in order to ketp from doing business with anyone else It could save the n earn m Short of that, them's nmnmg g".nt o n it on Iv make to its uhios plan ' ; e e 11 v sion of what the United States government should be. So we learned in an extraordinarily informative hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security. The subject of the hearing was the National Security Decision Directive issued by President Reagan last March 11 It had two purposes: to bind all officials with access to what is called Sensitive Compartmented Information to a lifetime censorship system, and to broaden the use of polygraphs in government to investigate leaks. Richaid K. Willard, a deputy assistant attorney general, told the subcommittee how the administration wants to use lie detectors His picture went far beyond any previous explanation of the Reagan order Polygraph tests, he said, could be given "on an aperiodic basis to randomly selected employees" with access to especially secret information. If they refuse to take the test, they would lose their clearance. How many people would be subject to that menacing possibility? Willard did not say. But if he meant all those with access to SCI and he seemed to that would be well over 100,000. Various experts told the subcommittee that polygraphs were not reliable. Willard disputed that. But he said there was in any case "an additional benefit," their "deterrent effect." People who know they may be chosen fur a polygraph test at any time, he said, "may be more likely to refrain from ... misconduct. Yes, intimidation might well have an effect. But what would such a system do to the quality of federal employees7 What kind of people would take responsible jobs if they were told at the start that they might at any time, for no stated reason, at the whim of a superior, be asked to take a humiliating, scientifically dubious test? The same question applies to the other half of Reagan's March directive. Who will be willing to give up forever what has been an American birthright the right to speak in order to take a without prior restraint government job0 George Ball, the former under secretary of 'tale, said such an "indignity" would certainly be a deterrent to government service. 1's operative assumption." he said, "is that ii i ofiitidl of the United Stales government tvt r a see ret ary of state or defense or the ti suit r.t's national security adviser - can in tiu'iuil to exercise judgment." Ball railed the sweeping secrecy agree-miithat officials will be asked to sign in future "an appalling document." A Republican suhi onmaiee membe r, Frank Hortun of New Yoik, said it was so broad that as a lawyer he would nut advise a client to sign it. - He said the absence of any time limit on the censorship burden was "one of the most abhorrent aspects." Witness after witness at the subcommittee hearings spoke of the "unintended consethe chill on quences" of the Reagan order public discussion, the degrading of the public service. But I think the premise of those comments was wrong. The Reagan people who pushed the order through were well and welaware of those consequences comed them. "It is as if the administration weighed censorship as a positive good in drafting the order, Professor Lucas A. Powe Jr. of the University of Texas Law School said, "instead of an evil. Exactly. The promoters of the secrecy system are ianaties who do not share the traditional American belief that open debate makes this country stronger. In short, what is involved here is a radical and deliberate change in the American system. And the Reagan administration is trying to make that change without asking even without Congress for legislation high-levexplanation. An amazing aspect of the business is that Attorney General William French Smith has refused to te'stify before Congress about the March order, and no other senior official has publicly explained or defended it. The question is whether Congress will sit still while the administration slips through such a radical program and whether sensible government officials will. Some otn-ciaat the State and Justice Departments say privately that they cannot sign the humiliating agreement facing them. Will they speak up? Will Congress? (Copyright) - - ls - it c I' some good tilings ,1 ,t Is h I'O t to h.tr t ii human aids thinking a i vj! be overrated 'I am lor i i A 11 u !r,(. Co; j j i kV i i "Goeusy tin the xihnnin. You're in no condition to luindlc mix energy.' J |