Griswold Says Security Methods Impair Liberty

"Our security and loyalty system has gone too far and has definitely impared our freedom," Dean Griswold of the Law School told a University of New Mexico audience last night. He gave the John Fields Simms Memorial Lecture at that college.

Griswold attacked the security system's practice of using anonymous evidence in any case where an individual's rights are affected. "It is unnecessary and unwise to do this to as great an extent as it has been done in recent years," he said.

"What is needed may be a greater sense of restraint by governmental officials," Griswold continued, "and a greater awareness of what is really useful in protecting our national security, rather than those actions which infringe too far on our traditional conceptions of liberty."

The Law School dean also defended the right of teachers and professors to come to their own decisions without fear of reprisal from their superiors. He emphasized that there are "both staunch defenders along with a growing respect for academic freedom in America today."

One who invokes the Fifth Amendment, according to Griswold, has come to be regarded by the public as a dangerous "liberal." "I am one who has always felt that there was virtue in the Fifth Amendment and I have made some effort to explain it to my fellow citizens," he added.

Emphasizing that "We cannot have America without security; and yet it is equally clear that we must almost preserve individual freedom," he pointed out that advocates of both policies were at definite odds but that he felt "we are slowly making some progress back to sound principles in these areas."

"The greatest single threat to civil liberties in this country is the fear of communist aggression, both external and internal," Griswold said. If the Communists succeed here, he pointed out, there could obviously be no civil liberties in this country.

America is far from defenseless from any Red aggression, Griswold said. "We have well conceived and substatial methods to protects us that have functioned successfully for many years."