Defending Justice

THE JAILING LAST WEEK of Samuel L. Popkin, assistant professor of Government, is a dangerous infringement of the basic Constitutional rights supposedly guaranteed by this country to its citizens. The decision of Federal District Judge W. Arthur Garrity pushes the First Amendment closer to extinction and further advance the strained notion that grand juries exit above the law.

Although we must condemn Judge Garrity for failing to avert this aberration of justice. We hold in contempt those government agents who hold in contempt those government agents who spent the past 16 months in relentless drive to clog the free flow of information.

And for what reason? The Boston grand jury is empowered to investigate the possession and distribution of the Pentagon Papers in Massachusetts. Popkin. In his March 27 testimony, told them that he had no knowledge of anyone planning to publish or distribute the papers, and that he was "never given definitive information that someone possessed the study in this state." This would appear to make his testimony of marginal importance from the outset, if indeed the government's only purpose was to probe the matter it has been empowered to investigate.

But it seems that Federal attorneys seek to obtain information useful for political in timidation--information to stop "leaks" to newsmen and scholars from government sources Popkin agreed in court last week to answer the grand jury's question concerning Daniel Ellsberg '52. He agreed to provide the names of scholars with whom he had spoken who led him to his knowledge of the participants in the Pentagon Papers study. The government and the court were unmoved by his concessions.

The only names Popkin would not reveal were those of government officials and confidential sources. And since the government was not interested in the remainder of Popkin's testimony, this must have been its aim.

In short, the government wants Popkin to act as an investigator for its Internal Security Division--a role specifically condemned by Supreme Court Justice Powell in the court's otherwise appalling decisions on press freedom last summer. We laud Popkin's courage in refusing to be a party to such shenanigans.

Peter J. Bridge, the Newark News reporter who was jailed earlier this year for refusing to provide grand jury testimony about confidential sources, wrote shortly before his release that he was reminded constantly of a friend's comment. "Remember one thing," his friend had told him, "those are courts of law, not justice. It's up to people like you and me to bring about justice."

In this time of ever eroding freedoms, his reminder must strike home. We strongly urge students and faculty to contribute what they can to the Popkin Legal Defense Fund.