PRESS WATCH : Subversive Subpoenas

Over the years, people have tried to stifle freedom of thought and information for some rather bizarre reasons.

But the willingness of Senate leaders to risk these 1st Amendment rights in order to keep peace with the Republicans in the Senate club is as ridiculous as any of them.

A special counsel hired by the Senate to root out the person or persons who leaked a transcript of Prof. Anita Hill’s charges of sexual harassment against Judge Clarence Thomas last year plans to subpoena the two reporters who broke the story. Peter F. Fleming of New York, a former prosecuting attorney, may also try to subpoena people who opposed Thomas’ confirmation as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Unleashing “thought police” on press and public for any reason is an Orwellian concept more in line with the failed government of the former Soviet Union than of the world’s leading democracy.

Doing so to pacify Republicans upset at the leaks is as dangerous as it is outrageous.

Where Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio and Timothy Phelps of Newsday in New York got the information for their news-breaking accounts of the Hill accusations has never been disclosed. But, argue some lawyers, there is no law, or even a Senate rule, against passing Senate information to reporters, just as there is no law forbidding opposition to a Supreme Court nominee. Still the Senate plods ahead toward yet another test of the 1st Amendment, as though the peace and quiet of the club were at least as important as the defense budget or boosting the nation out of recession.