CIVIL LIBERTIES OR ELITISM?

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Now that Professor Samuel Popkin has been released from jail, it should be possible to offer some negative comments on the reasoning behind his defense without being in the position of kicking somebody while he is down. Certainly some negative comments are in order.

Professor Popkin's defense of his refusal to answer certain questions before a grand jury has been characterized as civil libertarian. The correct characterization seems to me to be elitist. Popkin and his lawyers did not argue that everyone should have the right to refuse to answer questions before a grand jury. They argued that "scholars" should have a special privilege.

Basically, Popkin is defending an elitist system of information control. The substance of his argument seems to be that there should be special people with special privileges who keep the public informed. How do such people get their positions? What if I don't trust any of them and want to collect my own information?

In my opinion, the primary barrier to the free flow of information in our country is not the explicit infringements on civil liberties that are sponsored by the government. Rather the free circulation of ideas and information is limited by the fact that our newspapers and universities are dominated by the capital controlling class which has interests in conflict with those of the vast majority of the people.

An argument such as Popkin's that supports the existing elitist system of information control seems to me to be at least as pernicious as the arguments of Popkin's prosecutors.

One other point should be mentioned. Popkin has argued that scholars must be able to keep their sources of information secret. But it is one of the prime requisites of scholarship that one's sources be public and subject to verification by others. In this society, secrecy is often a good and-or necessary thing, but it is officially anathema to scholarship.

Finally I cannot help but comment on the way in which Popkin's colleagues and the Harvard University administration rushed to his defense. One wonders where these great defenders of civil liberties have been on so many other occasions. But, then, perhaps they are well aware that the real issue here is one of privilege for themselves and not one of civil liberties for the people. Arthur MacEwen   Assistant Prof. of Economics