TESTIMONY OF CATHERINE L. REEVERTS, REPRESENTING WOMEN STRIKE FOR PEACE

Ms. REEVERTS. Thank you. I appreciate the committee's patience. I am going to be dealing, basically, with the summary that was attached to my text, with a few additions.

My name is Catherine Reeverts. I am here representing Women Strike for Peace. We are opposed to S. 1437 and H.R. 6869. We support many of the provisions of H.R. 2311 where they differ from S. 1437 and H.R. 6869, and find the general tone of H.R. 2311 to be superior in its efforts to safeguard civil liberties.

Women Strike for Peace opposes wholesale, one-shot reform of our Criminal Code because of the danger and likelihood that precious civil liberties will be traded off in compromises to get the whole bill passed. We are as anxious as anyone for Criminal Code reform, and for a more manageable compilation of these laws, but can only support such reform if it is done on a provision-by-provision basis. Only in this manner can the impact of changes in, or reenactment of, our criminal laws on civil liberties be examined and fully debated. Such swift passage of S. 1437 by the Senate did not give civil liberties the deliberation they are due.

We are concerned by the expansion of Federal power first, inherent in the creation of several new offenses such as obstructing a Government function by fraud, obstructing a Government function by physical interference, criminal solicitation, and failing to obey a public safety order; and second, inherent in the overbreadth and vagueness of many of the proposed statutes. Such extensions of power, we feel, are licenses for repression, open for abuse whenever the spirit of repression moves the Government.

Women Strike for Peace is particularly addressing those sections of these bills which we fell will impact adversely on freedom of expression, a right which we as a peace group are particularly concerned with. Many of these provisions, in the guise of protecting the citizenry, instead protect the Government from the responses of the citizens, and give it unnecessary power over the citizenry at the expense of basic freedoms.

We feel there must be a definition of war, strictly limited to a declared war, to avoid abuses of the sabotage provisions that become stricter depending on whether it is wartime or peacetime.

Provisions involving national defense and protecting Government processes, chapters 11 and 13, must be limited so as not to allow abusive prosecution, to prevent insulating the Government from public input, and to avoid hiding Government actions from the public.

Several sections, we feel, specifically limit that activity which we as a peace group engage in when demonstrating against war. The sections on sabotage; impairing military effectiveness; obstructing military recruitment or induction; and inciting or aiding mutiny, insubordination, or desertion could halt those methods of expressing opposition to war which are now legal.

Other provisions because of their overbreadth could be used to suppress peaceful demonstrations. Obstructing Government functions by physical interference, leading a riot, engaging in a riot, failing to

obey a public safety order, all would make arrest of demonstrators easy. Whether or not prosecution was successful, the removal of the demonstrators during the action would already have been effected.

We are concerned about limits on freedom of the press in several of the sections. Disseminating national defense information, disseminating classified information, and receiving classified information, excluded from H.R. 2311, all come from laws passed during the repressive period of the early 1950's, a fact which we feel supports our fears that they could be used to insulate our Government from criticism and public outery, and would punish those who try to alert the public to Government malfeasance.

Problems of freedom of the press also exist in the section, revealing private information submitted for Government purpose. Hindering law enforcement, and the espionage provision.

We are concerned about these inroads on press freedoms, particularly because we cannot act as a conscience for the Government if we do not know what it is doing.

We are opposed to the inclusion of use immunity as an unacceptable erosion of the fifth amendment.

We are opposed to inclusion of an obscenity provision because of the likelihood of wholesale reduction of freedom of expression.

We are opposed to inclusion of the Logan Act which was added as an amendment to S. 1437. Women Strike for Peace find communication among all peoples of the world to be essential to achieving world peace. To limit the persons American citizens can communicate with about international disputes or about controversies this country is involved in, or about unpopular measures of the United States, is offensive to the first amendment freedom of speech.

We are frightened by the dire implications these bills have for Government repression of public dissent. They would, if enacted into law, insulate the Government from protest, prevent citizens from finding out about Government actions, and would, in general, reduce citizen participation in the Government. The greatly increased possibility of prosecution in so many different areas of citizen activity will have a heavy impact on freedom of expression, and we fear that public outcry will be stifled.

We urge reform on a provision-by-provision basis to avoid the frightful compromises and oversights that occur in attempting to pass an omnibus bill.

Thank you.

Mr. MANN. Thank you for your concise summary. For the record, and my information too, tell us a little more about Women Strike for Peace.

Ms. REEVERTS. Women Strike Peace is an organization that started in the early 1960's, after it was discovered that fallout from nuclear testing was affecting children, that strontium-90 was being absorbed in children's bones at such an alarming rate.

Since that time, Women Strike for Peace became active trying to control the nuclear arms race. Then we became very active against the war in Vietnam. Since our beginning, we have come full circle, and now are again concerned about the dangers of disarmament-the dangers of the nuclear arms race, and also of nuclear energy in general. Mr. MANN. You are based where?

Ms. REEVERTS. Well, we are a national organization. We have a legislative office here in Washington. Our national office is in Philadelphia.

Mr. MANN. I see. Ms. Holtzman.

Ms. HOLTZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to compliment the witness on the statement. I have not heard anybody else make it, but I think it is a very important one; that is, the witness is opposed to wholesale one-shot attempt at reform and with the labor of the so-called fathers of S. 1, S. 1 itself, and the son of S. 1.

I think that comment is an important one. The observation it makes is very important in the sense that when you have a bill as massive as this, as has become clear in the testimony of the witnesses here, the deficiencies can be enormous, numerous, and hard to detect.

Deficiencies can range from problems of constitutional magnitude to problems of policy with regard to jurisdiction, to problems with civil liberties.

I would hope, personally, that this bill is defeated, and that with this defeat, we never see another effort like this, and that we concentrate on reform in areas where we need reform, areas in sentencing where we need reform, and not waste enormous time and effort such as this.

Mr. MANN. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.

The subcommittee will stand in recess until tomorrow at 3 o'clock. [Whereupon, at 6:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned, to reconvene at 3 p.m., on Tuesday, March 21, 1978.]

LEGISLATION TO REVISE AND RECODIFY FEDERAL

CRIMINAL LAWS

TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1978

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 2:55 p.m. in room 2226 of the Rayburn House Office Building; the Honorable James R. Mann (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mann and Wiggins.

Staff present: Thomas W. Hutchison, counsel; Robert A. Lembo and Kathy J. Zebrowski, assistant counsel; and Raymond V. Smietanka, associate counsel.

Mr. MANN. The subcommittee will come to order.

Today the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice is resuming its hearings on the legislation to recodify Federal criminal laws. We have already heard from a great many witnesses representing a wide range of viewpoints and concerns. Our hearings to date have focused on the substantive offense provisions, and after the recess we will focus on the sentencing aspects of the legislation.

We want to insure that all scheduled witnesses receive a fair opportunity to be heard, so that the Chair requests that witnesses refrain from reading their prepared statements that they submit for the record.

We appreciate the patience of those persons scheduled for near the end of the hearing.

Our first witness today is Ira W. Thornton of San Mateo, Calif. Mr. Thornton is president of Bay View Federal Savings & Loan Association of San Mateo and is here to testify on behalf of the U.S. League of Savings Associations.

He is accompanied today by a former colleague of ours, Laurie Battle, who is legislative consultant to the league, and by John C. Rasmus, an assistant vice president of the league.

Mr. Thornton will discuss offenses in the legislation relating to savings and loan associations.

He has submitted a prepared statement. Without objection, it will be made a part of our record.

Welcome to the subcommittee, Mr. Thornton. You may proceed as you see fit.

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TESTIMONY OF IRA W. THORNTON, PRESIDENT, BAY VIEW FEDERAL SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION OF SAN MATEO, CALIF., ACCOMPANIED BY LAURIE BATTLE, LEGISLATIVE CONSULTANT, AND JOHN C. RASMUS, ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, U.S. LEAGUE OF SAVINGS ASSOCIATIONS

Mr. THORNTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Shattuck for giving me the opportunity to come up early. I have a 5:30 airplane at Dulles back to San Francisco.

The gentlemen with me have been introduced. I do appreciate the opportunity to come here and express my views on the subject. I am not an attorney. I am a practicing manager of a savings and loan association. I did have the opportunity in 1976 of having some very interesting firsthand experience with a terrorist underground group. I learned things that perhaps I would rather not have learned, but they did occur. It is covered in my written statement.

The concern that I have personally has to do with the disruptive activities of organized terrorist groups, when they select, particularly, an insured deposit institution as the target for their attack. Depositories such as banks and savings and loans have a particularly vulnerable situation when the public becomes concerned about the institution's welfare. It seems that people readily interpret any kind of activity that is unusual as being hazardous to their funds.

My experience indicated that when we were involved in a struggle with this terrorist group, our depositors were quite willing to come in expressing dismay and alarm and ask for their money, so that they could take it to an institution that was safe.

I hadn't anticipated earlier that this could occur, but it certainly did, in our case.

I have outlined on the second page of my paper the points that I feel should be included in the Federal Code, and I fully realize that some of these items, such as bombing a savings and loan association, are a crime, both Federal and State.

Other items covered in my listing are not Federal crimes, I don't believe. They may not even be State crimes.

But, again, my concern here has to do with these types of activities when conducted by an organized terrorist group, such as the New World Liberation Front, the group with which I had my experience. Incidentally, the NWLF is still active in San Francisco, throughout the northern California area.

As recently as last Friday, they bombed the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Their demands against P.G. & E. are completely unrealistic, and they are using the unlawful power that they have to coerce Pacific Gas & Electric into doing things that they otherwise shouldn't, and probably couldn't do.

The thought that I have is that if we could protect savings and loan associations from these types of crimes or activities similar to the method of protecting airliners against the threat of bombs, it would be very useful, in the area of rumors, spreading rumors, and threatening institutions.