Civil Liberties: Locking Away The Files

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From 1948 until 1976, the FBI conducted a campaign of break-ins and infiltration against the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance, two Trotskyite organizations. Two years ago, a federal judge castigated the bureau for violating the constitutional rights of both groups by illegally assembling nearly 10 million files on their members. Last week, in the final act of a 15-year legal battle, the Justice Department dropped its appeal of a 1987 court order that barred the Government from using the information in those surveillance reports.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management and other agencies had contended that not utilizing the material might impede their investigations of the "suitability, reliability and loyalty" of applicants for sensitive federal jobs. Following abandonment of the appeal, Attorney Leonard Boudin, who represented the Socialist Workers, called the case a "laboratory dissection of the Government's attempt to destroy a political party."