[wordup] Is TIPS a new a witch hunt for the 00's?

[Adam Shand]

"but later regretted that he answered their questions at all.".  So
remember everyone, the appropriate answer when asked if you're aiding
and abetting terrorism is ...

"Go fuck yourself".

Adam.

Via: rebecca <rebecca at wetafx.co.nz>
From: http://web.uccs.edu/ur/mediawatch/May%202002/reuters_05_10_02.htm

By Keith Coffman

BOULDER, Colo. (Reuters) - The University of Colorado released on Friday
a half-century-old report based on information from anonymous informants
that preceded the firing of several professors who were suspected of
being communists.

The report, which detailed such activities as one professor hosting a
reception for singer Paul Robeson or another watching a Soviet-made
movie, offered a glimpse of the 1950s Communist scare in America when
people were suspected of being communists, sometimes based on the
flimsiest of evidence.

The school's Board of Regents voted 8-1 to release the report after a
local newspaper sued under the Freedom of Information Act. The
university is a state school.

Some regents had expressed concern that releasing the report would
further tarnish the reputations of the professors, all but one of whom
have died.

"On behalf of the entire university community, I want to apologize to
those families that were affected by this report. Hearsay, innuendo and
covert investigation of our citizens should never be tolerated in a
democratic society," said Jim Martin, a member of the Board of Regents.

The 138-page report, conducted by two former FBI agents at the request
of then-university President Robert Stearns, had been kept under wraps
by the university since 1953.

It detailed the investigation of 15 university faculty and staff
members, which some claim led to the firing of eight of them in an era
of particularly strong anti-Communist sentiment in the United States in
the early years of the Cold War.

One professor was reported to have watched a Soviet-made movie that was
shown by members of the Community Party. An informant said he saw a
racially mixed couple meet at a cafe and discuss buying tickets to a
dinner party to honor William Foster, who then served as national
chairman of the U.S. Communist Party, according to the report.

Another professor was suspected of being anti-American because he
criticized U.S. participation in the Korean War, which was being waged
at that time pitting U.S. and allied forces against communist Chinese
and North Korean forces.

In a court hearing last week in the lawsuit filed by the Daily Camera
newspaper in Boulder, university lawyers argued that the report should
not be released because it fell under attorney-client privilege and
there was no evidence that the report directly led to the firings.

THE VICTIM OF A WITCH HUNT?

But Nina Judd, the daughter of Morris Judd, the only one of the eight
fired by the university who is still alive, testified that the file
should be unsealed to prove that her father was the victim of a witch
hunt. "(The university) trashed the reputation and destroyed the
academic career of my father," Nina Judd said during the hearing.

Friday's vote by the regents to open the file made the court case moot.

Reached by telephone at his home in Sun City, Arizona, Morris Judd, now
85, told Reuters he was relieved that the report finally was made
public, but said he was concerned that anonymous informants would have
wielded such power.

His contract to teach philosophy was not renewed because of his alleged
subversive ties.

"This is an important historical document, and it's high time it's
released," Judd said.

Judd was targeted in part because he held a party for Paul Robeson, the
black singer and stage actor whose socialist leanings led him to run
afoul of U.S. authorities who at one point revoked Robeson's passport.

Judd said the two investigators questioned him about his political
beliefs, and he told them he was not a Communist, but later regretted
that he answered their questions at all.

"I wish I had stuck to my principles," he said.