SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 457, Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam J. Ervin, Jr., acting chairman, presiding.
Present: Senators Ervin, O'Mahoney, and Hruska.
Also present: Charles H. Slayman, Jr., chief counsel, and William D. Patton, first assistant counsel.
Senator ERVIN. The committee will come to order.
I regret very much that illness will prevent the subcommittee chairman, Senator Hennings, from presiding today.
For the past several years the Constitutional Rights Subcommittee has been making a broad study of freedom of information and secrecy in Government. Our chief purpose has been to determine to what extent constitutional rights are being infringed by present-day restrictions on the dissemination of information in this country.
Today, we resume public consideration of an aspect of secrecy in Government which, in my opinion, raises a number of vexing constitutional problems-the asserted power of the President and his subordinates, under the Constitution, to withhold information from the Congress and the public. Among the many difficult questions raised by the exercise of this alleged power or "privilege" are: To what extent does such a constitutional power or "privilege" actually exist? Who may exercise it and under what circumstances? To whom may it be delegated, and how? And, finally, to what extent may it properly be invoked by officials in the so-called independent regulatory agencies?
The subcommittee already has some testimony on this subject. On March 6, 1958, Attorney General Rogers appeared in person before the subcommittee and spelled out his views in considerable detail. Now we want to have the benefit of additional views.
Today's witnesses will include Prof. Joseph W. Bishop, Jr., of the Yale Law School; Mr. Robert Keller, General Counsel of the General Accounting Office; and Mr. Lawrence Powers, also of the General Accounting Office.
In addition to the testimony of these eminent gentlemen, we had hoped to hear testimony from Prof. Edward S. Corwin, who has long been one of the country's leading writers and students of the Presidency; and from J. Russell Wiggins, executive editor of the Washington Post, a leading authority on the entire subject of freedom of information. Unfortunately, illness has prevented Professor