MISSOURI COMMENTARY: BE CAREFUL OF LAWS BORN OF PANIC

Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy and other talk radio hosts of equal vituperation most certainly did not direct, order or participate in the horrid bombing in Oklahoma City. Professional promoters of paranoia as they are, they nonetheless are not the conductors of the orchestra. They are far back in the brass section pumping loud blasts of background music designed to keep their listeners at a consistently angry and antagonistic pitch. They are backdrop mood setters. They are sound effect experts intent on keeping the decibel level of public discourse sky high.

President Bill Clinton put it this way: "We hear so many loud angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other."

The New York Times writes: "But a first step toward a healthier society would be for its most virulent speakers to consider whether by characterizing politics as warfare and by demonizing their opponents, they have created a hothouse where violence blossoms."

Some in the talk radio world seem somewhat mystified that the bombing wasn't executed by a swarthy foreigner. Aliens are easier to identify with the point finger of disdain. But a white American male "patriot: gun-loving kook doesn't fit as easily into the shrill music.

The President hopes that the talk-show flame throwers will, in the wake of Oklahoma City, proceed with a greater sense of responsibility. Don't hold your breath. Incendiary call-in shows thrive on being just that -- incendiary. The key to ratings success is to match agitated listeners and agitating hosts. For example, people have been calling all over the country to assert that the Oklahoma City horror was designed by President Clinton for the purpose of casting suspicion on the various state militia "patriots." How about that for hot talk?

Limbaugh, Liddy and the other wild men have the Constitution and the First Amendment to protect what they say. All Americans have those and all the other constitutional safeguards. That's why in the grief-stricken aftermath of the tragedy, we should be cautious in tampering hastily with constitutional rights.

The President, Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Minority Leader Richard Gephardt all call for enactment of new legislation to deal with terrorism, domestic and foreign. Topics being mentioned are increased infiltration and surveillance rights, easier wire tapping and computer access, access to bank and financial records, and more.

Although not an exact parallel, we have to some extent been down this road before. Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI had pretty much carte blanche to do most anything it wanted in snooping into the lives of American citizens. Hoover, himself a professional promoter of paranoia, found boundless enemies around the country -- such as Martin Luther King -- worthy of his intrusive scrutiny.

It all collapsed when the FBI's Cointelpro program became known. The Bureau admitted that thousands and thousands of files were kept on various black groups and on people who had expressed opposition to the war in Vietnam. The Cointelpro operation also included the FBI's creating false information designed to discredit leaders of various organizations.

Edward Levi, President Gerald Ford's attorney general and a former law school dean, believed that the FBI under Hoover had run amuck and had to be limited in its irresistible impulse to intrude into the lives of our citizens.

Any new anti-terrorist legislation has to be considered not only in the immediate wake of the horrifying bombing in Oklahoma, but for the longer term as well. For now we are angered in the extreme with the militia kooks. Even Limbaugh calls them "weekend Bubbas going out with their guns to play soldier." In this anger, we might say infiltrate 'em, tap 'em, follow 'em.

Former FBI director, former CIA director and former Judge William Webster cautions us stating "I'm against legislation born out of panic." Laws cannot be crafted in terms of just spooking the militia nuts. They will necessarily be crafted in broad, generic terms giving the current FBI director and all future FBI directors authority to intrude into the lives of all Americans. J. Edgar Hoover was the all-powerful director of the FBI and took unto himself sweeping authority to be the nation's all-purpose intrusive snooper. He titillated President Lyndon Johnson, a giddy devotee of gossip, with all of the information he developed on American citizens.

Hoover is dead. The Hoover era is dead. Let us be very careful not to reinvent either him or his methods.

~Tom Eagleton is a former U.S. senator from Missouri and a columnist for the Pulitzer Publishing Co.