Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 14, 1995                   TAG: 9502180019
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BILL OF RIGHTS WAS HOMELESS AT HUD

But unseemliness is nowhere barred in the Constitution. Nor is narrowness of outlook grounds for suspending the right of citizens under the First Amendment ``to petition the government for a redress of grievances'' or to protest peacefully if they believe a planned facility may change the character of their neighborhood.

Perhaps officials in the Department of Housing and Urban Development are so bewitched and befuddled by the complex regulations they promulgate that they've lost the ability to read the simple language of the First Amendment. Or perhaps they simply decided their good deeds justified running roughshod over citizens' rights.

Whatever the explanation, HUD got by for months with an assault on freedom of expression, and with nary a peep of opposition from the Clinton administration or Congress.

In one instance - a dispute over facilities for AIDS victims in Richmond - HUD's tactics of intimidating and harassing neighborhood groups that disagreed with it even had the support of the ACLU.

That's American Civil Liberties Union, since 1920 a passionate guardian of citizens' rights to speak up and disagree with their government. In other states where HUD has gone out of bounds, trampling the First Amendment, the ACLU was quick to blow the whistle. That the Virginia chapter did the opposite, casting its lot with HUD against protesting neighborhood groups, reinforces allegations, sad to say, that the organization is most interested in freedom of speech for left-wing-elitist causes.

But the issue isn't the ACLU's actions. The problem was with HUD.

The agency's goal, to be sure, was well-intended: to enforce the federal Fair Housing Act's protections against discrimination in housing. But in its fervor, HUD lost its constitutional bearings.

Its SOP was to lean hard on groups of residents attempting to block facilities for the homeless, alcoholics or others by demanding the groups' correspondence, meeting notes, membership lists and records of contributions; by bringing investigations against those that filed court actions or contacted elected representatives, and by threatening heavy financial fines if residents were found guilty of discrimination.

Only recently, in the face of increasingly bad press, have HUD officials halted the intimidation and issued new guidelines for field workers dealing with groups protesting certain housing projects. Many citizens won't soon forget their brush with the Orwellian-style tactics of the government. Some may wonder for years whether their income-tax returns might be audited or they'll be targeted in some other way for revenge.

Scariest of all is that HUD very nearly institutionalized such efforts to suppress protest while many in Washington watched and idly concluded, ``no problem.'' And they wonder why so many Americans are infuriated by the federal government's arrogance and overreaching.