Word: barenblatt
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...years later a five-to-four majority upheld the conviction of Lloyd Barenblatt, former instructor at Vasser who refused on first amendment grounds to answer questions about alleged Communist affiliations. Aside from the technical point which the Court had cited in the Watkins case, Barenblatt's suit was fundamentally the same. Thus Congress was reassured that the Watkins decision represented no broad judicial opinion on HUAC proceedings, and a confrontation between the two branches was avoided...
...Since Barenblatt, the Supreme Court has consistently found technical reasons for dismissing contempt charges, and the American Civil Liberties Union has been repeatedly foiled in its attempt to secure a broad decision as to HUAC's constitutionality...
...case this week -- to balk at risking a confrontation. For it is HUAC, and not one Court, which has violated the separation of powers, by becoming a mechanism, in Justice Black's words, of "exposure for exposure's sake." As Black stated in dissenting from the majority opinion in Barenblatt, "all the questions in this case really boil down to one -- whether we as a people will try fearfully and futilely to preserve democracy by adopting totalitarian methods, or whether in accordance with our traditions and our Constitution we will have the confidence and courage to be free...
Calling HUAC an "engine of oppression," the advertisement defended Lloyd Barenblatt, Chandler Davis, Frank Wilkinson, and Carl Braden, who have served jail sentences "for defying the HUAC's inquiry into their personal beliefs and associations." "Thirty-five others are threatened with imprisonment for this same political crime," the statement continued...
This abdication of judicial responsibility means the committee now has the power to blacken the eye of any critic. It will be restrained only by the flimsy "protections" for witnesses the Court suggested in the earlier Barenblatt decision. For example, under a "balancing test" the Court had ruled that Congressional committees could curtail or abridge First Amendment rights only when the Court itself decides that a committee's needs (national defense, internal security) outweigh considerations of rights. But, as Black says, the Wilkinson decision throws away the Court's power to determine whether a committee's needs are pressing...