JENNA HARRIS

Barenblatt v. United States (1959)
360 U.S. 109

Relevant Case Facts:

On February 25, 1953, a subcommittee of HUAC initiated a series of hearings called “Communist Methods of Infiltration (Education)”. Among those testifying before the committee was Francis X. T. Crowley. He admitted that while he was a graduate student at the University of Michigan in 1950 that he belonged to a club with links to the Communist Party. Crowley told the committee that Lloyd Barenblatt was a member as well. In June 1954 the committee subpoenaed Barenblatt to testify before it. Barenblatt told the committee that he was at Michigan, and that he knew Crowley, like Crowley had testified. However, Barenblatt refused to answer five important questions …show more content…
2) The First Amendment rights are asserted to bar governmental interrogation resolution of the issues always involves a balancing by the courts of the competing private and public interests at stake.
3) Congress has legislative authority to legislate in the field of the Communist activity in the United States because of national security concerns.

Dissenting Opinions (Black, Brennan):

Justice Black argued that the First Amendment says in no equivocal language that Congress can pass no law abridging freedom of speech, press, assembly, or petition. He says however, that the activities of that committee, authorized by Congress, do exactly that. He does not agree that laws directly abridging First Amendment freedoms can be justified by a congressional or judicial balancing process. There are some cases that this could take place in, but this case was not one. He argues that they did not even remotely suggest that a law directly aimed at curtailing speech and political persuasion could be saved through a balancing