stating that “[cjertain principles have remained relatively immutable in our jurisprudence,” including the right of the accused to challenge “the testimony of individuals ... who ... might be perjurers or persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy”
How later courts described this case
- stating that “[cjertain principles have remained relatively immutable in our jurisprudence,” including the right of the accused to challenge “the testimony of individuals ... who ... might be perjurers or persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy”
- holding that the Department of *177 Defense’s security clearance program, under which affected persons may lose their civilian jobs if they are found unfit to hold a clearance, violated the traditional procedural safeguards of confrontation and cross-examination
- holding that "in the absence of explicit authorization from either the President or Congress, the respondents were not empowered to deprive petitioner of his job in a proceeding in which he was not afforded the safeguards of confrontation and cross-examination”
- stating, in dicta, that "the right to hold specific private employment and to follow a chosen profession free from unreasonable governmental interference comes within the 'liberty' and 'property' concepts of the Fifth Amendment...."
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Balelo v. Baldrige, 724 F.2d 753 (1984)
In our discussions below, we reject the contentions that the observer program substantially departs from accepted methods of enforcing regulatory schemes, and the Greene case is therefore inapplicable.
Distinguished by New York Pathological & X-Ray Laboratories, Inc. v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 389 F. Supp. 1007 (1974)
However, even assuming that the definition of “property” is the same for both purposes, Greene and Tropiano are distinguishable from • the present case because they involved clear examples of interference with business; whereas the plaintiffs in the present case remain free to conduct their laboratory business.
Distinguished by Lusk v. United States, 173 Ct. Cl. 291 (1965)
The facts of Greene v. McElroy are readily distinguishable from those of the present case.
The opinion
*509 Mr. Justice Harlan,
concurring specially.
What has been written on both sides of this case makes appropriate a further word from one who concurs in the judgment of the Court; but cannot join its opinion.
Unlike my brother Clark who finds this case “both clear and simple,” I consider the constitutional issue ■•’it presents most difficult and far-reaching. In my view the Court quite properly declines to decide it in the present posture of the case. My unwillingness to subscribe to the ..Court’s opinion is due to the fact that it unnecessarily deals with the very issue it disclaims deciding. For present purposes no more need be said than that we should not be drawn into deciding the .. constitutionality of the' security-clearance revocation procedures employed in' this case until the use' of such procedures in matters of this kind has been deliberately considered and expressly authorized by the Congress or the President who alone are in a position to evaluate' in the first instance the totality of factors bearing upon the necessity for their use. That much the courts are entitled to before they are asked to express a constitutional judgment upon an issue fraught with such important • consequences both to the Government and the citizen.
" Ample justification for abstaining from a constitutional decision at this stage of the case is afforded by the Court’s traditional and wise rule of not reaching constitutional issues unnecessarily or prematurely. That rule indeed has been consistently followed by this Court when faced with “confrontation” issues in .other security or loyalty cases. See Peters v. Hobby, 349 U. S. 331 ; Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U. S. 535 ; cf. Service v. Dulles, 354 U. S. 363 ; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116 . Adherence to that rule is, , as I understand it, the underlying basis of today’s decision, and it is on that basis that I join the judgment of the Court.
*510 It is regrettable that my brother Clark should have so far yielded to the temptations of colorful characterization as to depict the issue in this case as being whether a citizen has “a constitutional right to have access to the Government’s military secrets,” and to suggest that the Court’s action today requires “the President’s Cabinet members to revoke their refusal to give” the petitioner “access to military , secrets,” despite any views they may have as to his reliability. Of course this decision involves no such issue or consequences. The basic constitutional issue is not whether petitioner is entitled to access to classified material, but rather whether, the particular procedures here employed to deny clearance on security grounds were constitutionally permissible; With good reason we do not reach that issue as matters now stand. And certainly there is nothing in the Court’s opinion which suggests that petitioner must be given access to classified material.