holding that § 6 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 993, was unconstitutional on its face because it made application or use of a passport by a member of the Communist Party a felony based on membership alone “without more,” “the sole criteria,” “irrelevant [of] the member’s degree of activity in the organization and his commitment to its purposes” a disqualification for obtaining a passport
How later courts described this case
- holding that § 6 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 993, was unconstitutional on its face because it made application or use of a passport by a member of the Communist Party a felony based on membership alone “without more,” “the sole criteria,” “irrelevant [of] the member’s degree of activity in the organization and his commitment to its purposes” a disqualification for obtaining a passport
- concluding that the section of the Subversive Activities Control Act, which made it a felony for a member of a Communist organization to apply for, use or attempt to use a passport, was unconstitutional on its face
- holding unconstitutional a legislative enactment making it a felony for a member of a Communist organization to apply for, use, or attempt to use a passport where means “more discriminately tailored to the constitutional liberties of individuals” were available
- holding that a provision of the Subversive Activities Control Act which prohibited a Communist Party member from applying for or using a passport infringed on Fifth Amendment guarantees
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice White
joins in Section I of this dissent and for the reasons stated therein would affirm the judgment.