Short Leash Shortened

In a sweeping interpretation of an already sweeping decision, U.S. District Judge Luther W. Youngdahl in Washington last week shortened the leash that the Supreme Court recently tied to congressional investigating committees. Taking off from the Supreme Court's ruling in the Watkins case (TIME, July 1), Youngdahl set aside the contempt-of-Congress conviction of the New York Times's Copyreader Seymour Peck, who last year declined to tell a Senate Internal Security subcommittee the names of Reds he had known during the twelve years he was a Communist (he quit the party in 1949).

Only four months ago, ruling on the same set of facts, Judge Youngdahl refused defendant Peck's motion for acquittal. Speedily convicted by a federal jury in Washington, Peck was fined $500 and got a suspended sentence of 30 days. But while his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decreed in the Watkins case that congressional committees must make clear to a witness that their questions are pertinent to contemplated legislation. Judge Youngdahl ruled that this aspect of the Watkins decision applied to the Peck case, and went on to newer ground. By asking Peck to reveal associations "remote in time," Youngdahl ruled, the Senate subcommittee invaded "freedoms of privacy, thought and association" protected by the First Amendment. A congressional investigation, he declared, may infringe upon an individual's constitutional rights "only when the national interest clearly justifies such drastic action."

In passing, Judge Youngdahl dropped a dictum that just about seemed to bar congressional investigating committees from questioning newsmen at all. "To inhibit the freedom of thought and association of newspapermen," he said, "is to infringe upon the freedom of the press."

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