Page 25 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

J., JR.
BRENNAN,
WILLIAM
14
with this "test" as applicable to all speech against the government. In Whitney
v. California eight years later, he delivered this ringing endorsement of free
speech:
Those who won our independence were not cowards. They did not fear political change.
They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with
confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of
popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be clear and present, unless the
incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is
opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the false-
hood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be
applied is more speech, not enforced silence.
Brandeis also is known for his interest in the right to privacy, a right he
believed was justified in the First Amendment. This included limiting the ways
in which the government or press could obtain evidence by using new technol-
ogy, such as wiretapping, to violate one's privacy.
SOURCES: Philippa Strum, Louis D. Brandeis, Justice for the People, 1984; Melvin
Urofsky, The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary, 1994; Whitney v. Cal-
ifornia, 274 U.S. 357 (1927).
Guido H. Stempel III

BRENNAN, WILLIAM J., JR. (1906-1997) was a U.S. Supreme Court justice
appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in January 1957 to succeed As-
sociate Justice Sherman Minton. He served on the Court for 33 years.
Brennan grew up in New Jersey and, after completing law school, set up a
practice there. After serving in the army in World War II, he returned to law
and served in many judicial posts in New Jersey.
During his years on the Court, Brennan was viewed as a liberal with a strong
adherence to the literal interpretation of the First Amendment. Because of this,
he often favored the rights of the press in legal matters. The best-known example
of this is New York Times v. Sullivan, in which he authored the majority opinion,
which put burden of proof on public officials to prove actual malice or reckless
disregard of the truth when they sue for libel. (See also New York Times v.
Sullivan.)

SOURCES: Steven W. Colford, "Ad Industry Loses Hero in Brennan," Advertising
Age, July 30, 1990; Dennis Hale, "Justice Brennan's Record on Speech and Press
Cases," Editor & Publisher, February 3, 1990.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

BRINKLEY, DAVID (1920- ) describes himself as doing the news longer than
anyone else on Earth, and with good reason. His career spans 53 years and,
according to the title of his autobiography, "11 presidents, 4 wars, 22 political
conventions, 1 moon landing, 3 assassinations, 2,000 weeks of news and other
stuff on TV and 18 years of growing up in North Carolina."