U.S. 563, 568 (1968), White noted that the government has a special and unique interest in regulating the speech of federal workers. This special interest is not in question; rather, balancing this interest against the rights of workers is the key. Calling "the impartial execution of the laws" the "great end of Government", White asserted that not only is the actual impartiality of government but its appearance both justify the infringement of the rights of federal workers. White next turned to the issue of vagueness. White reviewed the adoption of the 1939 Act, the rulemaking of the United States Civil Service Commission between 1939 and 1940 (which defined many specific political acts barred by the 1939 legislation), and the adoption by Congress of amendments to the Hatch Act in 1940 which strictly limited the Civil Service Commission's rulemaking powers regarding the Act (as amended) but which also incorporated (almost, but not quite) the rules already promulgated by the Commission. White concluded that these "prohibitions sufficiently clearly carve out the prohibited political conduct from the expressive activity permitted by the prior section to survive any attack on the ground of vagueness". The judgment of the District Court was reversed. Douglas' dissent Associate Justice William O. Douglas dissented, joined by Associate Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall. Douglas rejected the majority's conclusion that the Hatch Act of 1939 (as amended in 1940) was constitutionally not vague. He noted that more than 3,000 rulings of the Civil Service Commission had been made between the first adoption of the prohibition on political activity in 1886 and 1940, along with 800 decisions since then. The sheer mass of decisions indicated that the legislation's phrase "political activity" was vague. But Douglas also noted that many of the decisions and rulings were themselves unclear and vague. "The chilling effect of these vague and generalized prohibitions," Douglas concluded, "is so obvious as not to need elaboration." Douglas observed that the Supreme Court had already abandoned the "doctrine of privilege" defense for the Hatch Act, and had only in 1972 held "that Government employment may not be denied or penalized "on a basis that infringes [the employee's] constitutionally protected interests -- especially, his interest in freedom of speech." Douglas equated freedom of speech with freedom of religion, and concluded that "speech, assembly, and petition are as deeply embedded in the First Amendment as proselytizing a religious cause."