Six months prior to Pearl Harbor, Congress enacted the Alien Registration Act, requiring all aliens fourteen years of age or older and remaining in the United States for thirty days or more, to apply for registration and be fingerprinted at post offices and other places to be designated by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization. Parents must register for aliens under fourteen.[223] Alien registrants who were residents of the United States were required to notify the Commissioner in writing of each change of residence and new address within five days from the date of such change. All others were to notify him of their addresses at the expiration of each three months’ period of residence in the United States.[224] And by Proclamation No. 2537, January 14, 1942,[225] the President ordered all alien enemies within the continental United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to apply for and acquire certificates of identification. In the Spring of 1942 the Foreign Agents Registration Act was adapted to changed conditions. Congress announced its purpose to protect the national defense, internal security, and foreign relations of the United States by requiring public disclosure by persons engaging in propaganda activities and other activities. Anyone acting for or on behalf of a foreign government, foreign political party or other foreign principal would be identified and the Government and the American people would be in a better position to appraise their statements and actions in the light of their associations and activities.[226] In addition to elaborating the definition of a foreign principal, the Act specified numerous exemptions from its registration provisions. Agents whose foreign principals were governments, the defense of which was deemed by the President to be vital to the defense of the United States, were not required to register provided their activities were not intended to conflict with any of the domestic or foreign policies of the Government of the United States.[227]