Powers of the President during crisesSmith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
History
Powers of the President during crises
Smith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
Constitutional history -- United States; Executive power -- United States
The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, provided for public
disclosure by persons engaging in propaganda activities and other
activities for or on behalf of foreign governments, foreign political
parties, and other foreign principals so that the government and the
public could be informed of the identity of such persons and could
thereby appraise their statements and actions in the light of their
associations and activities.[479] By virtue of a 1942 amendment the
necessity for foreign agents to register with the Attorney General was
waived for agents of allied and friendly nations and thus propaganda
efforts encouraged.[480] These agents could escape the registration
requirement provided they engaged only in activities which were in
furtherance of the policies, public interest, and national defense,
of their own government and the American government, and were not
intended to conflict with any of the domestic or foreign policies of
the United States. However, the agent had to be convinced of the truth
and accuracy of each communication or expression which he made in this
country.
Under the same Act persons required to register as foreign agents
also had to furnish the Library of Congress with two copies of any
political propaganda intended for dissemination to two or more
persons. This material had to be transmitted within forty-eight
hours after dissemination had begun and it had to be accompanied
by a statement, duly signed by or on behalf of the agent, setting
forth full information as to the places, times, and extent of actual
transmittal.[481] In addition, the Act made it unlawful to disseminate
the matter unless the political propaganda was conspicuously marked
at its beginning with, or prefaced or accompanied by, a true and
accurate statement, in the language or languages used in the political
propaganda. The Act further required that the person transmitting
political propaganda be registered under the Act with the Department of
Justice “as an agent of a foreign principal, together with the name and
address of the agent and of each of his foreign principals.”[482]
The Internal Security Act of 1950 applied a similar requirement to
any organization registered as a Communist organization, or ordered
to register by the Subversive Activities Control Board.[483] Such an
organization is guilty of a crime if it transmits through the United
States mails or by any means or instrumentality of interstate or
foreign commerce, any publication which is intended to be, or which
it is reasonably believed will be, circulated or disseminated among
at least two or more persons, unless the container in which the
publication is mailed contains this statement: “Disseminated by ----, a
Communist organization.” Programs sponsored by Communist organizations
on radio or television, in order to comply with the Internal Security
Act, must be preceded by the statement, “the following program is
sponsored by ----, a Communist organization.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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