Section 6 of the Internal Security Act of 1950 Makes It Illegal for

members of an organization which has registered under the Act as a communist organization or has been ordered to do so by the Subversive Activities Control Board, to apply for a passport, or to use or attempt to use a passport. It is also an offense for a federal officer knowingly to issue a passport to such a person. The Immigration and Nationality Act also empowers the President, in time of war or national emergency, to impose restrictions and prohibitions upon the departure of persons from the United States.

Registration: The requirement that specified categories of individuals register, in consequence of their backgrounds, associations, or activities, or as a result of possession of certain articles, becomes increasingly familiar in the United States. Legislative motivation in requiring such registration may be varied and complex. The registration provision invariably provides the basis for defining new crimes and therefore opportunity to prosecute persons whose backgrounds, activities and beliefs are anathema to powerful groups in the nation. Combined with periodic reporting, registration may act as a deterrent to the commission of certain acts considered socially or politically undesirable. It may simply facilitate the informative function of government, enabling authorities to become aware of and continuously check upon the activities of selected groups of persons affecting the public interest. Or, registration may serve as a mild, yet nonetheless effective, restraint upon the freedom of individuals. Certainly, for example, it is an essential prerequisite to paroling enemy aliens in time of war, although its usefulness is not limited to wartime only.

The decade prior to the Second World War is popularly, and accurately, perceived as one of sustained economic emergency. During the second half of this decade the Congress frequently was preoccupied with the need for legislation designed to protect the United States from involvement in another world war. The Neutrality Act of 1935 referred to above contained a registration feature. Under the terms of that Act, every person engaged in the business of manufacturing, exporting, or importing any arms, ammunition, and implements of war was required to register within ninety days of entering such a business. Such individuals or firms had to provide the Secretary of State with a $500 registration fee, and information including personal or business name, principal place of business, places of business in the United States, and a list of the arms, ammunition and other implements of war which they handled. They were also required to inform the Secretary of State of any changes, and had to keep permanent records of business transactions which were subject to the scrutiny of the National Munitions Control Board. The registration provision was retained in the May 1937 amendment to the Neutrality Act with very little change.

In June 1938 Congress chose to compel registration of persons employed by agencies to disseminate propaganda in the United States. Every person then acting as an agent for a foreign principal was given thirty days after the Act went into effect to register with the Secretary of State. His registration statement, under oath, required the agent’s name and address, the name and address of his principal, and a copy of the contract or oral agreement covering the agent’s services, including compensation. The agent was also to file a copy of the charter as well as a statement of the objectives of the organization employing him. The term “agent of a foreign principal” was rather broad and included any person who acted or engaged or agreed to act as a public-relations counsel or publicity agent for a foreign principal or for any domestic organization subsidized directly or indirectly in whole or in part by a foreign principal. New information statements were to be filed each six months. Failure to file and the making of false statements were punishable by a maximum of $1,000 fine and two years’ imprisonment.

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. 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. And by Proclamation No. 2537, January 14, 1942, 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. 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.

A related statute of October, 1940 also compelled certain groups to register with the Attorney General. Four categories of organizations were required to register: (1) Organizations subject to foreign control and engaging in political activity, (2) Organizations engaging both in civilian-military activity and in political activity, (3) Those subject to foreign control and engaging in civilian-military activity, and (4) Any organization one of whose aims was the overthrow of a government or subdivision thereof by force or violence. By political activity Congress had reference to activity aimed at the control by force or overthrow of the Government of the United States or any of its subdivisions. An organization, according to the statute, was engaged in civilian-military activity if it gave or received instruction in the use of firearms or other weapons, or participated, with or without arms, in military maneuvers, drills or parades of a military or naval character. And an organization was deemed subject to foreign control if its financial support was derived directly or indirectly from a foreign government, or if its policy was determined by, or at the suggestion of, or in collaboration with, a foreign government.

The registration statements were to contain the name and address of the organization, the names of officers and contributors, the qualifications for membership, organizational aims, assets, income, and activities. Violation of the Act might entail a fine of $10,000 and five years’ imprisonment.

The Internal Security Act of 1950 contains provisions similar to the older wartime law. Briefly stated, the Act defines “communist-action” and “communist-front” organizations, which together comprise a class of communist organizations. Such organizations are compelled to register with the Attorney General, filing, in the case of communist-front organizations, a list of officers at time of registration and in the preceding twelve months; and, in the case of communist-action organizations, a list of officers and members for the preceding twelve months. A complete financial accounting is required and current information must be supplied in annual reports.

In July 1954 Congress amended the reporting provision to require a listing, in such form and detail as the Attorney General might prescribe, of all printing presses and machines used or intended to be used by a communist-action or communist-front organization. The statute went so far as to require registration of any printing machine used by an organization in which the communists or affiliates had an interest. Adequate procedural protection and provision for judicial review is afforded those charged with failure to register.

The Communist Control Act of 1954 amplified the Internal Security Act. It purports to be an Act to outlaw the Communist Party and to prohibit members of communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes. Despite its title, the Act does not outlaw the Communist Party in the sense of making membership in it illegal and proscribing its existence. It simply deprives the Communist Party of certain rights, privileges and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof. The Act then defines a new species within the genus communist organization. In effect it amends the Internal Security Act by setting up the trilogy; communist-action, communist-front, and communist-infiltrated organizations. And communist-infiltrated organizations--a euphemism for communist dominated trade unions must register. Such organizations are ineligible to act as collective bargaining representatives and are deprived of access to the National Labor Relations Board.

The Act makes it illegal for any member of a communist organization, which either has registered with the Attorney General or been ordered to register by the Subversive Activities Control Board, “to hold office or employment with any labor organization, ... or to represent any employer in any matter proceeding arising or pending under the National Labor Relations Act.”

Freedom of Association: The Communist Control Act of 1954 and the registration provisions of the Internal Security Act might well have been subsumed under the classification freedom of association. Both have grave implications for the freedom of individuals to associate at will and according to conscience with political and economic groups. And similarly far-reaching in implication for this traditional freedom are those provisions which, going one step further than stipulating disqualifications for office-holding in representative associations, prohibit the creation of an employer-employee relationship, or facilitate the disruption of such relationships where they already exist.

The wheel has taken a full turn since the American Congress in 1937 repealed a District of Columbia Appropriation Act provision that no part of any appropriation for the public schools would be available for the payment of the salary of any person teaching or advocating communism. Today, of course, the trend is toward maximizing the political disqualifications for public and private employment. This trend can be traced from the pre-war efforts of the Congress to prevent penetration of defense industries and government agencies by subversives.

We look first to legal efforts to exclude persons conceived to be subversive from private employment, and then survey the statutes governing public employment. The Defense Production Act of June 21, 1940, for example, imposed the rule that aliens working for a defense contractor whose contract involved access to classified information were ineligible to work for the contractor. If, however, the head of the government agency for whom secret work was being performed gave the contractor written consent to use aliens, the contractor was free to do so.

Attempting to insure that employment opportunities created by the induction of young men into the service did not accrue to members of groups then opposing the American defense effort, Congress, in enacting the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, stipulated that whenever a vacancy was caused in the employment rolls of any business or industry by reason of an employee’s induction into the Armed Services of the United States, the vacancy could not be filled by any person then a member of the Communist Party or the German-American Bund. Ten days after Pearl Harbor, restraints were placed on the liberty of maritime employers to hire radio operators for service on American flag vessels. For the duration of war emergency it became unlawful to employ any person to serve as radio operator aboard any vessel (other than a vessel of foreign registry) if the Secretary of the Navy (1) had disapproved such employment for any specified voyage, route, or area of operation, and (2) had notified the master of the vessel of such disapproval prior to the vessel’s departure.

Since the war, no less significant prohibitions have been placed on public or private employment of members of communist organizations. The effect thereof will be determined by the success of the Subversive Activities Control Board in compelling the registration of such groups.