September 23, 2004

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  54 YEARS AGO TODAY

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  Sep 23 1950
  

  Congress passes the McCarran Act, also known as The Internal Security Act of 1950. The act provides for severe restrictions on civil liberties, suspension of free speech, and placing of undesirable Americans in concentration camps. 

  
  

  The Internal Security Act, popularly named for Nevada's Senator Pat McCarran, who, in fact, commandeered the legislation from an earlier version by congressmen Karl Mundt and Richard Nixon, argued for the fingerprinting and registration of all "subversives" at large in the United States.

  
  

  

  
  

  Pat McCarran 

  
  

  Section  2. (9)  "In the United States those individuals who knowingly and willfully participate in the world Communist movement, when they so participate, in effect repudiate their allegiance to the United States, and in effect transfer their allegiance to the foreign country in which is vested the direction and control of the world Communist movement."

  
  

  The act's passage by House and Senate was quite controversial. President Truman, who had himself imposed the Loyalty Order for federal government employees in 1947, immediately vetoed it, on the grounds that it "would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights [and] would actually weaken our internal security measures." But his veto was overridden by a humbling 89 percent majority vote, and McCarran's newly formed Senate Internal Security Subcommittee working closely with Hoover's FBI set up shop and conducted hearings for the next twenty-seven years.

  
  

  

  
  

   One of the more bucolic provisions of the McCarran Act was its authorization of concentration camps "for emergency situations."

  
  

  "Section 102. (a) In the event of any one of the following:
  

  (1) Invasion of the territory of the United States or its possessions, 
  

  (2) Declaration of war by Congress, or
  

  (3) Insurrection within the United States in aid of a foreign enemy, and if, upon the occurrence of one or more of the above, the President shall find that the proclamation of an emergency pursuant to this section is essential to the preservation, protection and defense of the Constitution, and to the common defense and safety of the territory and people of the United States, the President is authorized to make public proclamation of the existence of an 'Internal Security Emergency.'

  
  

  

  
  

  Section 103. (a) Whenever there shall be in existence such an emergency, the President, acting through the Attorney General, is hereby authorized to apprehend and by order detain, pursuant to the provisions of this title, each person as to whom there is reasonable ground to believe that such person probably will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or of sabotage."

  
  

  The act has never been repealed.

  
  

  from: Better Red Than Dead: A Nostalgic Look at the Golden Years of Russia Phobia, Red-baiting, and Other Commie Madness, by Michael Barson (New York: Hyperion, 1992).

  
  

   

  • 12:57 pm
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