Foreign Agents Registration Act

The Foreign Agents Registration Act ( FARA ) is a 1938 law passed in the United States. It stipulates that persons engaged in political activity for foreign legal entities in the United States, document and disclose this activity must.

The law was originally addressed to propagandists of the Third Reich in the United States. It goes back to the " McCormack - Dickstein Committee ," the first Committee on Un-American Activities. According to its chairman John W. McCormack stated initially McCormack Act.

With the implementation of the Foreign Agent Registration Unit commissioned in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice.

The FARA is still in force ( 2013). Infringements of the law are punishable with a maximum of 5 years imprisonment and / or a maximum $ 10,000 fine.

Targets and regulations

The Act applies to persons ( technically: agents ) who are politically active in the United States on behalf of foreign governments or foreign general principals (which includes foreign political parties and organizations, or foreign persons who are not U.S. citizens ) (Except Diplomatic Missions or other foreign agencies that are recognized by the U.S. Department of State ).

• You are obliged to register with the Ministry of Justice before they influence public opinion ( and within ten days after they have become agents). Your agreements with the foreign legal entity, payments and expenditures on their behalf must be indicated, and this information is publicly available. You need to be updated every 6 months.
• ( Technically called propaganda ) The information they disseminate material must be accompanied by an indication that they are made on behalf of the foreign legal entity. Copies must be handed over to the Minister of Justice ( Attorney General ).
• If the agent says before a congressional committee, he must make this the most recent copy of his FARA report.
• The agent must keep records of its activities and make available to the Department of Justice upon request.

Excluded are activities that are purely for scientific, religious, artistic or purely commercial interests, and humanitarian aid organizations. Also excluded are lawyers who act on behalf of foreign principals, as long as they are not political influence.

The FARA is not the only legislation in the United States, which provides for registration of agents of foreign interests. For lobbyists with commercial interests, there are generally the LDA ( Lobbying Disclosure Act ) and for agents that act on behalf of foreign governments, including commercial interests, insofar as it does not concern legal representation, there is an additional requirement to register their infringement under the U.S. Criminal Code (Title 18 United States Code, § 951) is punishable.

Problems

The Foreign Agent Registration Unit is extremely underfunded, given the rising number of foreign lobbyists in Washington as well as their financial capabilities. In June 2004, the Justice Department announced that the lobbyists database of the department was in a state of disrepair and could cause a backup to massive losses themselves.

Historical

Using the law was during the Second World War is the number people who were connected among other things with the America German Confederation or the America First Committee imprisoned, including Laura Ingalls (four months ), George Sylvester Viereck ( four and a half years) and Friedrich Auhagen (two years, imprisoned six years).

The Act was amended several times, including in 1966, when the lobbying activities of foreign governments in the focus of interest, to take over the succession of the sugar imports of the occupied an embargo on Cuba.