Does anyone else find it amusing that the charge against those ten Russian spies was their failure to register as foreign agents?
I mean, seriously, does anyone think a spy is going to walk in to some U.S. government office, announce his or her presence, and say “I’m here to register as a foreign agent”? Suppose one did register. Having complied with the law, would he then be free to leave and go about his job of spying on us?
Am I missing something?
While no self-respecting covert operative is going to announce his presence by registering, there are staff members many foreign embassies who are registered as foreign agents. See: Foreign Agents Registration Act. I believe that other countries allow for our own agents to be within their borders legally as well, as long as we comply with their version of this law. 😀
The spy business is still weird. How readily we negotiated for a spy exchange, yet we balk at freeing or trading various POWs, hostages, “enemy combatants,” or political prisoners. Seems to me a good spy could pose just as much threat to us as those others.
Since the 1600’s we haven’t made much progress in the identification of witches either. If they can’t be burned or drowned, then they’re obviously witches who deserve the death penalty.
According to the scope of the 1938 act, many current and past FED chairmen, presidents, congresspersons and senators could easily qualify. I don’t know of any who’ve registered even though they’ve mortgaged our country to China and through regulations and taxes have driven our services and manufacturing to other countries the evidence suggests they represent.
I see the section below “scope” is “selective enforcement.” That’s probably key. Our government seems to enjoy passing comprehensive one-size-fits-all laws and then only selectively enforcing them. Spies, illegal immigrants, politicians — none are held accountable to the law unless it becomes politically expedient to do so.