13

The Communist Control Act of 1954 was designed to protect America from communism. Among other things - it made membership in the communist party illegal. An Arizona judge ruled it was unconstitutional in 1973 (but the supreme court didn't).

Does this mean people could be arrested assuming they are in the right juristdiction for

  1. Joining the communist party in an American college years after the fact?

  2. Immigrating from a communist country where party membership is either very encouraged or mandatory?

EDIT

It would almost certainly be declared unconstitutional eventually. Would this be at the hearing after the arrest? What prevents someone from using this to harass people, and arrest a new group every few months?

For example - a college student is arrested for joining the communist party and taken to jail. What would the process be to drop the charges? Does anything happen to the arresting officer?

sevensevens
  • 1,525
  • 1
  • 14
  • 22
  • 14
    The act may still be unconstitutional even if it has never reached the Supreme Court. So it might depend on what you mean by "could be arrested". Is it physically possible that a police officer puts someone in jail for this? Yes, but it would probably be illegal, and the person arrested would probably win any court challenge almost immediately. – Nate Eldredge Feb 05 '22 at 17:34
  • 1
    I'd be rather surprised if the act purports to apply to non-US citizens who aren't present in the US. – Acccumulation Feb 06 '22 at 06:02
  • 1
    On the subject of immigration: When you enter the US as a non citizen you have to fill out a form which has a list of questions like 'do you intend to engage in human trafficking?', 'do you carry illegal drugs with you?' and the like. One of the questions is 'are you or were you ever a member of a communist party?' – quarague Feb 06 '22 at 18:23
  • There's also the issue of the exact legal definition of "Communism". Is it based on underlying political beliefs or on affiliation with a specific party identified by the US government as particularly undesirable? In other words, is someone "legally Communist" because they believe in things generally considered Communist or because they are carrying a card issued by an organization that the US government has formally classified as Communist? Someone might believe in communism but decline to join any party, and another might join for purely practical reasons without truly believing. – Robert Columbia Feb 07 '22 at 10:31
  • Despite what Wikipedia currently claims, I don't think the Act "was designed to protect America from communism". Your question would be more valuable if that phrase was removed, as it's a distraction from the actual question. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Feb 07 '22 at 15:21
  • 1
    To be clear, even in the soviet union, participation in party activities or mandatory education did not equate to bona fide party membership. While exceptions exist, particularly around sensitive industries, where there may be mandatory party membership - the vast majority of immigrants from (ex-)soviet states and present day china have/had no official party affiliation , i.e. those that do would have been involved in the government or party apparatus at some level. – crasic Feb 07 '22 at 17:08
  • The "almost certain" part makes this rant-y. If you want to answer your own question, please, do. If you want to phrase a question as relying on certain assumption, you can do that, too. You can even rephrase this as an opinion and ask why your opinion may not be correct. But simply passing your opinion as a legal deduction makes this sound like you are inviting people to share in your complaint. And that's what rants are. As a (hopefully gentle) reminder, the point of the site is to ask questions about what the law happens to be rather than questions about what the law should be. – grovkin Feb 10 '22 at 13:32
  • @NateEldredge it would be highly unlikely that the act would be unconstitutional because of § 843: "For the purposes of this section, the term 'Communist Party' means the organization now known as the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Communist Party of any State or subdivision thereof, and any unit or subdivision of any such organization, whether or not any change is hereafter made in the name thereof." It deals with membership in specific organizations known to plot against the US. This is constitutionally authorized under the war powers. Also it's similar to RICO. – grovkin Feb 18 '22 at 19:25

1 Answers1

27

A person cannot be arrested unless they are suspected of having committed a criminal offense. The Communist Control Act does not create a criminal offense of being a communist, instead §843 states that a communist

shall be subject to all the provisions and penalties of the Internal Security Act of 1950, as amended [50 U.S.C. 781 et seq.], as a member of a “Communist-action” organization.

But those provisions concerning communist-action were repealed in 19931. Therefore, a prosecution would go nowhere.

1 - The statute requiring communists to register was already repealed in 1968

eis
  • 223
  • 1
  • 5
user6726
  • 214,947
  • 11
  • 343
  • 576
  • 23
    "A person cannot be arrested unless they have committed a criminal offense." Sure they can. It happens All. The. Time. – RonJohn Feb 06 '22 at 20:37
  • 9
    Around here, the question "Can X happen" means "can it legally happen". It's a conventional assumption in answers that we assume people obey the law. – user6726 Feb 06 '22 at 22:54
  • 3
    Isn’t it up to the courts to decide if someone committed a crime? Even if you didn’t commit a crime, there might be reasonable enough suspicion to arrest someone who’s really innocent. – RonJohn Feb 07 '22 at 02:15
  • One could certainly be arrested for communism-related crimes, for example if you forcibly occupied a factory "to redistribute the means of production to the workers", and communist-leaning media might try to spin in as if you were only arrested for your beliefs, but in fact you wouldn't be arrested for the "communist control act" but for trespassing, burglary, assault and whatever other crimes you'd commit during that act. – vsz Feb 07 '22 at 07:12
  • 6
    is someone not arrested on suspicion that they have committed an offence, not that they have actually committed an offence? Otherwise you'd only be legally able to arrest someone once they'd already been convicted – Tristan Feb 07 '22 at 09:27
  • 3
    @Tristan Does that make any material difference to the answer? (i.e. Is there a relevant criminal offense they could be suspected of?) – preferred_anon Feb 07 '22 at 09:54
  • 2
    it doesn't affect the point of the answer, but editing it to clarify that point would be an improvement – Tristan Feb 07 '22 at 09:57
  • Just as a quality-control matter, why are you using the intentional de-capitalization of "communism"? "Communist Party" is a proper name just as "Republican Party" is a proper name. And if the idea is that there is a number of "Communist" parties, there is also a number of "Socialist Democrat" parties. But these are all references to political entities. – grovkin Feb 07 '22 at 15:15
  • 1
    @grovkin "Communist Party" may or may not be a proper noun, depending on what it denotes, but "communism" is not a proper noun. – phoog Feb 07 '22 at 15:58
  • 1
    @phoog "Communist" is a proper noun when it denotes affiliation with a political entity calling itself "Communist Party." And "Communism" is a proper noun when it is used to denote the political platform of such an entity. Just as "republicanism" (as a political philosophy) is not derived from a proper noun, but "Republicanism in the United States" (as a reference to the platform of the "Republican Party") is derived from a proper noun. Notice the "not to be conf..." – grovkin Feb 07 '22 at 16:07
  • @phoog the only time "communist party" would not be a proper noun would be when it refers to a party formally calling itself by a name clearly distinguishable from "Communist"; for example, as a dysphemism for "Democratic Socialist Party." Although even then "Communist" would be a proper noun if the implication is that the party is hiding its true identity (as opposed to its nature or the nature of its platform). – grovkin Feb 07 '22 at 16:13
  • @phoog in fact, a great deal of the confusion in this question stems from the misunderstanding of the difference between "Communist" (as related to the activities any of the political entities calling themselves "Communist Party") and "communist" (as someone favorable of the philosophy of expressed in "communist" writings). So an answer trying to introduce clarity to the situation should be more careful about these distinctions. – grovkin Feb 07 '22 at 16:46
  • @grovkin any time the phrase "communist party" is used to describe a party without naming it, it is not a proper noun. US statutory definitions of "communist" are sometimes counterintuitive, but the ones I've seen don't actually turn on whether an organization includes "communist" in its name or even whether it advocates communism per se, focusing instead on the means the organization seeks to use to achieve communism. – phoog Feb 07 '22 at 18:40
  • @phoog there are vanishingly few instances when the use of uncapitalized 'c' is appropriate. Capital-'c' "Communist" party is still a ruling political party in a number of countries. I don't need to explain (I assume) how much more prevalent it was until 1992. The fact that legislation describes subversive activities attributed to that party by their methods doesn't change much. If there is an underlying assumption built into such legislation that goals and methods match subversive activities known to originate from the known agents of the Communist Party, that actually narrows the scope. – grovkin Feb 07 '22 at 22:03
  • @phoog further, any argument that it's not clear whether the subject matter is "communist party" or "Communist Party" falls flat because of the language of § 843: "For the purposes of this section, the term 'Communist Party' means the organization now known as the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Communist Party of any State or subdivision thereof, and any unit or subdivision of any such organization, whether or not any change is hereafter made in the name thereof." It's explicitly talking about proper names. – grovkin Feb 07 '22 at 22:20
  • @grovkin the uncapitalized word "communist" in this answer, however, never appears in the phrase "communist party," but only as a common noun denoting people who adhere to communism. ("Common noun" is traditionally the term used to denote a noun that is not a proper noun; it is not a statement about a noun's prevalence.) It is not correct to capitalize "communists" in that context any more than it is to capitalize "musicians," even if you are speaking of members of the American Federation of Musicians. – phoog Feb 08 '22 at 10:01
  • @phoog re: "..but only as a common noun denoting people who adhere to communism..." I already showed, in my very last comment above, that this is not matter of concern of the law in question. The law in question only concerns itself with members of specific political parties. As a "btw", "musician-to-American-Federation-of-Musicians as communist-to-Communist-Party" is a weaker analogy than "Republican-to-Republican-Party as Communist-to-Communist-Party." The former is a professional organization whose name contains a generic name of an occupation. The latter is a proper party name. – grovkin Feb 10 '22 at 13:52