Senator MAGNUSON. Under the bill you could issue an order and close down everything and have a complete blackout, as it were, could you not?

General ANKENBRANDT. If you term that all of those gadgets were useful navigation devices; yes.

Senator MAGNUSON. You would just do it as a matter of precaution, have everything quit for that 4-hour period? In other words, when you start to run, you would turn your television set off, or stop the police stations and broadcasting stations?

Mr. PLUMMER. To me it is still a job of working on the ones first that have the greatest potentiality.

Senator MAGNUSON. The ones that you now know are homing devices?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. You would work out a plan for them?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. So that when the 4-hour period came there would be something done. As you say, it might be shut down, or you might even want to speed some of them up for deception purposes?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes; that is right.

Senator MAGNUSON. But that would have to be done first on the

known homing devices?

Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir.

General ANKENBRANDT. That is correct.

Senator MAGNUSON. Many of these things we are talking about have not reached that point yet; is that correct?

General ANKENBRANDT. That is correct. We are talking about things that are in research and development today, that will ultimately come out, we feel sure.

Senator MAGNUSON. As the receiving end becomes more sensitive, naturally they will dip down further into these low levels of radiation.

General ANKENBRANDT. That is correct.

Senator MAGNUSON. But the bill does control all those things in case you want it to dip down there?

General ANKENBRANDT. That is correct; yes, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. It controls practically everything?
General ANKENBRANDT. Down to 10,000 cycles; yes.

Senator MAGNUSON. We will probably have to have an amendment

here to have this inoperative the day before elections.

General ANKENBRANDT. It might be that the word "capable" of emitting is bothering us here. Obviously any of these devices are capable under certain conditions of radiating, but you have to in fact radiate, and it must be a useful radiation. Those are the two limiting factors as I read them in this bill.

Senator MAGNUSON. Those are the limiting factors that we would presume that the Department of Defense would normally use as a criteria in carrying out the purposes of the bill.

General ANKENBRANDT. And it is our official statement that we would attempt that.

Senator MAGNUSON. What we have to worry about here is that sometimes the administration, when it is provided, goes way beyond

that.

General ANKENBRANDT. I recognize that, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. It depends sometimes on who is administering the bill. The power that is given under this act is such that you could almost paralyze the country by an order.

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The CHAIRMAN. If it were a necessary order, fine, but if it were not necessary it would not be so fine. If it were done without good judgment it could prove very disastrous, and cause a lot of incon

venience.

General ANKENBRANDT. On the Department of Defense, talking again on how we intended to administer it, our obligation is greater than just preventing an attack. It is also to keep the life of the country going.

We could not afford to do it, even if we wanted to.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not think that any of us differ as to that. The security of the country is very necessary, but we do not want arbitrary action and unnecessary action on the part of anybody, or foolish action. And we are not accusing you or the national defense of doing things that are unnecessary or foolish.

But when we write a law we ought to be very careful about what we do in that law because a law is supposed to protect all of the people. It is not only that, but it is a standard for the people so that they will be advised and know what they can do.

If you have anything further, we would like to have you say so now. I want to read into the record, before you leave the witness stand, General, an amendment which the staff of this committee has drawn to section 606 (c). The bill we have before us, S. 537, is a five-page bill filled with technical language. The amendment that the staff has drawn is about four lines of language which amends section 606 (c) and which the staff believes contains all of the objectives which you stated are desirable and all of the things that S. 537 contains except the penalty provision.

Of course, the penalty provision is contained in another part of the communications law. If that provision is not adequate, or pertinent enough, it will not be a difficult matter to amend the penalty provision. I want to read this, and I want to give it to you.

We are not going to ask you for an answer today with respect to this language because it is technical and will probably require study, perhaps change or amendment. Perhaps you will want to reject the whole thing. If we can agree upon it, I think it would greatly accelerate the legislative action with respect to this legislation.

But I do want to read it to you and I am not going to ask you to testify with respect to it now unless you want to. But it seems to me that this approach is a very desirable approach to the problem.

The amendment is not long. I will read the present language of 606 (c), and then tell you where we make the changes. The amendments are all italicized and the present bill is the language that is not italicized. I will read 606 (c) :

SEC. 606 (c). Upon proclamation by the President that there exists war or a threat of war, or a state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency, if he deems it necessary in the interest of national security or defense, may suspend or amend, for such time as he may see fit, the rules and regulations applicable to any or all stations or devices capable of emitting electromagnetic radiations within the jurisdiction of the United States as prescribed by the Commission, and cause the closing of any station for radio communication, or any device capable of emitting electromagnetic radiations between 10 kilocycles and 100,000 megacycles, and the removal therefrom of its apparatus and equipment, or he may authorize the use or control of any such station or device and/or its apparatus and equipment, by any department of the Government under such regulations as he may prescribe upon just compensation to the owners.

Then, as I say, there would probably have to be another provision if we need to change the penalty provision of existing law. We may have to change the penalty provision.

That we and our staff think covers all the authority that national defense is asking, and does everything that ought to be done to solve the present problem that we are dealing with. We would like to have you take that, General, and have your experts go over it and see whether you are in agreement with that approach.

Let us know about that. Or if you think that the language needs to be altered or changed or added to or some of it deleted, let us know. We want to have both bills before our committee when we go into executive session, both S. 537 and this amendment to 606 (c).

We must not lose sight of the fact that there is at the present time existing legislation on this subject. Perhaps it does not go as far as it should, but it would seem to us that the thing to do is to bring existing legislation up to what it should be in view of the developments, the electromagnetic radiation developments of today, so that the security of the United States might be perfected. (See p. 83 for various comments on staff amendment.)

General ANKENBRANDT. May I make a statement, sir?
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

General ANKENBRANDT. The view of the Department of Defense was that the present law is deficient for the purposes for which we have in mind, and which I have clearly outlined. There were three alternatives: One is to have the present law clearly interpreted by the Congress that it did mean what may be interpreted in some of the language there. In other words, the language is not clear.

Perhaps the Congress did mean what we had in mind all the time. Either get that interpretation, or to amend the existing law, or to write a new law.

The majority of the legal advice that we were able to obtain from people who had studied all of the pros and cons indicated that a new bill was probably the best way to do it. It would be the cleanest-cut way to do it.

We hold no brief for that view. That is what we were advised was the case.

The CHAIRMAN. Was it unanimous? Was that position unanimous?

General ANKENBRANDT. No, sir. The majority view was that. It was not unanimous; no, sir. I will be very glad to take this proposed amendment to section 606 (c) and to have it examined and give you the Department of Defense view as quickly as possible, in the next day

or two.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all we can ask. I would like to have you take that up with your legal staff and see whether or not that does the job or in what way it fails to correct the difficulties that we are facing, or what might be added to our language that would do the job if it does not do the job.

General ANKENBRANDT. Yes, sir; I will do that.

Senator MAGNUSON. General, I would like to have you enlarge upon the possibility if a new bill were passed, such as S. 537, whether or not there would not be a duplication of authority as between the FCC and the Department of Defense in regard to radio stations and devices and all such things.

It seems to me that you would have a duplication of authority in handwriting, because S. 537 really covers pretty nearly everything that the Federal Communications Commission has under its jurisdiction and can cover.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right. I am glad you made that suggestion, Senator, because there is a feeling here in Congress that we have set up the Federal Communications Commission and placed them in charge of communications and we ought not to scatter such authority as we have given them, divide it or otherwise.

If they do not have authority enough we ought to add authority to what authority they now have. If they are not doing a job with such authority as they have, we ought to correct whatever that problem may be.

I have a strong feeling on this, and I will have to admit that I have changed my position only in recent months on this question, and that is the question of monitoring. I believe that monitoring is an extremely important matter directly affecting the security of our country.

I know there is a bill which passed the Senate and is in the House, the McFarland bill, which has other provisions, but one of which essential provisions relates to monitoring by the Federal Communications Commission. That is a peacetime operation. That is a continuous operation. That is an operation which not only affects the security of the country but affects something which is extremely important, which is the broadcasting and telecasting of the country.

It seems to me that we ought to approach this problem not only in the spirit of protecting and enhancing the security of the country, but the very essential telecasting and broadcasting of the country, which, it seems to me, is essential to the proper and effective and efficient operation and desirable operation of democracy.

Senator MAGNUSON. General, I believe you answered this before, but what is the situation of border stations, a powerful station on the Canadian border and the Cuban border? Could that be used by taking sights from both of them?

General ANKENBRANDT. Certainly they might be useful. However, those are certainly not in the areas that we are really worrying about for air-defense purposes.

Senator MAGNUSON. But it could be used for directional, could it not?

General ANKENBRANDT. Yes; but there is some question.

Senator MAGNUSON. You could be on a Toronto station and know that you were so many miles from the industrial area of Detroit. General ANKENBRANDT. Yes, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. Then by calculating you probably could almost pin-point it, by beaming in on Toronto, couldn't you?

General ANKENBRANDT. That is a possibility. It depends on where the station is with respect to our borders. On the other hand, the chances are that an enemy might do as well without that radiation. Senator MAGNUSON. By calculating?

General ANKENBRANDT. By dead reckoning or his own devices. Senator MAGNUSON. Have you had any discussions with Canada or Mexico on this program, the joint defense program?

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General ANKENBRANDT. There are discussions on this problem, direct discussions, between the Air Defense Command of the Department of Defense and similar organizations in Canada; yes, sir. It is on a service-to-service basis.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further, general?
General ANKENBRANDT. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you, general. We will hear from you again after you have looked over the proposed changes.

General ANKENBRANDT. Yes, sir. Thank you, gentlemen.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE STERLING, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

The CHAIRMAN. Commissioner George Sterling, of the Federal Communications Commission.

Mr. STERLING. My name is George Sterling, and I am a member of the Federal Communications Commission. I am appearing here today at the request of the committee to present the views of the Commission on S. 537, a bill which has been proposed by the Department of Defense for the purpose of providing for the greater security and defense of the United States against attack.

The provisions of this bill would authorize the President in time of war, national emergency, or when he deems it advisable in the interest of national security, to control the use by any person of any equipment capable of emitting any electromagnetic radiation between 10 kilocycles and 100,000 megacycles.

The bill would further authorize the President to direct such departments or agencies in the Federal Government as he may specify to use such equipment.

The legislation which you are considering makes clear that it authorizes the President or his delegate to control or use electronic equipment only

to the extent that the President deems it necessary to minimize or prevent navigational aid to any foreign country in an attack on the United States.

This bill is not concerned with or intended to provide authority for censoring radio and wire communication, establishing priorities among users of electronic equipment or for the general requisitioning of such equipment by the Government. The bill gives the President discretionary authority to determine the proper agencies or persons to carry out the program contemplated by the proposed legislation. The bill also provides that just compensation will be paid to persons whose equipment is used by the Government in connection with the program provided for by this bill. In addition, there is a provision for criminal penalties for knowing violations of the bill's provisions or of any regulations which are adopted pursuant to the terms of the bill.

It is the understanding of the Commission that the Department of Defense has sponsored this legislation because of its belief that the existing statutory authority given to the President by section 606 (c) of the Communications Act may not be sufficiently broad to cover the use and control of all types of electronic devices which the Department of Defense believes may be of assistance to enemy aircraft or missiles in an attack upon the United States.