This language is similar to that employed in statutes granting the power to arrest without warrant to officers and employees of the Bureau of Prisons (18 U.S.C. 3050), agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (18 U.S.C. 3052), and United States marshals and their deputies (18 U.S.C. 3053).

The need for this legislation has been set forth in the Department of State's transmittal letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and testified to by Mr. Kearney this morning. The Department of Justice thinks that H.R. 7651 is appropriate to meet this need and finds it acceptable.

Mr. WILLIS. Do you agree with the previous witness as to the meaning of the words "foreign minister"? And will you expand on that a little bit?

Mr. TAYLOR. It is my understanding-and this information largely stems from the State Department, which we viewed as the expert in this sort of terminology-but it is our understanding that "foreign ministers" generally refers to persons who would be in the position of our Secretary of State; those persons in foreign governments who would have charge of the conduct of foreign affairs. A foreign minister would be the same as a minister of foreign affairs, or our Secretary of State.

And I understand that the term "public minister," which is in title 18, section 112 at the present time, is a broader term, and traditionally has been used to designate heads of legations and officials in that category.

Mr. WILLIS. Comparable to an ambassador?

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes. I would suppose, and perhaps yes, comparable to an ambassador; ambassadors and others of a similar level.

Mr. WILLIS. In other words, in certain areas, as I understand it, our chief diplomatic representatives in foreign countries are called ambassadors and in some cases ministers or public ministers?

Mr. TAYLOR. But it is our understanding that the expansion in coverage that would result from the enactment of this bill would be merely this: that it would extend it to include heads of foreign states or heads of foreign governments, and foreign ministers, which we interpret to mean ministers of foreign affairs, those persons in a foreign government-that person in a particular foreign government who would have charge of the conduct of foreign affairs similar to our Secretary of State.

So it is a relatively limited expansion.

Mr. WILLIS. At the very least I think that if the bill is approved we will incorporate language in the report to say that that is what we intend for those words to mean.

Mr. TAYLOR. I think that would be a necessary and desirable thing to do.

Mr. WILLIS. We will take the testimony of the State Department as to that. And I mean nothing by that except to say that when the bill goes to the floor of the House we want it understood that this is what it means and nothing else. If we don't, we are going to be in trouble.

Mr. TAYLOR. If I may, Mr. Willis, I noticed when you were talking to Mr. Kearney you mentioned the power to arrest, you referred to the language "or if they have reasonable grounds to believe that a

person to be arrested has committed or is committing such a violation." The authority that the FBI agents have-the Director and some of the other higher officials in the FBI, and United States marshals and their deputies-is couched in this identical language, or " if they have reasonable grounds to believe," which is one way of spelling out probable cause. The courts have said that "probable cause" is the constitutional language, and "reasonable grounds to believe" is a perhaps more detailed way of expressing probable cause.

Mr. LIBONATI. It would be in the nature of a security detention, too, where you had information that certain individuals would be antagonistic to the minister coming in, that you could use such enforcement that would at least add to the security of this individual, and in that way you would eliminate any problem that might occur. The various enforcement officers of the United States could keep under passive surveillance, and even those on the city level such as the police department could make investigations of individuals who might provoke trouble, and you could assert a protective custody in preventing criminal departures.

Mr. TAYLOR. I don't think this language deals with a protective custody situation. It is much narrower.

Mr. LIBONATI. Wouldn't it give you the right to have those who had made certain statements or threats obtained by the authorities— all authorities, FBI, yourself, and everybody else to prevent these outbreaks, and so forth, that would occur if they had freedom of movement to congregate at the point where this individual would traverse, as in the Tito situation, which shows an attempt at assault upon this individual who was under the protective custody of the U.S. Government? The same type of protection that is given by the police departments of various cities, drawing men from various cities who know individuals who are, for instance, pickpockets, and they keep those persons under passive surveillance or protective custody, if I may use the term in its broad, broad sense?

Do I understand?

Mr. TAYLOR. I am sure that such individuals would be kept under surveillance and all protective steps necessary would be taken. But this language is narrower-this is the power to arrest without a warrant, and it really covers two types of situations.

Mr. LIBONATI. I don't see anything wrong in preventing provocation, do you, where it is almost assertive and a part of the individual by threat, and so forth? Do you think that they should be limited in their operations when they make a survey of this entire locality where this operation is going to take place? I don't think that that would violate any of the rights of individuals who had placed themselves in a category that they would make trouble, do you?

Mr. TAYLOR. There you are getting into some rather close constitutional questions. But that isn't what we have here. This bill is far narrower than that.

Mr. LIBONATI. Well, you have covered it by the legislative verbiage of the bill. You say, "If they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such a violation."

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes.

Mr. LIBONATI. So you extend that to the point where you say, "If we do not keep under surveillance this person who has threatened to

violate the peace of the community, then naturally we are not giving this person added protection for preventing an overt act on the part of that individual." I don't think that would be critical of any violation of his constitutional rights, because by the threats he waived the right of charging violation of his constitutional rights, he has waived it.

If we had done that when the President visited Dallas and made investigations, and so forth, beforehand, and saw to it that persons in this area were at least interviewed, and so forth, would that be a violation, in conformity with their general responsibilities which are in a delicate situation where protection is the essence of their duties? I don't think it would.

Mr. TAYLOR. We are not giving that power in this bill, that is my only point.

Mr. LIBONATI. I don't say you do.

Mr. TAYLOR. Whether such a power would be wise or not-in this bill is merely the power to arrest without a warrant where the offense has been committed in their presence, or where they have rasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed or is committing it. And the offense we are talking with is a violation of section 111 or 112 of title 18.

Mr. LIBONATI. A threat voiced to another coming to the attention of the protecting officer would make it an obligation on his part to arrest without a warrant and detain the person. I think you are on good ground there.

Mr. TAYLOR. I think this provision is sound. And the power being given to arrest without warrant is a limited one and a constitutional one, and is the same one possessed by FBI agents, deputy marshals, marshals, and very similar to the power possessed by employees of the Bureau of Prisons.

Mr. LIBONATI. You are in a parallel situation where someone states that they are carrying a bomb on a plane, and they detain that person; there is no bomb on the plane, and there is no bomb in his possession, but with the volunteering of this information, which comes within the responsibility of the officer who is a security officer, it would be natural that he would try to prevent any overt act from being committed. I think that in similar instances you would be handicapping them, and this bill wouldn't carry out its practical objectives. I am only thinking in terms of their purposes in operation, which is in conformity with their responsibilities under this bill.

Thank you.

Mr. WILLIS. I want to compliment whoever prepared this new version for making it more restrictive. And at this point I think I shall read in the record a provision of the last bill we considered, H.R. 11588, considered by us in the 87th Congress, which is as follows:

Whoever assaults, strikes, wounds, imprisons, or offers violence to the person of an ambassador, public minister, and other duly accredited foreign diplomatic officer, any other person entitled to privileges and immunities of diplomatic personnel in accordance with any treaty or other international agreement to which the United States is a party, any head of foreign state or foreign government, or any other official of a foreign government shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than 3 years or both.

The present bill, H.R. 7651, which we are now considering in this context, reads as follows:

Whoever assaults, strikes, wounds, or offers violence to the person of a head of a foreign state or foreign government, foreign minister, ambassador, or other public minister, in violation of the law of nations, shall be fined not more than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both.

So that the coverage of this bill is much more restrictive than the one we considered last year.

So much for the record, laying the two proposals side by side.

Now, of course, neither of the bills changes the penalty of the present law. In other words, the present law, the bill last year, H.R. 11588, and the present bill, H.R. 7651, all provide the following when a deadly weapon is used:

Whoever, in the commission of any such act, uses a deadly or dangerous weapon, shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

I wonder whether, as a matter of administration of the law and in the interest of procuring convictions, these penalties are stiff when the language speaks of assaults, striking, wounding, and so on? Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Willis, during the intermission

Mr. WILLIS. Of course, there is a distinction in the penalties; namely, $5,000, or 3 years or both, increased to $10,000 or 10 years, because of the use of a deadly weapon. But in both instances it seems to me that this is a pretty steep penalty for some of the possible incidents which could lead to arrest and trial. I know it is discretionary with the Federal judge. You have to give this bill to the Members of Congress to vote on, it is pretty steep.

Mr. TAYLOR. During the intermission, Mr. Willis, I was looking at some of the law books. There was a case in this area that went to the Supreme Court in 1826, U.S. v. Ortega, which is in 24 U.S. 466. And the statute that was involved then is probably the earliest forerunner of the present one. And that read in effect that if any person shall assault, strike, wound, imprison, or in any manner infract the law of nations by offering violence to the person of an ambassador or other public minister, et cetera. And the penalty there was 3 years and a fine at the discretion of the Court.

And that was an enactment in the Crimes Act of 1790. So this penalty that we have today is essentially the same penalty that has existed since 1790.

And, of course, it is a maximum, it isn't a penalty that necessarily would have to be imposed, it is the maximum penalty. And I would assume that the sentencing court, in determining what sentence he should hand out in a case coming under the statute, would be moved considerably by the nature of the assault, and that a mere striking or more or less technical violation would probably not receive a punishment anything like the maximum permitted here. I don't think this is necessarily harsh in terms of its penalties.

Mr. WILLIS. My colleague from Illinois mentioned the crime of the use or threat of use of a bomb in a plane. Some years ago someone put a bomb in his mother's grip and there was an explosion over in Colorado, as I recall, and no Federal law. So we, perhaps moving with too much rapidity, passed a bill and made that a Federal offense.

Then we had this case. There was a lawyer commuting from New York to his home. He had bought presents for his kids, and jokingly on the plane someone said, "What is that?"

And he said, "Well, that is a bomb."

And that man was prosecuted. And he had technically violated the law.

But because of the heavy penalty no one could be convicted. And they said we would have to come back and amend the bill.

Mr. LINDSAY. I have no questions other than that, I take it, the language on page 3 of the bill, "have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or as committing such a violation," is the same language that was contained in the FBI measure. The formal language is "about to commit," isn't it?

Mr. WILLIS. They adopted the actual language in connection with FBI agents, FBI Director and other officials, U.S. marshals, and I think one other category-employees of the Bureau of Prisons.

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes. Mr. Lindsay, the language in 3052, title 18, which is the powers of the FBI, ends, "if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such a felony," which is identical. And you find exactly the same language in section 3052, which is the arrest powers of marshals and their deputies. So this language has become more or less standardized. It has been before the Supreme Court, too, who didn't comment adversely on it at all.

Mr. LINDSAY. That language has been tested in the Supreme Court? Mr. TAYLOR. I say, it has been before the Supreme Court in Henry v. U.S., which is 361 U.S., page 98. And the Supreme Court in its opinion quoted the language and said, "This statute states the constitutional standard," and then went right on from there. It found that in that case there wasn't probable cause, and the arrest was not proper. But it had no quarrel with the language itself.

Mr. LINDSAY. Are the Department and its constituent agencies satisfied that this language is adequate?

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, sir.

Mr. LINDSAY. Thank you.

Mr. WILLIS. Mr. Libonati.

Mr. LIBONATI. Wouldn't you consider that if a threat were made at, say, against a certain person, an ambassador who was going to visit the United States, that upon the utterance of that threat it would be a continuing violation in itself for the purpose of bringing that individual at least into detention for questioning; wouldn't you consider that to be true?

Mr. TAYLOR. Sir, that would not be a violation of title 18, section 112, because that speaks entirely of whoever assaults, strikes, wounds, imprisons or offers violence. I don't think a mere threat would be encompassed within this section.

Mr. LIBONATI. I mean under section 4, wouldn't it give him the right to at least detain for the purposes of questioning an individual on his statement or letter that was written to someone, or other information that the security may procure through its various avenues of information?

Mr. TAYLOR. I am certain that such a person would undoubtedly be checked out and interviewed, and so forth. But I couldn't say that