Court Opinion

ID: 9428475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:55.653884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:13.677738
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
Today the Court purports to rely on prior decisions of this Court to support the revocation of a passport by the Secretary of State. Because I believe that such reliance is fundamentally misplaced, and that the Court instead has departed from the express holdings of those decisions, I dissent.
I
Respondent Philip Agee, a United States citizen residing in West Germany, is a former employee and current critic of *311the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Respondent writes and speaks out extensively on United States clandestine intelligence operations, with the stated goal of disrupting the CIA. Part of his activity apparently involves the identification of United States undercover personnel situated throughout the world.
On December 23, 1979, the United States Consul General in Hamburg, West Germany, delivered a letter1 to respondent notifying him that his passport had been revoked pursuant to 22 CFR § 51.70 (b)(4) (1980). That regulation, in combination with 22 CFR § 51.71 (a) (1980), permits revocation of a passport when “[t]he Secretary determines that the national’s activities abroad are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States.” 2
Agee declined to follow administrative procedures available to attack the revocation and instead brought this action in the District Court for the District of Columbia for declara*312tory and injunctive relief against the Secretary of State. For purposes of cross-motions for summary judgment on the facial validity of the regulations, respondent conceded that he was causing or was likely to cause serious damage to national security or foreign policy, and, therefore, fell within the coverage of the regulations. Agee v. Muskie, 203 U. S. App. D. C. 46, 48, 629 F. 2d 80, 82 (1980); App. 11. He argued, inter alia, that Congress had not given the Secretary of State authority to promulgate the regulations under which his passport was revoked. Both the District Court, Agee v. Vance, 483 F. Supp. 729 (1980), and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit accepted this argument and granted respondent the relief requested.
II
This is not a complicated case. The Court has twice articulated the proper mode of analysis for determining whether Congress has delegated to the Executive Branch the authority to deny a passport under the Passport Act of 1926. Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1 (1965); Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116 (1958). The analysis is hardly confusing, and I expect that had the Court faithfully applied it, today’s judgment would affirm the decision below.
In Kent v. Dulles, supra, the Court reviewed a challenge to a regulation of the Secretary denying passports to applicants because of their alleged Communist beliefs and associations and their refusals to file affidavits concerning present or past membership in the Communist Party. Observing that the right to travel into and out of this country is an important personal right included within the “liberty” guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, id., at 125-127, the Court stated that any infringement of that liberty can only “be pursuant to the law-making functions of the Congress,” and that delegations to the Executive Branch that curtail that liberty must be construed narrowly, id., at 129. Because the Passport Act of 1926 — the same statute at issue here — did not expressly *313authorize the denial of passports to alleged Communists, the Court examined cases of actual passport refusals by the Secretary to determine whether “it could be fairly argued” that this category of passport refusals was “adopted by Congress in light of prior administrative practice.” Id., at 128. The Court was unable to find such prior administrative practice, and therefore held that the regulation was unauthorized.
In Zemel v. Rusk, supra, the issue was whether the Secretary could restrict travel for all citizens to Cuba. In holding that he could, the Court expressly approved the holding in Kent:
“We have held, Kent v. Dulles, supra, and reaffirm today, that the 1926 Act must take its content from history: it authorizes only those passport refusals and restrictions ‘which it could fairly be argued were adopted by Congress in light of prior administrative practice.’ Kent v. Dulles, supra, at 128. So limited, the Act does not constitute an invalid delegation.” 381 U. S., at 17-18.
In reaching its decision, the Court in Zemel relied upon numerous occasions when the State Department had restricted travel to certain international areas: Belgium in 1915; Ethiopia in 1935; Spain in 1936; China in 1937; Yugoslavia in the late 1940’s; Hungary in 1949; Czechoslovakia in 1951; Albania, Bulgaria, Communist China, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, and the Soviet Union in 1952; Albania, Bulgaria, and portions of China, Korea, and Vietnam in 1955; and Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Syria in 1956.
As in Kent and Zemel, there is no dispute here that the Passport Act of 1926 does not expressly authorize the Secretary to revoke Agee’s passport. Ante, at 290.3 Therefore, the *314sole remaining inquiry is whether there exists “with regard to the sort of passport [revocation] involved [here], an administrative"ñ'mc¿ic¿sufficiently substantial and consistent to warrant the conclusion that Congress had implicitly approved it.” Zemel v. Rusk, supra, at 12 (emphasis added). The Court today, citing to this same page in Zemél, applies a test markedly different f|om that of Zemél and Kent and in fact expressly disavowed’ by the latter. The Court states: “We hold that the0ioKcp> announced in the challenged regulations is 'sufficiently substantial and consistent’ to compel the conclusion that Congress has approved it. See Zemél, 381 U. S., at 12.” Ante, at 306 (emphasis added). The Court also observes that “a consistent administrative construction of [the Passport Act] must be followed by the courts ' “unless there are compelling indications that it is wrong.” ’ ” Ante, at 291 (emphasis added).
But clearly neither Zemél nor Kent holds that a longstanding Executive policy or construction is sufficient proof that Congress has implicitly authorized the Secretary’s action. The cases hold that an administrative practice must be demonstrated; in fact Kent unequivocally states that mere construction by the Executive — no matter how longstanding and consistent — is not sufficient.4 The passage in Kent is worthy of full quotation:
“Under the 1926 Act and its predecessor a large body of precedents grew up which repeat over and again that the issuance of passports is 'a discretionary act’ on the part of the Secretary of Statei The scholars, the courts, *315the Chief Executive, and the Attorneys General, all so said. This long-continued executive construction should be enough, it is said, to warrant the inference that Congress adopted it. See Allen v. Grand Central Aircraft Co., 347 U. S. 535, 544-545; United States v. Allen-Bradley Co., 352 U. S. 306, 310. But the key to that problem, as we shall see, is in the manner in which the Secretary’s discretion was exercised, not in the bare fact that he had discretion.” 357 U. S., at 124^125 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added).
The Court’s requirement in Kent of evidence of the Executive’s exercise of discretion as opposed to its possession of discretion may best be understood ass^a preference for the strongest proof that Congress knew of and acquiesced in that authority)> The presence of sensitive constitutional questions in the passport revocation context cautions against applying the normal rule that administrative constructions in cases of statutory construction are to be given great weight. Cf. Udall v. Tollman, 380 U. S. 1, 16 (1965). Only when Congress had maintained its silence in the face of a consistent and substantial pattern of actual passport denials or revocations — where the parties will presumably object loudly, perhaps through legal action, to the Secretary’s exercise of discretion — can this Court be sure that Congress is aware of the Secretary’s actions and has implicitly approved that exercise of discretion. Moreover, broad statements by the Executive Branch relating to its discretion in the passport area lack the precision of definition that would follow from concrete applications of that discretion in specific cases.5 Although Con*316gress might register general approval of the Executive’s overall policy, it still might disapprove of the Executive’s pattern of applying that broad rule in specific categories of cases.
Not only does the Court ignore the Kent-Zemel requirement that Executive discretion be supported by a consistent administrative practice, but it also relies on the very Executive construction and policy deemed irrelevant in Kent. Thus, noting that “[t]he President and the Secretary of State consistently construed the 1856 [Passport] Act to preserve their authority to withhold passports on national security and foreign policy grounds,” ante, at 295, the Court reaches out to hold that “Congress, in 1926, adopted the longstanding administrative construction of the 1856 statute,” ante, at 297-298. The Court quotes from 1869 and 1901 opinions of the Attorneys General. But Kent expressly cited both of these opinions as examples of Executive constructions not relevant to the determination whether Congress had implicitly approved the Secretary’s exercise of authority. Compare ante, at 295-296, with Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S., at 125, n. 11. The Court similarly relies on four Executive Orders issued between 1907 and 1917 to buttress its position, even though Kent expressly cited the same four Orders as examples of Executive constructions inapposite to the proper inquiry. Compare ante, at 296, n. 31, with Kent v. Dulles, supra, at 124, n. 10.6 Where the Court in Kent discounted the constructions of the Act made by “[t]he scholars, the courts, the Chief Executive, and the Attorneys General,” today’s Court decides this case on the basis of constructions evident from “an unbroken line of *317Executive Orders, regulations, instructions to consular officials, and notices to passport holders.” Compare ante, at 298, with Kent v. Dulles, supra, at 124 (footnotes omitted).7
The Court’s reliance on material expressly abjured in Kent becomes understandable only when one appreciates the paucity of recorded administrative practice — the only evidence upon which Kent and Zemel permit reliance — with respect to passport denials or revocations based on foreign policy or national security considerations relating to an individual. The Court itself identifies only three occasions over the past 33 years when the Secretary has revoked passports for such reasons. Ante, at 302.8 And only one of these cases involved *318a revocation pursuant to the regulations challenged in this case. Yet, in 1979 alone, there were 7,835,000 Americans traveling abroad. U. S. Dept, of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 253 (101st ed., 1980).
In light of this record, the Court, somewhat defensively, comments: “The Secretary has construed and applied his regulations consistently, and it would be anomalous to fault the Government because there were so few occasions to exercise the announced policy and practice. ... It would turn Kent on its head to say that simply because we have had only a few situations involving conduct such as that in this record, the Executive lacks the authority to deal with the problem when it is encountered.” Ante, at 303. Of course, no one is “faulting” the Government because there are only few occasions when it has seen fit to deny or revoke passports for foreign policy or national security reasons. The point that Kent and Zemel make, and that today’s opinion should make, is that the Executive’s authority to revoke passports touches an area fraught with important constitutional rights, and that the Court should therefore “construe narrowly all delegated powers that curtail or dilute them.” Kent v. Dulles, supra, at 129. The presumption is that Congress must expressly delegate authority to the Secretary to deny or revoke passports for foreign policy or national security reasons before he may exercise such authority. To overcome the presumption against an implied delegation, the Government must show “an administrative practice sufficiently substantial and consistent.” Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S., at 12. Only in this way can the Court satisfy itself that Congress has implicitly approved such exercise of authority by the Secretary.
*319III
I suspect that this case is a prime example of the adage that “bad facts make bad law.” Philip Agee is hardly a model representative of our Nation. And the Executive Branch has attempted to use one of the only means at its disposal, revocation of a passport, to stop respondent’s damaging statements. But just as the Constitution protects both popular and unpopular speech, it likewise protects both popular and unpopular travelers. And it is important to remember that this decision applies not only to Philip Agee, whose activities could be perceived as harming the national security, but also to other citizens who may merely disagree with Government foreign policy and express their views.9
The Constitution allocates the lawmaking function to Congress, and I fear that today’s decision has handed over too much.,of that function to the Executive. In permitting the Secretary to stop this unpopular traveler and critic of the CIA, the Court professes to rely on, but in fact departs from, the two precedents in the passport regulation area, Zemel and Kent. Of course it is always easier to fit oneself within the safe' haven of stare decisis than boldly to overrule precedents *320of several decades’ standing. Because I find myself ~unable to reconcile those cases with the decision in this case, however, and because I disagree with the Court’s sub silentio overruling of those cases, I dissent.10

 The letter stated in pertinent part:
“The Department’s action is predicated upon a determination made by the Secretary under the provisions of Section 51.70(b)(4) that your activities abroad are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States. The reasons for the Secretary’s determination are, in summary, as follows: Since the early 1970’s, it has been your stated intention to conduct a continuous campaign to disrupt the intelligence operations of the United States. In carrying out that campaign, you have travelled in various countries (including, among others, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Jamaica, Cuba and Germany), and your activities in those countries have caused serious damage to the national security and the foreign policy of the United States. Your stated intention to continue such activities threatens additional damage of the same kind.” Quoted in Agee v. Muskie, 203 U. S. App. D. C. 46, 48, 629 F. 2d 80, 82 (1980).

 Title 22 CFR § 51.71 (a) (1980) allows revocation, restriction, or limitation of a passport where the national would not be entitled to issuance of a new passport pursuant to 22 CFR § 51.70 (1980). For purposes of this case, denial and revocation of a passport are treated identically.

 The Passport Act of 1926, 22 TJ. S. C. §211a (1976 ed„ Supp. IV), states in pertinent part:
“The Secretary of State may grant and issue passports, and cause passports to be granted, issued, and verified in foreign countries by diplomatic *314representatives of the United States . . . under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States, and no other person shall grant, issue, or verify such passports.”

 The lower courts have had no trouble understanding and following the holdings of Kent and Zemél. See, e. g., Lynd v. Rusk, 128 U. S. App. D. C. 399, 404-405, 389 F. 2d 940, 945-946 (1967); Woodward v. Rogers, 344 F. Supp. 974, 985 (DC 1972), summarily aff'd, 159 U. S. App. D. C. 57, 486 F. 2d 1317 (1973).

 For instance, the petitioner cites a rule promulgated by the Executive Branch in 1903 providing that “[t]he Secretary of State has the right in his discretion to refuse to issue a passport, and will exercise this right towards anyone who, he has reason to believe, desires a passport to further an unlawful or improper purpose.” 3 J. Moore, A Digest of International Law 902 (1906); Brief for Petitioner 28. This statement can hardly *316be thought to communicate to Congress the contours of the Executive’s discretion; indeed it is little more than embellishment on the passport legislation itself.

 In contrast with the Kent Court, today’s Court relies on Executive Orders promulgated after passage of the Passport Act of 1926. Compare ante, at 298, n. 39, with Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S., at 124, n. 10.

 Even if the Court were correct to use administrative constructions of passport legislation, it- is by no means certain that the Executive did construe the Acts to give it the discretion alleged here, since it sometimes referred to the unqualified rights of citizens to passports. See, e. g., 15 Op. Atty. Gen. 114, 117 (1876); 13 Op. Atty. Gen. 397, 398 (1871). Indeed the State Department has sought legislation from Congress to provide the sort of authority exercised in this case. See S. 4110, § 103 (6), 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958); Hearings on S. 2770, S. 3998, S. 4110, and S. 4137 before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 85tb Cong., 2d Sess., 1, 4 (1958); see also H. R. 14895, §205 (e), 89th Cong., 2d Sess. (1966). This hardly suggests that the Executive thought it had such authority.

 The Court of Appeals below identified a total of six denials or revocations that were arguably for foreign policy or national security reasons. 203 II. S. App. D. C., at 51, 629 F. 2d, at 86. Two of the six occurred prior to passage of the Passport Act of 1926, three during the 1950’s, and one over the past 12 years. Judge MacKinnon's dissenting opinion below and the petitioner’s brief identify only a few more cases. However, as the petitioner readily admits:
“Because passport files are maintained by name rather than by category of applicant or reason for disposition, it is virtually impossible to compile comprehensive statistical data regarding passport denials on national security or foreign policy grounds.” Brief for Petitioner 29, n. 22.
One wonders, then, how the petitioner can argue that Congress was aware of any administrative practice, when the data is unavailable even to the *318Executive. In any event, the slim practice that Judge MacKinnon and the petitioner cite could hardly be termed a sufficiently consistent and substantial administrative practice to pass the Kent-Zemel test.

 An excerpt from the petitioner’s portion of the oral argument is particularly revealing:
“QUESTION: General McCree, supposing a person right now were to apply for a passport to go to Salvador, and when asked the purpose of his journey, to say, to denounce the United States policy in Salvador in supporting the junta. And the Secretary of State says, I just will not issue a passport for that purpose. Do you think that he can consistently do that in the light of our previous cases?
“MR. McCREE: I would say, yes, he can. Because we have to vest these — The President of the United States and the Secretary of State working under him are charged with conducting the foreign policy of the Nation, and the freedom of speech that we enjoy domestically may be different from that that we can exercise in this context.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 20.
The reach of the Secretary’s discretion is potentially staggering.

 Because I conclude that the regulation is invalid as an unlawful exercise of authority by the Secretary under the Passport Act of 1926, I need not decide the important constitutional issues presented in this case. However, several parts of the Court’s whirlwind treatment of Agee’s constitutional claims merit comment, either because they are extreme oversimplifications of constitutional doctrine or mistaken views of the law and facts of this case.
First, the Court states:
“To the extent the revocation of his passport operates to inhibit Agee, ‘it is an inhibition of action,’ rather than of speech. . . . Agee is as free to criticize the United States Government as he was when he held a passport — always subject, of course, to express limits on certain rights by virtue of his contract with the Government.” Ante, at 309 (footnote omitted).
Under the Court’s rationale, I would suppose that a 40-year prison sentence imposed upon a person who criticized the Government’s food stamp policy would represent only an “inhibition of action.” After all, the individual would remain free to criticize the United States Government, albeit from a jail cell.
Respondent argues that the revocation of his passport “was intended to harass, penalize, and deter his criticism of United States policies and practices, in violation of the First Amendment.” Brief for Respondent 112. The Court answers:
“Agee’s disclosures, among other things, have the declared purpose of obstructing intelligence operations and the recruiting of intelligence personnel. They are. clearly not protected by the Constitution.” Ante, at 308-309.
The Court seemá to misunderstand the prior precedents of this Court, for Agee’s speech is undoubtedly protected by the Constitution. However, it may be that respondent’s First Amendment right to speak is outweighed by the Government’s interest in national security. The point respondent makes, and one that is worthy of plenary consideration, is that revocation of his passport obviously does implicate First Amendment rights by chilling his right to speak, and therefore the Court’s responsibility must be to balance that infringement against the asserted governmental interests to determine whether the revocation contravenes the First *321Amendment. I add that Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697 (1931), is hardly a relevant or convincing precedent to sustain the Secretary’s action here. Only when there is proof that the activity “must inevitably, directly, and immediately cause the occurrence of an event kindred to imperiling the safety of a transport already at sea” does the Near exception apply. New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713, 726-727 (1971) (Brennan, J., concurring). Agee’s concession in the trial court below was only for the purpose of challenging the facial validity of the regulation, not its application to his case. Therefore, until the facts are known, the majority no less than I can have no idea whether Agee’s conduct actually would fall within the extreme factual category presented by Near.
Second, the Court purports to agree with the District Court’s holding that Agee lacks standing to contend that the regulation is vague and over-broad because his conduct falls within the core of the regulation. Ante, at 309, n. 61. I find this an untenable conclusion on the record before us and the precedents of this Court. The District Court nowhere held that respondent lacked standing to contend vagueness and overbreadth. At most, on the pages cited by the Court, Judge Gesell stated: “Your client, you would be conceding, falls within the core of the objective of the regulation and the fact that it may be over-broad as to somebody else isn’t very persuasive to me.” Tr. 11 (Jan. 3, 1980). Not only is this obviously not a holding, and not only did Judge Gesell never mention vagueness, but further portions of the transcript clearly establish that Judge Gesell expressly declined to reach Agee’s overbreadth claim for purposes of this summary judgment motion, and that this claim was reserved for future consideration. Id., at 16. In any event, it is strange indeed to suggest that an individual whose activities admittedly fall within the core of the challenged regulation does not have standing to argue overbreadth. After all, the purpose of the overbreadth doctrine in First Amendment cases is precisely to permit a person who falls within the legislation nevertheless to challenge the wide sweep of the legislation as it affects another’s protected activity. See, e. g., Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 520-521 (1972). And nothing in Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733 (1974), the case cited by the Court, detracts from that doctrine.
Because the Court concludes that Agee has no standing to raise vagueness and overbreadth claims, it does not decide the question whether the challenged regulation is constitutionally infirm under those doctrines. I can only say that, for me, these are substantial issues highlighted particularly by the Solicitor General’s comments at oral argument as to the reach of the regulations. See n. 9, supra.