Editing McCarran Internal Security Act (section)

===Passage===

Several key sections of the Act were taken from the earlier [[Mundt–Ferguson Communist Registration Bill]], which Congress had failed to pass.<ref>[http://everything2.com/title/The+Nixon-Mundt+Bill Everything2: The Nixon-Mundt Bill] Retrieved 2012-04-10</ref>

It included language that Sen. [[Karl Earl Mundt|Mundt]] had introduced several times before without success aimed at punishing a federal employee from passing information "classified by the President (or by the head of any such department, agency, or corporation with the approval of the President) as affecting the security of the United States" to "any representative of a foreign government or to any officer or member of a Communist organization". He told a Senate hearing that it was a response to what the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC) had learned when investigating "the so-called [[Pumpkin Papers|pumpkin papers]] case, the espionage activities in the [[Whittaker Chambers|Chambers]]-[[Alger Hiss|Hiss]] case, the [[Elizabeth Bentley|Bentley]] case, and others."<ref>Justia: [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/317/546/391121/ ''Scarbeck v. U.S.'' paragraphs 20-1], accessed June 25, 2012</ref>

President Harry Truman [[List of United States presidential vetoes|vetoed]] it on September 22, 1950, and sent Congress a lengthy veto message in which he criticized specific provisions as "the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press, and assembly since the [[Alien and Sedition Acts|Alien and Sedition Laws]] of 1798," a "mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step toward totalitarianism".<ref name=trumanveto>Harry S. Truman, [http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=883 Veto of the Internal Security Bill] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070301113033/http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=883 |date=2007-03-01 }}, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Text of President's Veto Message Vetoing the Communist-Control Bill |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/09/23/113171737.pdf|access-date=April 23, 2013 |newspaper=New York Times|date=September 23, 1950}}</ref>

The House overrode the veto without debate by a vote of 286–48 the same day. The Senate overrode his veto the next day after "a twenty-two hour continuous battle" by a vote of 57–10. Thirty-one Republicans and 26 Democrats voted in favor, while five members of each party opposed it.  Democratic Senator [[Hubert Humphrey]] led the outnumbered opposition in the Senate despite having voted in favor of the law the first time.<ref>{{cite news|last=Trussel|first=C.P. |title=Red Bill Veto Beaten, 57-10, By Senators|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/09/24/306329152.pdf|access-date=April 23, 2013|newspaper=New York Times|date=September 24, 1950}}</ref>