Untruth in Labeling

Several years ago a film from Canada called “If You Love This Planet” won an Academy Award as the best short subject of the year. The film was produced by the National Film Board of Canada, and dealt with the effects of nuclear war. On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court inexplicably ruled that the U.S. Justice Department had a right to require that the film be labeled as “propaganda” when it was shown in this country.

The law under which this labeling occurred, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, was enacted in 1938 in response to a propaganda blitz by the Nazi government in Germany. Whether it was needed then is an open question, but it certainly is not needed now--especially when it is used to cast aspersions on political views that the government does not like. “Propaganda” is not a neutral term, despite what the Supreme Court says.

The other two Canadian films in Tuesday’s case --”Acid From Heaven” and “Acid Rain: Requiem or Recovery”--dealt with acid rain, which the Reagan Administration was pooh-poohing at the time. The Administration’s purpose was heavy-handed and clear. Would it really have required that a foreign film that agreed with the U.S. government’s position also be labeled as propaganda? We think not.

Nearly 50 years after it was passed, the law needs rethinking. As this case shows, the opportunities for abuse of the law are readily available to any government that wants to use them.

Content-based restrictions on free speech are always suspect. The government must be neutral on all political speech, and never be allowed either to promote or to hinder the free exchange of ideas. The dissenters in this case--Justices Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall--understood that. Their message should not be lost on Congress, which should change the law to keep this from happening again.