Report No. 43

7.56. Drastic presumptions necessary.-

These presumptions and rules of evidence may appear to be very drastic. But they are very necessary for offences of this type. We may, in this connection, refer to a view expressed in the U.S.A. where such presumptions are not available. An American writer has observed1-

1. Allen Dulles The Craft of intelligence, (Harper), (1963), p. 248.

"A further point in the program to improve our security posture is that we should review and tighten up our espionage laws in certain respects. Since 1946, on several occasions, attempts, all abortive, have been made by the executive branch of government to amend the Espionage Act so that a prosecution would not fail merely because of difficulties in establishing "an intent or reason to believe" that the information wrongly divulged or passed to a foreign government was "to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation.

This is hard to prove. Fortunately, the requirements of proof of such intent has already been eliminated in cases involving restricted data under the Atomic Energy Act and with regard to disclosure of classified information in the field of 'communications intelligence'. The requirements still holds, however, in cases where other types of secret and classified information are divulged".