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Full Opinion
HAIG, SECRETARY OF STATE
v.
AGEE.
Supreme Court of United States.
*282 Solicitor General McCree argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Daniel, Deputy Solicitor General Geller, Andrew J. Levander, Leonard Schaitman, Michael F. Hertz, and William T. Lake.
Melvin L. Wulf argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the President, acting through the Secretary of State, has authority to revoke a passport on the ground that the holder's activities in foreign countries are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or foreign policy of the United States.
*283 I
A
Philip Agee, an American citizen, currently resides in West Germany.[1] From 1957 to 1968, he was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. He held key positions in the division of the Agency that is responsible for covert intelligence gathering in foreign countries. In the course of his duties at the Agency, Agee received training in clandestine operations, including the methods used to protect the identities of intelligence employees and sources of the United States overseas. He served in undercover assignments abroad and came to know many Government employees and other persons supplying information to the United States. The relationships of many of these people to our Government are highly confidential; many are still engaged in intelligence gathering.
In 1974, Agee called a press conference in London to announce his "campaign to fight the United States CIA wherever it is operating." He declared his intent "to expose CIA officers and agents and to take the measures necessary to drive them out of the countries where they are operating."[2]*284 Since 1974, Agee has, by his own assertion, devoted consistent effort to that program, and he has traveled extensively in other countries in order to carry it out. To identify CIA personnel in a particular country, Agee goes to the target country and consults sources in local diplomatic circles whom he knows from his prior service in the United States Government. He recruits collaborators and trains them in clandestine techniques designed to expose the "cover" of CIA employees and sources. Agee and his collaborators have repeatedly and publicly identified individuals and organizations located in foreign countries as undercover CIA agents, employees, or sources.[3] The record reveals that the identifications divulge classified information,[4] violate Agee's express contract not to make any public statements about Agency matters without prior clearance by the Agency,[5] have prejudiced *285 the ability of the United States to obtain intelligence,[6] and have been followed by episodes of violence against the persons and organizations identified.[7]
*286 In December 1979, the Secretary of State revoked Agee's passport and delivered an explanatory notice to Agee in West Germany. The notice states in part:
"The Department's action is predicated upon a determination made by the Secretary under the provisions of [22 CFR] 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 foreign policy of the United States. Your stated intention to continue such activities threatens additional damage of the same kind."[8]
*287 The notice also advised Agee of his right to an administrative hearing[9] and offered to hold such a hearing in West Germany on 5 days' notice.
Agee at once filed suit against the Secretary.[10] He alleged that the regulation invoked by the Secretary, 22 CFR § 51.70 (b) (4) (1980), has not been authorized by Congress and is invalid; that the regulation is impermissibly overbroad; that the revocation prior to a hearing violated his Fifth Amendment right to procedural due process; and that the revocation violated a Fifth Amendment liberty interest in a right to travel and a First Amendment right to criticize Government policies. He sought declaratory and injunctive relief, and he moved for summary judgment on the question of the authority to promulgate the regulation and on the constitutional claims. For purposes of that motion, Agee conceded the Secretary's factual averments[11] and his claim that Agee's activities were causing or were likely to cause serious damage to the national security or foreign policy of the United States.[12] The District Court held that the regulation exceeded the statutory powers of the Secretary under the Passport Act of 1926, 22 U. S. C. § 211a,[13] granted summary *288 judgment for Agee, and ordered the Secretary to restore his passport. Agee v. Vance, 483 F. Supp. 729 (DC 1980).
B
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. Agee v. Muskie, 203 U. S. App. D. C. 46, 629 F. 2d 80 (1980). It held that the Secretary was required to show that Congress had authorized the regulation either by an express delegation or by implied approval of a "substantial and consistent" administrative practice, Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1, 12 (1965). The court found no express statutory authority for the revocation. It perceived only one other case of actual passport revocation under the regulation since it was promulgated and only five other instances prior to that in which passports were actually denied "even arguably for national security or foreign policy reasons." 203 U. S. App. D. C., at 51-52, 629 F. 2d, at 85-86. The Court of Appeals took note of the Secretary's reliance on "a series of statutes, regulations, proclamations, orders and advisory opinions dating back to 1856," but declined to consider those authorities, reasoning that "the criterion for establishing congressional assent by inaction is the actual imposition of sanctions and not the mere assertion of power." Id., at 52-53, 629 F. 2d, at 86-87. The Court of Appeals held that its was not sufficient that "Agee's conduct may be considered by some to border on treason," since "[w]e are bound by the law as we find it." Id., at 53, 629 F. 2d, at 87. The court also regarded it as material that most of the Secretary's authorities dealt with powers of the Executive Branch "during time of war or national emergency"[14]*289 or with respect to persons "engaged in criminal conduct."[15]Id., at 52, 629 F. 2d, at 86.
We granted certiorari sub nom. Muskie v. Agee, 449 U. S. 818 (1980), and stayed the judgment of the Court of Appeals until our disposition of the case on the grant of certiorari.[16]
II
The principal question before us is whether the statute authorizes the action of the Secretary pursuant to the policy announced by the challenged regulation.[17]
A
1
Although the historical background that we develop later *290 is important, we begin with the language of the statute. See, e. g., Universities Research Assn. v. Coutu, 450 U. S. 754. 771 (1981); Zemel, supra, at 7-8. The Passport Act of 1926 provides 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 representatives of the United States . . . under such rules as the President shall designated and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States, and no other person shall grant, issue, or verify such passports." 22 U. S. C. § 211a (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
This language is unchanged since its original enactment in 1926.[18]
The Passport Act does not in so many words confer upon the Secretary a power to revoke a passport. Nor, for that matter, does it expressly authorize denials of passport applications.[19] Neither, however, does any statute expressly limit those powers. It is beyond dispute that the Secretary has the power to deny a passport for reasons not specified in the statutes. For example, in Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116 (1958), the Court recognized congressional acquiescence in Executive policies of refusing passports to applicants "participating in illegal conduct, trying to escape the toils of the law, promoting passport frauds, or otherwise engaging in conduct which would violate the laws of the United States." Id., at 127. In Zemel, the Court held that "the weightiest *291 considerations of national security" authorized the Secretary to restrict travel to Cuba at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. 381 U. S., at 16. Agee concedes that if the Secretary may deny a passport application for a certain reason, he may revoke a passport on the same ground.[20]
2
Particularly in light of the "broad rule-making authority granted in the [1926] Act," Zemel, 381 U. S., at 12, a consistent administrative construction of that statute must be followed by the courts "`unless there are compelling indications that it is wrong.'" E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Collins, 432 U. S. 46, 55 (1977), quoting Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367, 381 (1969); see Zemel, supra, at 11. This is especially so in the areas of foreign policy and national security, where congressional silence is not to be equated with congressional disapproval.[21] In United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304 (1936), the volatile nature of problems confronting the Executive in foreign policy and national defense was underscored:
"In this vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. . . . As Marshall said in his great argument of March 7, 1800, in the House of Representatives, `The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.' " Id., at 319.
*292 Applying these considerations to statutory construction, the Zemel Court observed:
"[B]ecause of the changeable and explosive nature of contemporary international relations, and the fact that the Executive is immediately privy to information which cannot be swiftly presented to, evaluated by, and acted upon by the legislature, Congress—in giving the Executive authority over matters of foreign affairs—must of necessity paint with a brush broader than that it customarily wields in domestic areas." 381 U. S., at 17 (emphasis supplied).
Matters intimately related to foreign policy and national security are rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention. In Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580 (1952), the Court observed that matters relating "to the conduct of foreign relations . . . are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference." Id., at 589; accord, Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U. S. 103, 111 (1948).
B
1
A passport is, in a sense, a letter of introduction in which the issuing sovereign vouches for the bearer and requests other sovereigns to aid the bearer. 3 G. Hackworth, Digest of International Law § 268, p. 499 (1942). Very early, the Court observed:
"[A passport] is a document, which, from its nature and object, is addressed to foreign powers; purporting only to be a request, that the bearer of it may pass safely and freely; and is to be considered rather in the character of a political document, by which the bearer is recognised, in foreign countries, as an American citizen; and *293 which, by usage and the law of nations, is received as evidence of the fact." Urtetiqui v. D'Arcy, 9 Pet. 692, 698 (1835).
With the enactment of travel control legislation making a passport generally a requirement for travel abroad,[22] a passport took on certain added characteristics. Most important for present purposes, the only means by which an American can lawfully leave the country or return to it—absent a Presidentially granted exception—is with a passport. See 8 U. S. C. § 1185 (b) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). As a travel control document, a passport is both proof of identity and proof of allegiance to the United States. Even under a travel control statute, however, a passport remains in a sense a document by which the Government vouches for the bearer and for his conduct.
The history of passport controls since the earliest days of the Republic shows congressional recognition of Executive authority to withhold passports on the basis of substantial reasons of national security and foreign policy. Prior to 1856, when there was no statute on the subject, the common perception was that the issuance of a passport was committed to the sole discretion of the Executive and that the Executive would exercise this power in the interests of the national security and foreign policy of the United States.[23] This derived from the generally accepted view that foreign policy *294 was the province and responsibility of the Executive.[24] From the outset, Congress endorsed not only the underlying premise of Executive authority in the areas of foreign policy and national security, but also its specific application to the subject of passports. Early Congresses enacted statutes expressly recognizing the Executive authority with respect to passports.[25]
The first Passport Act, adopted in 1856, provided that the Secretary of State "shall be authorized to grant and issue passports . . . under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States . . . ." § 23, 11 Stat. 60.[26] This broad and permissive language worked no change in the power of the Executive to issue passports; nor was it intended to do so. The Act was passed to centralize passport authority in the Federal Government[27] and specifically in the Secretary of State.[28] In all other respects, the 1856 Act
"merely confirmed an authority already possessed and *295 exercised by the Secretary of State. This authority was ancillary to his broader authority to protect American citizens in foreign countries and was necessarily incident to his general authority to conduct the foreign affairs of the United States under the Chief Executive." Senate Committee on Government Operations, Reorganization of the Passport Functions of the Department of State, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., 13 (Comm. Print 1960).
The President and the Secretary of State consistently construed the 1856 Act to preserve their authority to withhold passports on national security and foreign policy grounds. Thus, as an emergency measure in 1861, the Secretary issued orders prohibiting persons from going abroad or entering the country without passports; denying passports to citizens who were subject to military service unless they were bonded; and absolutely denying passports to persons "on errands hostile and injurious to the peace of the country and dangerous to the Union." 3 J. Moore, A Digest of International Law 920 (1906); U. S. Dept. of State, The American Passport 49-54 (1898).[29] An 1869 opinion of Attorney General Hoar held that the granting of a passport was not "obligatory in any case." 13 Op. Atty. Gen. 89, 92. This was elaborated in 1901 in an opinion of Attorney General Knox, in which he stated:
"Substantial reasons exist for the use by Congress of the word `may' in connection with authority to issue passports. Circumstances are conceivable which would make it most inexpedient for the public interests for this *296 country to grant a passport to a citizen of the United States." 23 Op. Atty. Gen. 509, 511.
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt promulgated a rule 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."[30] Subsequent Executive Orders issued between 1907 and 1917 cast no doubt on this position.[31] This policy was enforced in peacetime years to deny passports to citizens whose conduct abroad was "likely to embarrass the United States"[32] or who were "disturbing, or endeavoring to disturb, the relations of this country with the representatives of foreign countries."[33]
By enactment of the first travel control statute in 1918,[34]*297 Congress made clear its expectation that the Executive would curtail or prevent international travel by American citizens if it was contrary to the national security. The legislative history reveals that the principal reason for the 1918 statute was fear that "renegade Americans" would travel abroad and engage in "transference of important military information" to persons not entitled to it.[35] The 1918 statute left the power to make exceptions exclusively in the hands of the Executive, without articulating specific standards. Unless the Secretary had power to apply national security criteria in passport decisions, the purpose of the Travel Control Act would plainly have been frustrated.
Against this background, and while the 1918 provisions were still in effect, Congress enacted the Passport Act of 1926. The legislative history of the statute is sparse. However, Congress used language which is identical in pertinent part to that in the 1856 statute (supra, at 294), as amended,[36] and the legislative history clearly shows congressional awareness of the Executive policy.[37] There is no evidence of any intent to repudiate the longstanding administrative construction.[38] Absent such evidence, we conclude that Congress, in *298 1926, adopted the longstanding administrative construction of the 1856 statute. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575, 580-581 (1978).
The Executive construed the 1926 Act to work no change in prior practice and specifically interpreted it to authorize denial of a passport on grounds of national security or foreign policy. Indeed, by an unbroken line of Executive Orders,[39] regulations,[40] instructions to consular officials.[41] and notices to passport holders,[42] the President and the Department of State left no doubt that likelihood of damage to national security or foreign policy of the United States was the single most important criterion in passport decisions. The regulations are instructive. The 1952 version authorized denial of passports to citizens engaged in activities which would violate laws designed to protect the security of the United States "[i]n order to promote the national interest by assuring that the conduct of foreign relations shall be free *299 from unlawful interference." 17 Fed. Reg. 8013 (1952). The 1956 amendment to this regulation provided that a passport should be denied to any person whose
"activities abroad would: (a) Violate the laws of the United States; (b) be prejudicial to the orderly conduct of foreign relations; or (c) otherwise be prejudicial to the interests of the United States." 22 CFR § 51.136 (1958).
This regulation remained in effect continuously until 1966.
This history of administrative construction was repeatedly communicated to Congress, not only by routine promulgation of Executive Orders and regulations, but also by specific presentations, including 1957 and 1966 reports by the Department of State explaining the 1956 regulation[43] and a 1960 Senate Staff Report which concluded that "the authority to issue or withhold passports has, by precedent and law, been vested in the Secretary of State as a part of his responsibility to protect American citizens traveling abroad, and what he considered to be the best interests of the Nation."[44]
In 1966, the Secretary of State[45] promulgated the regulations at issue in this case. 22 CFR §§ 51.70 (b)(4), 51.71 (a) (1980). Closely paralleling the 1956 regulation, these provisions authorize revocation of a passport where "[t]he Secretary determines that the national's activities abroad are *300 causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States."[46]
2
Zemel recognized that congressional acquiescence may sometimes be found from nothing more than silence in the face of an administrative policy. 381 U. S., at 11; see Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 16-18 (1965); Norwegian Nitrogen Co. v. United States, 288 U. S. 294, 313 (1933); Costanzo v. Tillinghast, 287 U. S. 341, 345 (1932). Here, however, the inference of congressional approval "is supported by more than mere congressional inaction." Zemel, 381 U. S., at 11-12. Twelve years after the promulgation of the regulations at issue and 22 years after promulgation of the similar 1956 regulation, Congress enacted the statute making it unlawful to travel abroad without a passport even in peacetime. 8 U. S. C. § 1185 (b) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).[47] Simultaneously, Congress amended the Passport Act of 1926 to provide that "[u]nless authorized by law," in the absence of war, armed hostilities, or imminent danger to travelers, a passport may not be geographically restricted.[48] Title 8 U. S. C. § 1185 (b) (1976 ed., Supp. IV) must be read in pari materia with the *301 Passport Act. Zemel, supra, at 11-12; see 2A C. Sands, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 51.03, p. 299 (4th ed. 1973); cf. Erlenbaugh v. United States, 409 U. S. 239, 243-244 (1972).[49]
The 1978 amendments are weighty evidence of congressional approval of the Secretary's interpretation, particularly that in the 1966 regulations. Despite the longstanding and officially promulgated view that the Executive had the power to withhold passports for reasons of national security and foreign policy, Congress in 1978, "though it once again enacted legislation relating to passports, left completely untouched the broad rule-making authority granted in the earlier Act." Zemel, supra, at 12; accord, NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U. S. 267, 274-275 (1974).[50]
3
Agee argues that the only way the Executive can establish implicit congressional approval is by proof of longstanding and consistent enforcement of the claimed power: that is, by showing that many passports were revoked on national *302 security and foreign policy grounds. For this proposition, he relies on Kent, 357 U. S., at 127-128.[51]
A necessary premise for Agee's contention is that there were frequent occasions for revocation and that the claimed Executive power was exercised in only a few of those cases. However, if there were no occasions—or few—to call the Secretary's authority into play, the absence of frequent instances of enforcement is wholly irrelevant. The exercise of a power emerges only in relation to a factual situation, and the continued validity of the power is not diluted simply because there is no need to use it.
The history is clear that there have been few situations involving substantial likelihood of serious damage to the national security or foreign policy of the United States as a result of a passport holder's activities abroad, and that in the cases which have arisen, the Secretary has consistently exercised his power to withhold passports. Perhaps the most notable example of enforcement of the administrative policy, which surely could not have escaped the attention of Congress, was the 1948 denial of a passport to a Member of Congress who sought to go abroad to support a movement in Greece to overthrow the existing government.[52] Another example was the 1954 revocation of a passport held by a man who was supplying arms to groups abroad whose interests were contrary to positions taken by the United States.[53] In 1970, the Secretary revoked passports of two persons who sought to travel to the site of an international airplane hijacking.[54] See also Note, 61 Yale L. J. 170, 174-176 (1952).
*303 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. Although a pattern of actual enforcement is one indicator of Executive policy, it suffices that the Executive has "openly asserted" the power at issue. Zemel, 381 U. S., at 9; see id., at 10.
Kent is not to the contrary. There, it was shown that the claimed governmental policy had not been enforced consistently. The Court stressed that "as respects Communists these are scattered rulings and not consistently of one pattern." 357 U. S., at 128. In other words, the Executive had allowed passports to some Communists, but sought to deny one to Kent. The Court had serious doubts as to whether there was in reality any definite policy in which Congress could have acquiesced. Here, by contrast, there is no basis for a claim that the Executive has failed to enforce the policy against others engaged in conduct likely to cause serious damage to our national security or foreign policy. 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.[55]
Agee also contends that the statements of Executive policy are entitled to diminished weight because many of them concern the powers of the Executive in wartime. However, the statute provides no support for this argument. History eloquently attests that grave problems of national security and foreign policy are by no means limited to times of formally declared war.[56]
*304 Relying on the statement of the Court in Kent that "illegal conduct" and problems of allegiance were, "so far as relevant here, . . . the only [grounds] which it could fairly be argued were adopted by Congress in light of prior administrative practice," id., at 127-128, Agee argues that this enumeration was exclusive and is controlling here. This is not correct.
The Kent Court had no occasion to consider whether the Executive had the power to revoke the passport of an individual whose conduct is damaging the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Kent involved denials of passports solely on the basis of political beliefs entitled to First Amendment protection. See Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500 (1964). Although finding it unnecessary to reach the merits of that constitutional problem, the Kent Court emphasized the fact that "[w]e deal with beliefs, with associations, with ideological matters." 357 U. S., at 130 (emphasis supplied). In particular, the Court noted that the applicants were
"being denied their freedom of movement solely because of their refusal to be subjected to inquiry into their beliefs and associations. They do not seek to escape the law nor to violate it. They may or may not be Communists. But assuming they are, the only law which Congress has passed expressly curtailing the movement of Communists across our borders has not yet become effective. It would therefore be strange to infer that pending the effectiveness of that law, the Secretary has been silently granted by Congress the larger, the more pervasive power to curtail in his discretion the free movement of citizens in order to satisfy himself about their beliefs or associations." Ibid. (footnote omitted).
*305 The protection accorded beliefs standing alone is very different from the protection accorded conduct. Thus, in Aptheker v. Secretary of State, supra, the Court held that a statute which, like the policy at issue in Kent, denied passports to Communists solely on the basis of political beliefs unconstitutionally "establishes an irrebuttable presumption that individuals who are members of the specified organizations will, if given passports, engage in activities inimical to the security of the United States." 378 U. S., at 511. The Court recognized that the legitimacy of the objective of safeguarding our national security is "obvious and unarguable." Id., at 509. The Court explained that the statute at issue was not the least restrictive alternative available: "The prohibition against travel is supported only by a tenuous relationship between the bare fact of organizational membership and the activity Congress sought to proscribe." Id., at 514.
Beliefs and speech are only part of Agee's "campaign to fight the United States CIA." In that sense, this case contrasts markedly with the facts in Kent and Aptheker.[57] No presumptions, rebuttable or otherwise, are involved, for Agee's *306 conduct in foreign countries presents a serious danger to American officials abroad and serious danger to the national security.[58]
We hold that the policy announced in the challenged regulations is "sufficiently substantial and consistent" to compel the conclusion that Congress has approved it. See Zemel, 381 U. S., at 12.
III
Agee also attacks the Secretary's action on three constitutional grounds: first, that the revocation of his passport impermissibly burdens his freedom to travel; second, that the action was intended to penalize his exercise of free speech and deter his criticism of Government policies and practices; and third, that failure to accord him a prerevocation hearing violated his Fifth Amendment right to procedural due process.
In light of the express language of the passport regulations, which permits their application only in cases involving likelihood of "serious damage" to national security or foreign policy, these claims are without merit.
Revocation of a passport undeniably curtails travel, but the freedom to travel abroad with a "letter of introduction" in the form of a passport issued by the sovereign is subordinate to national security and foreign policy considerations; as such, it is subject to reasonable governmental regulation. The Court has made it plain that the freedom to travel outside the United States must be distinguished from the right to travel within the United States. This was underscored in Califano v. Aznavorian, 439 U. S. 170, 176 (1978):
"Aznavorian urges that the freedom of international travel is basically equivalent to the constitutional right to interstate travel, recognized by this Court for over 100 years. Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 97; Williams v. Fears, 179 *307 U. S. 270, 274; Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 43-44; Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 492 (Taney, C. J., dissenting). But this Court has often pointed out the crucial difference between the freedom to travel internationally and the right of interstate travel.
"`The constitutional right of interstate travel is virtually unqualified, United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 757-758 (1966); Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S. 88, 105-106 (1971). By contrast the "right" of international travel has been considered to be no more than an aspect of the "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. As such this "right," the Court has held, can be regulated within the bounds of due process.' (Citations omitted.) Califano v. Torres, 435 U. S. 1, 4 n. 6."
It is "obvious and unarguable" that no governmental interest is more compelling than the security of the Nation. Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S., at 509; accord Cole v. Young, 351 U. S. 536, 546 (1956); see Zemel, supra, at 13-17. Protection of the foreign policy of the United States is a governmental interest of great importance, since foreign policy and national security considerations cannot neatly be compartmentalized.
Measures to protect the secrecy of our Government's foreign intelligence operations plainly serve these interests. Thus, in Snepp v. United States, 444 U. S. 507, 509, n. 3 (1980), we held that "[t]he Government has a compelling interest in protecting both the secrecy of information important to our national security and the appearance of confidentiality so essential to the effective operation of our foreign intelligence service." See also id., at 511-513. The Court in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. properly emphasized:
"[The President] has his confidential sources of information. He has his agents in the form of diplomatic, *308 consular and other officials. Secrecy in respect of information gathered by them may be highly necessary, and the premature disclosure of it productive of harmful results." 299 U. S., at 320.
Accord, Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U. S., at 111; The Federalist No. 64, pp. 392-393 (Mentor ed. 1961).
Not only has Agee jeopardized the security of the United States, but he has also endangered the interests of countries other than the United States[59]—thereby creating serious problems for American foreign relations and foreign policy. Restricting Agee's foreign travel, although perhaps not certain to prevent all of Agee's harmful activities, is the only avenue open to the Government to limit these activities.[60]
Assuming, arguendo, that First Amendment protections reach beyond our national boundaries, Agee's First Amendment claim has no foundation. The revocation of Agee's passport rests in part on the content of his speech: specifically, his repeated disclosures of intelligence operations and names of intelligence personnel. Long ago, however, this Court recognized that "[n]o one would question but that a government might prevent actual obstruction to its recruiting service or the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops." Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697, 716 (1931), citing Z. Chafee,