DEFENDING DEMOCRACY IN EXILE Policy Responses to Transnational Repression Foreign agents and transnational repression In a positive step forward, the Department of Justice has begun to issue indictments against individuals in connection with incidents of transnational repression. The first such indictment was in response to the Chinese government’s Operation Fox Hunt, which sought to surveil, harass, stalk, and intimidate individuals living in the United States in order to compel them to return to China.40 This campaign was a brazen attempt by Beijing, as FBI Director Christopher Wray said at the time, to impose its own laws and security practices on the territory of the United States.41 Other indictments against individuals linked to the Iranian and Egyptian regimes followed. With two exceptions,42 all of the indictments include charges of acting or conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign state. In a positive step forward, the Department of Justice has begun to issue indictments against individuals in connection with incidents of transnational repression. The United States has two laws regulating foreign agents. Political activity is covered under 22 U.S.C. Section 611, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and nonpolitical activity on behalf of a foreign state is covered by 18 U.S.C. Section 951. Although these two laws have been applied in cases of transnational repression, they are imperfect tools in countering authoritarians and do not adequately account for the wide array of tactics that they use. The collection of information on critics and dissidents is often a first step before targeting those individuals with extraterritorial violence. In the United States, this activity has been addressed through the application of foreign agent laws. For example, according to the FBI, Baimadajie Angwang, an officer with the New York City police department, spent years collecting information on the Tibetan community in the city’s Queens borough at the behest of officials from the city’s Chinese consulate.43 Meanwhile, Pierre Girgis, a resident of Manhattan, tracked, collected, and shared nonpublic information on political opponents of the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. 8 @FreedomHouse Shujun Wang used his position in the Chinese diaspora community in New York to surveil prominent activists, dissidents, and human rights leaders and report on their planned political activities to the Chinese government.44 At least one of the people he informed on was subsequently arrested in Hong Kong. All three men were charged with acting as agents of a foreign state. There is widespread agreement across law enforcement, prosecutors, and policy makers that existing US law is insufficient to address transnational repression and that updates are needed. Instead of using the framework of foreign agents, one possible alternative approach would be to center the dangerous activity in legislation rather than the status of the perpetrator. Sweden, and some other European countries, for example, treat the collection of information on individuals on behalf of a foreign state as a specific kind of espionage. Sweden’s criminal code prohibits obtaining information secretly, fraudulently, or via “improper means” about a person for the benefit of a foreign power.45 This directly addresses the problematic activity and may better deter tracking, surveilling, and informing on critics of an authoritarian regime in the United States. Any effort to design new criminal legislation should prioritize safeguarding rights and make sure to avoid infringing on fundamental freedoms, encouraging xenophobia, or unduly singling out people engaged in legitimate activities such as academic research. As media reporting and academic research have shown, policies designed to address specific threats after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, increased the surveillance and marginalization of minority communities, leading to significant negative effects on individual rights and freedoms.46 Every effort should be made to avoid a similar outcome from policies aimed at stemming the tactics of transnational repression. Authorities need to consult with at-risk communities to ascertain what they view as an appropriate response to malign actions by foreign states. FARA was designed to be a mechanism for ensuring transparency rather than for deterring criminal activity. Examining how loopholes in FARA registration are exploited, specifically the way they permit repressive governments to legally pay someone in the United States to collect information on targets, could be a positive intermediate step. For example, Michelle Martin, a US citizen who registered under FARA as an agent of the Rwandan government, was able to join Paul Rusesabagina’s foundation, collect #TransnationalRepression