While the bill was being debated, the news broke on February 16, 1946, of the defection of Igor Gouzenko in Canada, and the subsequent arrest of 22 people. The members of Congress debating the bill feared that "atomic secrets" were being systematically stolen by Soviet atomic spies. McMahon convened an executive session at which Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Groves were called to appear. Groves revealed that the British physicist Alan Nunn May had passed information about the Manhattan Project to Soviet agents. The more conservative elements in Congress now moved to toughen the act. Section 10, which was formerly titled "Dissemination of Information", now became "Control of Information". Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, who sponsored the McMahon bill in the House, vigorously defended the section against counterarguments. She dismissed objections that it would "give away the secret of the bomb", asserting that America's advantage in nuclear weapons could only be temporary, whereas the bill could perpetuate the U.S. lead in scientific research. Truman signed the compromise bill into law as the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. It established the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as the controlling body for atomic energy.