Okla-homey
6/15/2007, 06:24 AM
June 15, 1917: U.S. Congress passes Espionage Act
Ninety years ago, on this day in 1917, some two months after America’s formal entrance into World War I against Germany, the United States Congress passes the Espionage Act.
Enforced largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson, the Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces’ prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. Anyone found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years.
http://aycu37.webshots.com/image/19676/2002133380473311000_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002133380473311000)
US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
Pertinent text of the Act:
“Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag… …shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any count try with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.... “(Espionage).
The Espionage Act was reinforced by the Sedition Act of the following year, which imposed similarly harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making false statements that interfered with the prosecution of the war; insulting or abusing the U.S. government, the flag, the Constitution or the military; agitating against the production of necessary war materials; or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts.
http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/16841/2002100888727773619_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002100888727773619)
Results of a Espionage Act raid by the Feds in 1917
Both pieces of legislation were aimed at socialists, pacifists, various loonies and other anti-war activists during World War I. The laws continued to be used to punishing effect in the years immediately following the war, during a period characterized by the fear of communist influence and communist infiltration into American society that became known as the first Red Scare (a second would occur later, during the 1940s and 1950s, associated largely with Senator Joseph McCarthy).
Attorney General Palmer—a former pacifist whose views on civil rights radically changed once he assumed the attorney general’s office during the Red Scare—and his right-hand man, J. Edgar Hoover, liberally employed the Espionage and Sedition Acts to persecute left-wing political figures.
http://aycu17.webshots.com/image/20496/2002101304085681853_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002101304085681853)
John Edgar Hoover was born in Washington, D.C., on January 1, 1895. Upon completing high school, he began working at the Library of Congress and attending night classes at George Washington University Law School. In 1916, he was awarded his LL.B. and the next year his LL.M. Hoover entered the Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, and rose quickly in government service. He led the Department's General Intelligence Division (GID) and, in November 1918, he was named Assistant to the Attorney General. When the GID was moved in the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) in 1921, he was named as Assistant Director of the FBI. On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the twenty-nine year old Hoover as Acting Director of the FBI and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director of the FBI and remained in that capacity for approximately fifty years until 1974.
http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/17280/2002125717591623320_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002125717591623320)
J. Edgar in the 1950's at the height of his power
Along with tightening the security of the United States, the Espionage Act encroached upon the freedom of speech and the freedom of petition engrained in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The most famous case involving the Espionage Act was that of Schenck v. United States. Schenck was the Socialist party’s General Secretary. In this case, he was charged with obstructing the nation’s military effort by printing 15,000 pamphlets opposing conscription and U.S. involvement in World War I. The famous rule of "clear and present danger" came into effect as in this case.
The doctrine of clear and present danger justifies the impairment of an individual’s freedom of speech by stating that a “clear and present danger” to the national security exists due to the words (or potential words) of the individual and that person must be stopped from endangering the national security
One of the most famous activists arrested during this period, labor leader Eugene V. Debs, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a speech he made in 1918 in Canton, Ohio, criticizing the Espionage Act. Debs appealed the decision, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where the court upheld his conviction.
http://aycu10.webshots.com/image/17809/2002180206014453513_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002180206014453513)
Debs ran for president in 1900 as the Socilaist Party of the US candidate. He didn't win.
Though Debs’ sentence was commuted in 1921 when the Sedition Act was repealed by Congress, major portions of the Espionage Act remain part of United States law to the present day, so you better watch your step and STFU America-haters!:D
Postscript
Just yesterday, media reports the US government's terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than half a million names. Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.
The Bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.
A portion of the FBI's unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to "the entire watch list of 509,000 names," which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force.
http://aycu39.webshots.com/image/19518/2002101470884387307_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002101470884387307)
Ninety years ago, on this day in 1917, some two months after America’s formal entrance into World War I against Germany, the United States Congress passes the Espionage Act.
Enforced largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson, the Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces’ prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. Anyone found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years.
http://aycu37.webshots.com/image/19676/2002133380473311000_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002133380473311000)
US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
Pertinent text of the Act:
“Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag… …shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any count try with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.... “(Espionage).
The Espionage Act was reinforced by the Sedition Act of the following year, which imposed similarly harsh penalties on anyone found guilty of making false statements that interfered with the prosecution of the war; insulting or abusing the U.S. government, the flag, the Constitution or the military; agitating against the production of necessary war materials; or advocating, teaching or defending any of these acts.
http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/16841/2002100888727773619_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002100888727773619)
Results of a Espionage Act raid by the Feds in 1917
Both pieces of legislation were aimed at socialists, pacifists, various loonies and other anti-war activists during World War I. The laws continued to be used to punishing effect in the years immediately following the war, during a period characterized by the fear of communist influence and communist infiltration into American society that became known as the first Red Scare (a second would occur later, during the 1940s and 1950s, associated largely with Senator Joseph McCarthy).
Attorney General Palmer—a former pacifist whose views on civil rights radically changed once he assumed the attorney general’s office during the Red Scare—and his right-hand man, J. Edgar Hoover, liberally employed the Espionage and Sedition Acts to persecute left-wing political figures.
http://aycu17.webshots.com/image/20496/2002101304085681853_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002101304085681853)
John Edgar Hoover was born in Washington, D.C., on January 1, 1895. Upon completing high school, he began working at the Library of Congress and attending night classes at George Washington University Law School. In 1916, he was awarded his LL.B. and the next year his LL.M. Hoover entered the Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, and rose quickly in government service. He led the Department's General Intelligence Division (GID) and, in November 1918, he was named Assistant to the Attorney General. When the GID was moved in the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) in 1921, he was named as Assistant Director of the FBI. On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the twenty-nine year old Hoover as Acting Director of the FBI and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director of the FBI and remained in that capacity for approximately fifty years until 1974.
http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/17280/2002125717591623320_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002125717591623320)
J. Edgar in the 1950's at the height of his power
Along with tightening the security of the United States, the Espionage Act encroached upon the freedom of speech and the freedom of petition engrained in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The most famous case involving the Espionage Act was that of Schenck v. United States. Schenck was the Socialist party’s General Secretary. In this case, he was charged with obstructing the nation’s military effort by printing 15,000 pamphlets opposing conscription and U.S. involvement in World War I. The famous rule of "clear and present danger" came into effect as in this case.
The doctrine of clear and present danger justifies the impairment of an individual’s freedom of speech by stating that a “clear and present danger” to the national security exists due to the words (or potential words) of the individual and that person must be stopped from endangering the national security
One of the most famous activists arrested during this period, labor leader Eugene V. Debs, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a speech he made in 1918 in Canton, Ohio, criticizing the Espionage Act. Debs appealed the decision, and the case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where the court upheld his conviction.
http://aycu10.webshots.com/image/17809/2002180206014453513_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002180206014453513)
Debs ran for president in 1900 as the Socilaist Party of the US candidate. He didn't win.
Though Debs’ sentence was commuted in 1921 when the Sedition Act was repealed by Congress, major portions of the Espionage Act remain part of United States law to the present day, so you better watch your step and STFU America-haters!:D
Postscript
Just yesterday, media reports the US government's terrorist watch list compiled by the FBI has apparently swelled to include more than half a million names. Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.
The Bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.
A portion of the FBI's unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to "the entire watch list of 509,000 names," which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force.
http://aycu39.webshots.com/image/19518/2002101470884387307_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002101470884387307)