The stifling of American citizen’s freedom of speech by the U.S. Government is not a new concept in the history of our country. I suspect that the many people in this country have not a clue as to what the following examples are or what drove their inception.
In 1798 congress passed the “Sedition Acts”. Making it an offense punishable by a fine or imprisonment, to write, print, utter, publish, or procure any false, scandalous, or malicious writings against the government of the United States, either house of Congress, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame or irritate the heck out of them.
The Espionage Act in 1917 made it punishable to interfering with military recruitment and its amendment (Sedition Act of 1918) a year later added “… 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…”.
In the Smith Act of 1940 once again citizens are subject to fines and imprisonment “…for willfully . . . with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or. . . “. It is still around you can read it 18 U.S. Code § 2385
Two weeks before the Alien & Sedition Acts passed On June 1, 1798 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to his friend John Taylor.
“This is not new,” Jefferson said. “It is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.”
Jefferson did what he could to stop his generations Patriot Acts but failed.