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The Espionage Act of 1917 is a
United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...
enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War & National Defense), but is now found under Title 18 (Crime & Criminal Procedure): ( et seq.). It was intended to prohibit interference with
military operation A military operation (op) is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operati ...
s or
recruitment Recruitment is #Process, the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for Job (role), jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization. Recruitment also is the process involved in ...
, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of enemies of the United States during wartime. In 1919, the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
unanimously ruled through ''
Schenck v. United States ''Schenck v. United States'', 249 U.S. 47 (1919), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Hol ...
'' that the act did not violate the
freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...
of those convicted under its provisions. The
constitutionality In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...
of the law, its relationship to free speech and the meaning of its language have been contested in court ever since. Among those charged with offenses under the Act were: Austrian-American socialist congressman and newspaper editor Victor L. Berger; labor leader and five-time
Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America ...
candidate Eugene V. Debs,
anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state w ...
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born Anarchism, anarchist revolutionary, political activist, and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europ ...
and
Alexander Berkman Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing. Be ...
, former Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society president
Joseph Franklin Rutherford Joseph Franklin Rutherford (November 8, 1869 – January 8, 1942), also known as Judge Rutherford, was an American religious leader and the second president of the incorporated Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. He played a primary role in ...
(whose conviction was overturned on appeal), Rogerson, Alan (1969), ''Millions Now Living Will Never Die'', Constable, London, , Full text
online
at the Internet Archive
communists
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (born Greenglass; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were an American married couple who were convicted of First Chief Directorate, spying for the Soviet Union, including ...
, ''
Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and militar ...
''
whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...
Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (April 7, 1931June 16, 2023) was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released th ...
, Cablegate whistleblower
Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage ...
,
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...
founder
Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of News leak, leaks from Chels ...
,
Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) specializing in military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense and the United States In ...
employee Henry Kyle Frese, and
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...
(NSA) contractor whistleblower
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...
. Although the most controversial amendments, called the Sedition Act of 1918, were repealed on December 13, 1920, the original Espionage Act was left intact. Between 1921 and 1923, Presidents
Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was one of the most ...
and
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously ...
released all those convicted under the Sedition and Espionage Acts.


Enactment

The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed, along with the
Trading with the Enemy Act Trading with the Enemy Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States relating to trading with the enemy. ''Trading with the Enemy Acts'' is also a generic name for a class of legislation generally pas ...
, just after the United States entered World War I in April 1917. It was based on the Defense Secrets Act of 1911, especially the notions of obtaining or delivering information relating to "national defense" to a person who was not "entitled to have it". The Espionage Act law imposed much stiffer penalties than the 1911 law, including the death penalty. President
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...
, in his December 7, 1915,
State of the Union The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a Joint session of the United States Congress, joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning ...
address, asked Congress for the legislation. Congress moved slowly. Even after the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Germany, when the Senate passed a version on February 20, 1917, the House did not vote before the then-current session of Congress ended. After the declaration of war in April 1917, both houses debated versions of the Wilson administration's drafts that included press censorship. That provision aroused opposition, with critics charging it established a system of "
prior restraint Prior restraint (also referred to as prior censorship or pre-publication censorship) is censorship imposed, usually by a government or institution, on expression, that prohibits particular instances of expression. It is in contrast to censorship ...
" and delegated unlimited power to the president. After weeks of intermittent debate, the Senate removed the censorship provision by a one-vote margin, voting 39 to 38. Wilson still insisted it was needed: "Authority to exercise censorship over the press....is absolutely necessary to the public safety", but signed the Act without the censorship provisions on June 15, 1917, after Congress passed the act on the same day. Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory supported passage of the act but viewed it as a compromise. The President's Congressional rivals were proposing to remove responsibility for monitoring pro-German activity, whether espionage or some form of disloyalty, from the
Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
to the War Department and creating a form of courts-martial of doubtful constitutionality. The resulting Act was far more aggressive and restrictive than they wanted, but it silenced citizens opposed to the war. Officials in the Justice Department who had little enthusiasm for the law nevertheless hoped that even without generating many prosecutions it would help quiet public calls for more government action against those thought to be insufficiently patriotic. Wilson was denied language in the Act authorizing power to the executive branch for press censorship, but Congress did include a provision to block distribution of print materials through the Post Office. It made it a crime: * To convey information with the intent to interfere with the operation or success of the
armed forces of the United States The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except the ...
or to promote its enemies' success. This was punishable by death or imprisonment for not more than 30 years or both. * To convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies when the United States is at war, to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or to willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States. This was punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both. The Act also gave the
Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. History The practice of having a government official ...
authority to impound or refuse to mail publications the postmaster determined to violate its prohibitions. The Act also forbids the transfer of any naval vessel equipped for combat to any nation engaged in a conflict in which the United States is neutral. Seemingly uncontroversial when the Act was passed, this later became a legal stumbling block for the administration of
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
, when he sought to provide military aid to Great Britain before the United States entered
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.


Amendments

The law was extended on May 16, 1918, by the Sedition Act of 1918, actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act, which prohibited many forms of speech, including "any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States ... or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy". Because the Sedition Act was an informal name, court cases were brought under the name of the Espionage Act, whether the charges were based on the provisions of the Espionage Act or the provisions of the amendments known informally as the Sedition Act. On March 3, 1921, the Sedition Act amendments were repealed, but many provisions of the Espionage Act remain, codified under
U.S.C. The United States Code (formally The Code of Laws of the United States of America) is the official codification of the general and permanent federal statutes of the United States. It contains 53 titles, which are organized into numbered se ...
Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 37. In 1933, after signals intelligence expert
Herbert Yardley Herbert Osborn Yardley (April 13, 1889 – August 7, 1958) was an American cryptologist. He founded and led the cryptographic organization the Black Chamber. Under Yardley, the cryptanalysts of The American Black Chamber broke Japanese diplomat ...
published a popular book about breaking Japanese codes, the Act was amended to prohibit the disclosure of foreign code or anything sent in code. The Act was amended in 1940 to increase the penalties it imposed, and again in 1970. In the late 1940s, the U.S. Code was re-organized and much of Title 50 (War) was moved to Title 18 (Crime). The
McCarran Internal Security Act The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States f ...
added in 1950 and was added the same year. In 1961, Congressman Richard Poff succeeded after several attempts in removing language that restricted the Act's application to territory "within the jurisdiction of the United States, on the high seas, and within the United States" . He said the need for the Act to apply everywhere was prompted by Irvin C. Scarbeck, a State Department official who was charged with yielding to blackmail threats in
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
.


Proposed amendments

In 1989, Congressman
James Traficant James Anthony Traficant Jr. ( ; May 8, 1941 – September 27, 2014) was an American politician who served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio. A staunch economic populist known for his flamboyant pers ...
tried to amend to broaden the application of the death penalty. Senator
Arlen Specter Arlen Specter (February 12, 1930 – October 14, 2012) was an American lawyer, author and politician who served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1981 to 2011. Specter was a Democrat from 1951 to 1965, then a Republican fr ...
proposed a comparable expansion of the use of the death penalty the same year. In 1994, Robert K. Dornan proposed the death penalty for the disclosure of a U.S. agent's identity.


History


World War I

Much of the Act's enforcement was left to the discretion of local
United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
s, so enforcement varied widely. For example, Socialist Kate Richards O'Hare gave the same speech in several states but was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years for delivering her speech in North Dakota. Most enforcement activities occurred in the Western states where the
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...
was active. Finally, a few weeks before the end of the war, the U.S. Attorney General instructed U.S. Attorneys not to act without his approval. A year after the Act's passage, Eugene V. Debs,
Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...
presidential candidate in 1904, 1908, and 1912 was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for making a speech that "obstructed recruiting". He ran for president again in 1920 from prison. President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921 when he had served nearly five years. In ''United States v. Motion Picture Film'' (1917), a federal court upheld the government's seizure of a film called '' The Spirit of '76'' on the grounds that its depiction of cruelty on the part of British soldiers during the American Revolution would undermine support for America's wartime ally. The producer, Robert Goldstein, a Jew of German origins, was prosecuted under Title XI of the Act and received a ten-year sentence plus a fine of $5000. The sentence was commuted on appeal to three years. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson and those in his department played critical roles in the enforcement of the Act. He held his position because he was a Democratic party loyalist and close to the President and the Attorney General. When the Department of Justice numbered its investigators in the dozens, the Post Office had a nationwide network in place. The day after the Act became law, Burleson sent a secret memo to all postmasters ordering them to keep "close watch on ... matter which is calculated to interfere with the success of ... the government in conducting the war". Postmasters in
Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Brita ...
, and
Tampa, Florida Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...
, refused to mail the ''Jeffersonian'', the mouthpiece of Tom Watson, a southern populist, an opponent of the draft, the war, and minority groups. When Watson sought an injunction against the postmaster, the federal judge who heard the case called his publication "poison" and denied his request. Government censors objected to the headline "Civil Liberty Dead". In New York City, the postmaster refused to mail '' The Masses'', a socialist monthly, citing the publication's "general tenor". ''The Masses'' was more successful in the courts, where Judge
Learned Hand Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...
found the Act was applied so vaguely as to threaten "the tradition of English-speaking freedom". The editors were then prosecuted for obstructing the draft, and the publication folded when denied access to the mails again. Eventually, Burleson's vigorous enforcement overreached when he targeted supporters of the administration. The president warned him to exercise "the utmost caution", and the dispute proved the end of their political friendship. In May 1918, sedition charges were laid under the Espionage Act against Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society president "Judge" Joseph Rutherford and seven other Watch Tower directors and officers over statements made in the society's book, ''The Finished Mystery'', published a year earlier. According to the book ''Preachers Present Arms'' by Ray H. Abrams, the passage (from page 247) found to be particularly objectionable reads: "Nowhere in the New Testament is patriotism (a narrowly minded hatred of other peoples) encouraged. Everywhere and always murder in its every form is forbidden. And yet under the guise of patriotism civil governments of the earth demand of peace-loving men the sacrifice of themselves and their loved ones and the butchery of their fellows, and hail it as a duty demanded by the laws of heaven." The officers of the Watchtower Society were charged with attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, refusal of duty in the armed forces and obstructing the recruitment and enlistment service of the U.S. while it was at war. The book had been banned in Canada since February 1918 for what a
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...
newspaper described as "seditious and antiwar statements" and described by Attorney General Gregory as dangerous propaganda. On June 21 seven of the directors, including Rutherford, were sentenced to the maximum 20 years' imprisonment for each of four charges, to be served concurrently. They served nine months in the Atlanta Penitentiary before being released on bail at the order of Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis ( ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to ...
. In April 1919, an appeal court ruled they had not had the "intemperate and impartial trial of which they were entitled" and reversed their conviction. In May 1920 the government announced that all charges had been dropped.


Red Scare, Palmer Raids, mass arrests, deportations

During the
Red Scare A Red Scare is a form of moral panic provoked by fear of the rise of left-wing ideologies in a society, especially communism and socialism. Historically, red scares have led to mass political persecution, scapegoating, and the ousting of thos ...
of 1918–19, in response to the 1919 anarchist bombings aimed at prominent government officials and businessmen, U.S.
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
A. Mitchell Palmer, supported by
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American attorney and law enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the first director of the Federal Bureau o ...
, then head of the Justice Department's Enemy Aliens Registration Section, prosecuted several hundred foreign-born known and suspected activists in the United States under the Sedition Act of 1918. This extended the Espionage Act to cover a broader range of offenses. After being convicted, persons including
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born Anarchism, anarchist revolutionary, political activist, and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europ ...
and
Alexander Berkman Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing. Be ...
were deported to the Soviet Union on a ship the press called the " Soviet Ark". Many of the jailed had appealed their convictions based on the U.S. constitutional right to the freedom of speech. The Supreme Court disagreed. The Espionage Act limits on free speech were ruled constitutional in the U.S. Supreme Court case ''
Schenck v. United States ''Schenck v. United States'', 249 U.S. 47 (1919), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Hol ...
'' (1919). Schenck, an anti-war Socialist, had been convicted of violating the Act when he sent anti-draft pamphlets to men eligible for the draft. Although Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes joined the Court majority in upholding Schenck's conviction in 1919, he also introduced the theory that punishment in such cases must be limited to such political expression that constitutes a "
clear and present danger ''Clear and Present Danger'' is a political thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and published on August 17, 1989. A sequel to '' The Cardinal of the Kremlin'' (1988), main character Jack Ryan becomes acting Deputy Director of Intelligence i ...
" to the government action at issue. Holmes' opinion is the origin of the notion that speech equivalent to "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater" is not protected by the First Amendment. Justice Holmes began to doubt his decision due to criticism from free speech advocates. He also met the Harvard Law professor Zechariah Chafee and discussed his criticism of ''Schenck''. Later in 1919, in ''Abrams v. United States'', the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who distributed circulars in opposition to American intervention in Russia following the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
. The concept of
bad tendency In United States law, the bad tendency principle was a test that permitted restriction of freedom of speech by government if it is believed that a form of speech has a sole tendency to incite or cause illegal activity. The principle, formulated i ...
was used to justify speech restriction. The defendant was deported. Justices Holmes and Brandeis dissented, the former arguing "nobody can suppose that the surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man, without more, would present any immediate danger that its opinions would hinder the success of the government arms or have any appreciable tendency to do so". In March 1919, President Wilson, at the suggestion of Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory, pardoned or commuted the sentences of some 200 prisoners convicted under the Espionage Act or the Sedition Act. By early 1921, the Red Scare had faded, Palmer left government, and the Espionage Act fell into relative disuse.


World War II

Prosecutions under the Act were much less numerous during World War II than during World War I. The likely reason was not that Roosevelt was more tolerant of dissent than Wilson but rather that the lack of continuing opposition after the Pearl Harbor attack presented far fewer potential targets for prosecutions under the law. Associate Justice
Frank Murphy William Francis Murphy (April 13, 1890July 19, 1949) was an American politician, lawyer, and jurist from Michigan. He was a Democrat who was named to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1940 after a political career that included serving ...
noted in 1944 in ''Hartzel v. United States'': "For the first time during the course of the present war, we are confronted with a prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917." Hartzel, a World War I veteran, had distributed anti-war pamphlets to associations and business groups. The court's majority found that his materials, though comprising "vicious and unreasoning attacks on one of our military allies, flagrant appeals to false and sinister racial theories, and gross libels of the President", did not urge mutiny or any of the other specific actions detailed in the Act, and that he had targeted molders of public opinion, not members of the armed forces or potential military recruits. The court overturned his conviction in a 5–4 decision. The four dissenting justices declined to "intrude on the historic function of the jury" and would have upheld the conviction. In '' Gorin v. United States'' (early 1941), the Supreme Court ruled on many constitutional questions surrounding the act. The Act was used in 1942 to deny a mailing permit to Father
Charles Coughlin Charles Edward Coughlin ( ; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic Church, Catholic priest based near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Lit ...
's weekly ''
Social Justice Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...
'', effectively ending its distribution to subscribers. It was part of Attorney General
Francis Biddle Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during Nuremberg trials following World War I ...
's attempt to close down what he called "vermin publications". Coughlin had been criticized for virulently anti-Semitic writings. Later, Biddle supported use of the Act to deny mailing permits to both '' The Militant'', which was published by the Socialist Workers Party, and the '' Boise Valley Herald'' of Middleton, Idaho, an anti-New Deal and anti-war weekly. The paper had also criticized wartime racism against African Americans and Japanese internment. The same year, a June front-page story by
Stanley Johnston Stanley Johnston (1900 – September 13, 1962) was an Australian-American journalist who, as a correspondent during World War II, wrote a Japanese naval codes#Chicago Tribune incident, story for the ''Chicago Tribune'' that inadvertently rev ...
in the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'', headlined "Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea", implied that the Americans had broken the Japanese codes before the
Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of t ...
. Before submitting the story, Johnson asked the managing editor, Loy “Pat” Maloney, and Washington Bureau Chief Arthur Sears Henning if the content violated the Code of Wartime Practices. They concluded that it was in compliance because the code had said nothing about reporting the movement of enemy ships in enemy waters.Beito, p. 221. The story resulted in the Japanese changing their codebooks and callsign systems. The newspaper publishers were brought before a
grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
for possible indictment, but proceedings were halted because of government reluctance to present a jury with the highly secret information necessary to prosecute the publishers. In addition, the Navy had failed to provide promised evidence that the story had revealed "confidential information concerning the Battle of Midway". Attorney General Biddle confessed years later that the final result of the case made him feel "like a fool". In 1945, six associates of '' Amerasia'' magazine, a journal of Far Eastern affairs, came under suspicion after publishing articles that bore similarity to
Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
reports. The government proposed using the Espionage Act against them. It later softened its approach, changing the charge to Embezzlement of Government Property (now ). A grand jury cleared three of the associates, two associates paid small fines, and charges against the sixth man were dropped. Senator
Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican Party (United States), Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age ...
said the failure to aggressively prosecute the defendants was a communist conspiracy. According to Klehr and Radosh, the case helped build his later notoriety.


Mid-20th century Soviet spies

Navy employee Hafis Salich sold Soviet agent Mihail Gorin information regarding Japanese activities in the late 1930s. '' Gorin v. United States'' (1941) was cited in many later espionage cases for its discussion of the charge of "vagueness", an argument made against the terminology used in certain portions of the law, such as what constitutes "national defense" information. Later in the 1940s, several incidents prompted the government to increase its investigations into Soviet espionage. These included the
Venona project The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, u ...
decryptions, the Elizabeth Bentley case, the
atomic spies Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold W ...
cases, the First Lightning Soviet nuclear test, and others. Many suspects were surveilled, but never prosecuted. These investigations were dropped, as seen in the FBI Silvermaster Files. There were also many successful prosecutions and convictions under the Act. In August 1950,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (born Greenglass; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were an American married couple who were convicted of First Chief Directorate, spying for the Soviet Union, including ...
were indicted under Title 50, sections 32a and 34, in connection with giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. Anatoli Yakovlev was indicted as well. In 1951, Morton Sobell and
David Greenglass David Greenglass (March 2, 1922 – July 1, 2014) was an American machinist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was an atomic spy for the Soviet Union. He was briefly stationed at the Clinton Engineer Works uranium enrichment facility at O ...
were indicted. After a controversial trial in 1951, the Rosenbergs were sentenced to death. They were executed in 1953. In the late 1950s, several members of the Soble spy ring, including Robert Soblen, and Jack and Myra Soble, were prosecuted for espionage. In the mid-1960s, the act was used against James Mintkenbaugh and Robert Lee Johnson, who sold information to the Soviets while working for the U.S. Army in Berlin.


1948 code revision

In 1948, some portions of the
United States Code The United States Code (formally The Code of Laws of the United States of America) is the official Codification (law), codification of the general and permanent Law of the United States#Federal law, federal statutes of the United States. It ...
were reorganized. Much of Title 50 (War and National Defense) was moved to Title 18 (Crimes and Criminal Procedure). Thus Title 50 Chapter 4, Espionage, (Sections 31–39), became Title 18, 794 and following. As a result, certain older cases, such as the Rosenberg case, are now listed under Title 50, while newer cases are often listed under Title 18.


1950 McCarran Internal Security Act

In 1950, during the McCarthy Period, Congress passed the
McCarran Internal Security Act The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States f ...
over President
Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
's veto. It modified a large body of law, including espionage law. One addition was , which had almost exactly the same language as . According to Edgar and Schmidt, the added section potentially removes the "intent" to harm or aid requirement. It may make "mere retention" of information a crime no matter the intent, covering even former government officials writing their memoirs. They also describe McCarran saying that this portion was intended directly to respond to the case of
Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official who was accused of espionage in 1948 for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The statute of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjur ...
and the "
Pumpkin Papers The Pumpkin Papers are a set of typewritten and handwritten documents, stolen from the US federal government (thus information leaks) by members of the Ware Group and other Soviet spy networks in Washington, DC, during 1937–1938, withheld by c ...
".


Judicial review, 1960s and 1970s


Brandenburg

Court decisions of this era changed the standard for enforcing some provisions of the Espionage Act. Though not a case involving charges under the Act, ''Brandenburg v. Ohio'' (1969) changed the "clear and present danger" test derived from ''Schenck'' to the "
imminent lawless action "Imminent lawless action" is one of several legal standards American courts use to determine whether certain speech is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The standard was first established in 1969 in the Unite ...
" test, a considerably stricter test of the inflammatory nature of speech.


''Pentagon Papers''

In June 1971,
Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (April 7, 1931June 16, 2023) was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released th ...
and Anthony Russo were charged with a
felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "''félonie''") to describe an offense that r ...
under the Espionage Act of 1917 because they lacked legal authority to publish classified documents that came to be known as the ''
Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and militar ...
''. The Supreme Court in ''New York Times Co. v. United States'' found that the government had not made a successful case for prior restraint of Free Speech, but a majority of the justices ruled that the government could still prosecute the ''Times'' and the ''Post'' for violating the Espionage Act in publishing the documents. Ellsberg and Russo were not acquitted of violating the Espionage Act. They were freed due to a mistrial based on irregularities in the government's case.Correll, John T. "The Pentagon Papers". ''Air Force Magazine'', February 2007. from the original on 10 August 2011. The divided Supreme Court had denied the government's request to restrain the press. In their opinions, the justices expressed varying degrees of support for the First Amendment claims of the press against the government's "heavy burden of proof" in establishing that the publisher "has reason to believe" the material published "could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation". The case prompted Harold Edgar and Benno C. Schmidt Jr. to write an article on espionage law in the 1973 ''Columbia Law Review''. Their article was entitled "The Espionage Statutes and Publication of Defense Information". Essentially, they found the law poorly written and vague, with parts of it probably unconstitutional. Their article became widely cited in books and in future court arguments on Espionage cases. ''United States v. Dedeyan'' in 1978 was the first prosecution under (Dedeyan 'failed to report' that information had been disclosed). The courts relied on '' Gorin v. United States'' (1941) for precedent. The ruling touched on several constitutional questions, including vagueness of the law and whether the information was "related to national defense". The defendant received a 3-year sentence. In 1979–80, Truong Dinh Hung (aka David Truong) and Ronald Louis Humphrey were convicted under 793(a), (c), and (e) as well as several other laws. The ruling discussed several constitutional questions regarding espionage law, "vagueness", the difference between
classified information Classified information is confidential material that a government deems to be sensitive information which must be protected from unauthorized disclosure that requires special handling and dissemination controls. Access is restricted by law or ...
and "national defense information", wiretapping and the Fourth Amendment. It also commented on the notion of bad faith ( scienter) being a requirement for conviction even under 793(e); an "honest mistake" was said not to be a violation.


1980s

Alfred Zehe, a scientist from
East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
, was arrested in Boston in 1983 after being caught in a government-run sting operation in which he had reviewed classified U.S. government documents in Mexico and East Germany. His attorneys contended without success that the indictment was invalid, arguing that the Espionage Act does not cover the activities of a foreign citizen outside the United States.''The New York Times''
"East German Enters Guilty Plea to Buying Secret U.S. Documents", February 25, 1985
accessed December 8, 2010
Zehe then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was released in June 1985 as part of an exchange of four East Europeans held by the U.S. for 25 people held in Poland and East Germany, none of them American.''The New York Times''

accessed December 8, 2010; ''Los Angeles Times''

accessed December 8, 2010
One of Zehe's defense attorneys claimed his client was prosecuted as part of "the perpetuation of the 'national-security state' by over-classifying documents that there is no reason to keep secret, other than devotion to the cult of secrecy for its own sake". The media dubbed 1985 " Year of the Spy". U.S. Navy civilian
Jonathan Pollard Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is an American former intelligence analyst who was jailed for spying for Israel. In 1984, Pollard sold numerous state secrets, including the National Security Agency's ten-volume manual on how the U.S. ...
was charged with violating , for selling classified information to Israel. His 1986 plea bargain did not get him out of a life sentence, after a 'victim impact statement' including a statement by
Caspar Weinberger Caspar Willard Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American politician and businessman. As a Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, most notably as Secretary of Defense under ...
. Larry Wu-Tai Chin, at CIA, was also charged with violating for selling information to China. Ronald Pelton was prosecuted for violating , , & , for selling information to the Soviets, and interfering with Operation Ivy Bells. Edward Lee Howard was an ex-Peace Corps and ex-CIA agent charged under for allegedly dealing with the Soviets. The FBI's website says the 1980s was the "decade of the spy", with dozens of arrests.
Seymour Hersh Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer ...
wrote an article entitled "The Traitor" arguing against Pollard's release.


Morison

Samuel Loring Morison was a government security analyst who worked on the side for ''
Jane's Janes is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane. History Jane's Information Group was founded in 1898 by Fred ...
'', a British military and defense publisher. He was arrested on October 1, 1984,''The New York Times''
Stephen Engelberg, "Spy Photos' Sale Leads to Arrest", October 3, 1984
accessed March 11, 2011
though investigators never demonstrated any intent to provide information to a hostile intelligence service. Morison told investigators that he sent classified satellite photographs to ''Jane's'' because the "public should be aware of what was going on on the other side", meaning that the Soviets' new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would transform the USSR's military capabilities. He said that "if the American people knew what the Soviets were doing, they would increase the defense budget". British intelligence sources thought his motives were patriotic. American prosecutors emphasized his economic gain and complaints about his government job. Morison's prosecution was used in a broader campaign against leaks of information as a "test case" for applying the Act to cover the disclosure of information to the press. A March 1984 government report had noted that "the unauthorized publication of classified information is a routine daily occurrence in the U.S." but that the applicability of the Espionage Act to such disclosures "is not entirely clear". ''Time'' said that the administration, if it failed to convict Morison, would seek additional legislation and described the ongoing conflict: "The Government does need to protect military secrets, the public does need information to judge defense policies, and the line between the two is surpassingly difficult to draw."''Time''

accessed March 11, 2011
On October 17, 1985, Morison was convicted in Federal Court on two counts of espionage and two counts of theft of government property. He was sentenced to two years in prison on December 4, 1985. The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in 1988. Morison became "the only mericangovernment official ever convicted for giving classified information to the press" up to that time. Following Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (; March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and social scientist. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he represented New York (state), New York in the ...
's 1998 appeal for a pardon for Morison, President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
pardoned him on January 20, 2001, the last day of his presidency,''The New York Times''

nthony Lewis, "Abroad at Home; The Pardons in Perspective", March 3, 2001, accessed March 11, 2011
despite the CIA's opposition to the pardon.''The New York Times''
James Risen, "Clinton Did Not Consult C.I.A. Chief on Pardon, Official Says", February 17, 2001
accessed March 11, 2011
The successful prosecution of Morison was used to warn against the publication of leaked information. In May 1986, CIA Director
William J. Casey William Joseph Casey (March 13, 1913 – May 6, 1987) was an American lawyer who was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987. In this capacity he oversaw the entire United States Intelligence Community and personally directed the ...
, without citing specific violations of law, threatened to prosecute five news organizations–''The Washington Post'', ''The Washington Times'', ''The New York Times'', ''Time'' and ''Newsweek''.


Soviet spies, late 20th century

Christopher John Boyce of TRW, and his accomplice Andrew Daulton Lee, sold out to the Soviets and went to prison in the 1970s. Their activities were the subject of the movie The Falcon and the Snowman. In the 1980s, several members of the Walker spy ring were prosecuted and convicted of espionage for the Soviets. In 1980, David Henry Barnett was the first active CIA officer to be convicted under the act. In 1994, CIA officer
Aldrich Ames Aldrich Hazen Ames (; born May 26, 1941) is an American former Central Intelligence Agency, CIA counterintelligence officer who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without th ...
was convicted under of spying for the Soviets; Ames had revealed the identities of several U.S. sources in the USSR to the KGB, who were then executed. FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts was arrested in 1996 under and of spying for the Soviet Union and later for the Russian Federation. In 1997, senior CIA officer Harold James Nicholson was convicted of espionage for the Russians. In 1998, NSA contractor David Sheldon Boone was charged with having handed over a 600-page technical manual to the Soviets 1988–1991 (). In 2000, FBI agent
Robert Hanssen Robert Philip Hanssen (April 18, 1944 – June 5, 2023) was an American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States periodically from 1979 to 2001. His espionage w ...
was convicted under the Act of spying for the Soviets in the 1980s and Russia in the 1990s.


1990s critiques

In the 1990s, Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihan (; March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and social scientist. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he represented New York (state), New York in the ...
deplored the "culture of secrecy" made possible by the Espionage Act, noting the tendency of bureaucracies to enlarge their powers by increasing the scope of what is held "secret". In the late 1990s, Wen Ho Lee of
Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...
(LANL) was indicted under the Act. He and other national security professionals later said he was a "scapegoat" in the government's quest to determine if information about the W88 nuclear warhead had been transferred to China. Lee had made
backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "wikt:back ...
copies at LANL of his nuclear weapons simulations code to protect it in case of a system crash. The code was marked PARD, sensitive but not classified. As part of a
plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...
, he pleaded guilty to one count under the Espionage Act. The judge apologized to him for having believed the government. Lee later won more than a million dollars in a lawsuit against the government and several newspapers for their mistreatment of him.Wen Ho Lee, ''My Country Versus Me: The First-Hand Account by the Los Alamos Scientist who was Falsely Accused of being a Spy'' (Hyperion, 2002)


21st century

In 2001, retired Army Reserve Colonel George Trofimoff, the most senior U.S. military officer to be indicted under the Act, was convicted of conducting espionage for the Soviets in the 1970s–1990s. Kenneth Wayne Ford Jr. was indicted under for allegedly having a box of documents in his house after he left NSA employment around 2004. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2006. In 2005, Pentagon Iran expert Lawrence Franklin and AIPAC lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman were indicted under the Act. Franklin pleaded guilty to conspiracy to disclose national defense information to the lobbyists and an Israeli government official. Franklin was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced to 10 months of home confinement. Under the Obama and
first Trump administration Donald Trump's first tenure as the president of the United States began on January 20, 2017, when Trump First inauguration of Donald Trump, was inaugurated as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president, and ended on January ...
s, at least eight Espionage Act prosecutions were related not to traditional
espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...
but either withholding information or communicating with members of the press. Out of a total of eleven prosecutions under the Espionage Act against government officials accused of providing classified information to the press, seven have occurred since Obama took office. "Leaks related to national security can put people at risk", he said at a news conference in 2013. "They can put men and women in uniform that I've sent into the battlefield at risk. I don't think the American people would expect me, as commander in chief, not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed." * Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, a former
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
officer was indicted under the Act in January 2011 for alleged unauthorized disclosure of national defense information to
James Risen James Risen (born April 27, 1955) is an American journalist for '' The Intercept''. He previously worked for ''The New York Times'' and before that for ''Los Angeles Times''. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. governmen ...
, a reporter for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', in 2003. Risen published the leaked material in his 2006 book '' State of War'', which revealed details about the CIA's covert spy war with Iran. Risen refused to reveal the source of his information when subpoenaed twice by the Justice Department. The indictment stated that Sterling's motive was revenge for the CIA's refusal to allow him to publish his memoirs and its refusal to settle his racial discrimination lawsuit against the Agency. *
Thomas Andrews Drake Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled do ...
– In April 2010, Drake, an official with the NSA, was indicted under for alleged willful retention of national defense information. The case arose from investigations into his communications with Siobhan Gorman of ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publi ...
'' and Diane Roark of the House Intelligence Committee as part of his attempt to blow the whistle on several issues, including the NSA's
Trailblazer project Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as ce ...
. Considering the prosecution of Drake, investigative journalist
Jane Mayer Jane Meredith Mayer (born 1955) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the Un ...
wrote: "Because reporters often retain unauthorized defense documents, Drake's conviction would establish a legal precedent making it possible to prosecute journalists as spies." * Shamai Leibowitz – In May 2010, Leibowitz, a translator for the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
, admitted sharing information with a blogger and pleaded guilty under to one count of disclosure of classified information. As part of a plea bargain, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison. * Stephen Jin-Woo Kim – In August 2010, Kim, a contractor for the
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...
and a specialist in nuclear proliferation, was indicted under for alleged disclosure in June 2009 of national defense information to reporter James Rosen of
Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City, U.S. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ow ...
, related to North Korea's plans to test a nuclear weapon. *
Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage ...
– In 2010, Manning, a
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
Private First Class accused of the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history, was charged under Article 134 of the
Uniform Code of Military Justice The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is the foundation of the system of military justice of the armed forces of the United States. The UCMJ was established by the United States Congress in accordance with their constitutional authority ...
, which incorporates parts of the Espionage Act . At the time, critics worried that the broad language of the Act could make news organizations, and anyone who reported, printed or disseminated information from
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...
, subject to prosecution, although former prosecutors pushed back, citing Supreme Court precedent expanding First Amendment protections. On July 30, 2013, following a judge-only trial by court-martial lasting eight weeks, Army judge Colonel Denise Lind convicted Manning on six counts of violating the Espionage Act, among other infractions. She was sentenced to serve a 35-year sentence at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. On January 17, 2017, President Obama commuted Manning's sentence to nearly seven years of confinement dating from her arrest on May 27, 2010. *
John Kiriakou John Chris Kiriakou ( ; born August 9, 1964) is an American whistleblower, author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of ''Political Misfits'' on Sputnik Radio. He was jailed ...
– In January 2012, Kiriakou, former CIA officer and later Democratic staffer on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the U.S. Senate charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. It is generally responsible for authorizing and overseeing foreign a ...
, was charged under the Act with leaking information to journalists about the identity of undercover agents, including one who was allegedly involved in
waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...
interrogations of
al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...
logistics chief
Abu Zubaydah Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held unde ...
. Kiriakou is alleged to have also disclosed an investigative technique used to capture Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison on January 25, 2013, and was released in 2015. *
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...
– In June 2013, Snowden was charged under the Espionage Act after releasing documents exposing the NSA's
PRISM PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies. The program is also known by the SIGAD . PRISM collects stored internet ...
Surveillance Program. Specifically, he was charged with "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified intelligence with an unauthorized person". * Reality Leigh Winner – In June 2017, Winner was arrested and charged with "willful retention and transmission of national defense information", a felony under the Espionage Act. Her arrest was announced on June 5 after ''
The Intercept ''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing nonprofit news organization that publishes articles and podcasts online. ''The Intercept'' has published in English since its founding in 2014, and in Portuguese since the 2016 launch of the Brazilia ...
'' published an article describing Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, based on classified
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...
(NSA) documents leaked to them anonymously. On June 8, 2017, she pleaded not guilty and was denied bail. On June 21, 2018, Winner asked the court to allow her to change her plea to guilty and on June 26 she pleaded guilty to one count of felony transmission of national defense information. Winner's plea agreement with prosecutors called for her to serve five years and three months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
On August 23, 2018, at a federal court in Georgia, Winner was sentenced to the agreed-upon length of time for violating the Espionage Act. Prosecutors said her sentence was the longest ever imposed in federal court for an unauthorized release of government information to the media. * Harold T. Martin — former
NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...
contractor, sentenced to nine years in prison in 2017, for stealing classified documents and storing them in his home over a period of 20 years. * Terry J. Albury – a 17-year veteran of the FBI, was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. In 2018, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 4 years in prison. He stated that he was motivated to inform the public about the systematic racist and xenophobic practices he witnessed as the only black agent in the Minneapolis field office, and the son of an Ethiopian refugee as he was tasked with surveillance of Muslim and immigrant communities. * Nghia Pho – a NSA employee who took classified documents home to get extra work done at night and on weekends. After the information was apparently stolen by Russian hackers, he pleaded guilty in 2018 and was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison. *
Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of News leak, leaks from Chels ...
– On May 23, 2019, the
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...
founder Assange was charged with violating the Espionage Act by seeking classified information. The revelations of
war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...
s he published about the
Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
and Afghan wars in 2010, were leaked to WikiLeaks by US army intelligence analyst,
Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage ...
. They were published in cooperation with renowned media organizations such as ''
the New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', ''
the Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' and ''
Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', as there was a strong public interest in uncovering those secret. On 24 June 2024 Assange was charged by US prosecutors with “conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information related to the national defense of the United States”. Assange pleaded guilty to the specific charge, which is a violation of 18 USC, section 793(g). After 14 long years of legal battles, political advocacy and ongoing campaigning, his
pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of one party's claims or defenses in response to another party's complaint(s) in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define t ...
before a US court in
Saipan Saipan () is the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated Territories of the United States, territory of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. According to 2020 estimates by the United States Cens ...
, an unincorporated territory of the US in the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
, was part of a US deal, for which the judge considered his sentence served due to the five years he spent in the
maximum security prison Maximum security prisons and supermax prisons are grades of high security level used by prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility wher ...
Belmarsh in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
in
solitary confinement Solitary confinement (also shortened to solitary) is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single Prison cell, cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to ...
. The case has been described as having significant implications for the
First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
in the US and
press freedom Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...
around the world. This Espionage Act conviction that Assange pleaded guilty to is a threat to journalists all over the world if they publish this sort of information, the US can use their Espionage act to reach into any territory in the world and charge them. Assange himself is an
Australian citizen The primary law governing nationality of Australia is the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, which came into force on 1 July 2007 and is applicable in all states and territories of Australia. All persons born in Australia before 20 August 198 ...
, not a US citizen. Prime Minister of Australia
Anthony Albanese Anthony Norman Albanese ( or ; born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician serving as the 31st and current prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been the Leaders of the Australian Labor Party#Leader, leader of the Labor Party si ...
, leader of the Labor government in Australia that came to power in mid-2022, had changed almost a decade of official passivity on the Assange case by the conservative governments that preceded him. The US secret documents on the actions of the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
in Afghanistan and Iraq included the video „ Collateral Murder“ of a helicopter attack on civilians in 2007, in which 12-18+ people were killed - including two
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...
journalists and 2 children badly injured. The serious war crimes that he uncovered in 2010 and 2011 remained unpunished. *
Daniel Hale Daniel Everette Hale (born August 1, 1987) is an American whistleblower and former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst who sent classified information about drone warfare to the press. Hale served in the United States Air Force ...
– in 2019, US Air Force veteran and military contractor Hale was indicted on three charges under the Espionage Act for leaking classified documents about the US military's drone program to a journalist. The journalist was not named in the indictment but is likely to be a reference to Jeremy Scahill, a journalist for ''
The Intercept ''The Intercept'' is an American left-wing nonprofit news organization that publishes articles and podcasts online. ''The Intercept'' has published in English since its founding in 2014, and in Portuguese since the 2016 launch of the Brazilia ...
'', who wrote '' Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield'' and published the
Drone Papers Daniel Everette Hale (born August 1, 1987) is an American whistleblower and former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst who sent classified information about drone warfare to the press. Hale served in the United States Air Force ...
. In April 2021, Hale pleaded guilty to one count, under the Espionage Act, of unlawful retention and transmission of "national defense information". The prosecution asked that a trial on the remaining charges be postponed until after sentencing. * Jack Teixeira – Teixeira is alleged to have regularly shared classified information on the online chat service
Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...
on a server called "Thug Shaker Central", parsed from documents he read, according to ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
''. According to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
,'' some chat members struggled to understand the summaries or did not take them seriously. In October 2022, Teixeira is alleged to have posted the first of several sets of classified documents on the server. * Robert L. Birchum – On June 1, 2023, retired USAF Lt.Col Birchum was sentenced under the espionage act for unlawfully possessing and retaining classified documents. Though there was no evidence of his ever having made an unauthorized disclosure of any of the material (which included more than 300 documents in all, including two classified Top Secret/SCI) and pled guilty, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Federal court in Tampa, FL. *
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
– On June 8, 2023, former President Trump was indicted on 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, and a further six counts relating to obstruction, conspiracy, and concealing documents in a Federal investigation. He had been under investigation since at least May 2022, a
grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
subpoena was issued for return of the documents on May 11, 2022. On August 8, 2022, the FBI raided his
Mar-a-Lago Mar-a-Lago ( , ) is a resort and National Historic Landmark on a barrier island in Palm Beach, Florida, United States. It spans 126 rooms and built on of land. Since 1985, it has been owned by Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of t ...
home and found classified material. That classified material allegedly included materials related to
nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weap ...
. The Justice Department also became concerned that Trump was storing official presidential records at his home in violation of the
Presidential Records Act The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978, , is an Act of the United States Congress governing the official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents created or received after January 20, 1981, and mandating the preservation of all president ...
which mandates that all presidential documents be preserved and submitted to the
National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...
. * 2025 United States military plan leak – In March 2025, Jeffrey Goldberg reported that members of President Donald Trump's cabinet revealed secret military plans for the U.S. attacks in Yemen to him. A spokesperson for the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...
confirmed Goldberg's report. By conducting national defense planning in such a negligent manner, Waltz may have violated the Espionage Act, according to national security lawyers.


Criticism

Some have criticized the use of the Espionage Act against national security leakers. A 2015 study by the PEN American Center found that almost all of the non-government representatives they interviewed, including activists, lawyers, journalists, and whistleblowers, "thought the Espionage Act had been used inappropriately in leak cases that have a public interest component". PEN wrote: "Experts described it as 'too blunt an instrument,' 'aggressive, broad and suppressive,' a 'tool of intimidation,' 'chilling of free speech,' and a 'poor vehicle for prosecuting leakers and whistleblowers.'"
Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and militar ...
whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...
Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (April 7, 1931June 16, 2023) was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released th ...
said, "the current state of whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an American who has exposed classified wrongdoing", and that "legal scholars have strongly argued that the US Supreme Court – which has never yet addressed the constitutionality of applying the Espionage Act to leaks to the American public – should find the use of it overbroad and unconstitutional in the absence of a public interest defense". Professor at American University
Washington College of Law The American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL or WCL) is the law school of American University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It is located on the western side of Tenley Circle in the Tenleytown section of northw ...
and national security law expert Stephen Vladeck has said that the law “lacks the hallmarks of a carefully and precisely defined statutory restriction on speech". Trevor Timm, executive director of the
Freedom of the Press Foundation Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is an American non-profit organization founded in 2012 to fund and support free speech and freedom of the press. The organization originally managed crowd-funding campaigns for independent journalistic organ ...
, said, "basically any information the whistleblower or source would want to bring up at trial to show that they are not guilty of violating the Espionage Act the jury would never hear. It's almost a certainty that because the law is so broadly written that they would be convicted no matter what." Attorney Jesselyn Radack, who has represented four whistleblowers charged under the Espionage Act, notes that the law was enacted "35 years before the word 'classification' entered the government's lexicon" and believes that "under the Espionage Act, no prosecution of a non-spy can be fair or just". She added that mounting a legal defense to the Espionage Act is estimated to "cost $1 million to $3 million". In May 2019, the ''
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving Greater Pittsburgh, metropolitan Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the fi ...
'' editorial board published an opinion piece making the case for an amendment to allow a public-interest defense, as "the act has since become a tool of suppression, used to punish whistleblowers who expose governmental wrongdoing and criminality". In an interview with
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a progressive left-leaning media critique organization based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee. FAIR monitors American news media for bias, inaccur ...
, journalist Chip Gibbons said that it was "almost impossible, if not impossible, to mount a defense" against charges under the Espionage Act. Gibbons said defendants are not allowed to use the term "whistleblower", mention the
First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
, raise the issue of over-classification of documents, or explain the reasons for their actions.


See also

;Related law *
Alien and Sedition Acts The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were a set of four United States statutes that sought, on national security grounds, to restrict immigration and limit 1st Amendment protections for freedom of speech. They were endorsed by the Federalist Par ...
(late 18th century) * Defense Secrets Act of 1911 (precursor) *
Venona project The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service and later absorbed by the National Security Agency (NSA), that ran from February 1, 1943, u ...
evidence on Soviet spies *
Executive Order 9835 President Harry S. Truman signed United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as the "Loyalty Order", on March 21, 1947. The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence ...
(President Truman) *
McCarran Internal Security Act The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States f ...
(1950) * Intelligence Identities Protection Act *
Non-Detention Act The Non-Detention Act of 1971 is a United States statute enacted to repeal portions of the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, specifically Title II, the "Emergency Detention Act". The law repealed the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 provisi ...
(1971) *
Economic Espionage Act of 1996 The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 () was a 6 title Act of Congress dealing with a wide range of issues, including not only industrial espionage (''e.g.'', the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret and the National Information Infrastructu ...
*
Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy The Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, also called the Moynihan Commission, after its chairman, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was a bipartisan statutory commission in the United States. It was created under Title IX o ...
;Related persons *
Seymour Stedman Seymour "Stedy" Stedman (July 4, 1871 – July 9, 1948) was an American from Chicago who rose from shepherd and janitor to become a prominent civil liberties lawyer and a leader of the Socialist Party of America. He is best remembered as the 192 ...
*
Lynne Stewart Lynne Irene Stewart (October 8, 1939 – March 7, 2017) was an American defense attorney who was known for representing controversial, famous defendants. She herself was convicted on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terro ...
* Rose Pastor Stokes ;Persons considered whistleblowers and charged under the Act *
Thomas Andrews Drake Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled do ...
*
Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (April 7, 1931June 16, 2023) was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released th ...
* Stephen Jin-Woo Kim *
John Kiriakou John Chris Kiriakou ( ; born August 9, 1964) is an American whistleblower, author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of ''Political Misfits'' on Sputnik Radio. He was jailed ...
* Shamai Leibowitz *
Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage ...
* Samuel Loring Morison *
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...
* Jeffrey Alexander Sterling *
Reality Winner Reality Leigh Winner (born December 4, 1991) is an American U.S. Air Force veteran and former NSA translator. In 2018, she was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for an unauthorized release of government information to the media af ...


References


Further reading

* * * Kohn, Stephen M. ''American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts''. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. * Murphy, Paul L. ''World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979. * Peterson, H.C., and Gilbert C. Fite. ''Opponents of War, 1917-1918''. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a Non-profit organization, non-profit university press publishing Peer review, peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic comm ...
, 1957. * Preston, William Jr. ''Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933'' 2nd ed. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, thirty-three scholarly journals, and several electroni ...
, 1994. * Rabban, David M. ''Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years''. New York:
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
, 1997. * Scheiber, Harry N. ''The Wilson Administration and Civil Liberties 1917-1921''. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University, an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. It is currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, maki ...
, 1960. * Thomas, William H. Jr. ''Unsafe for Democracy: World War I and the U.S. Justice Department's Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent''. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.


External links

* Strauss, Lon
Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (USA)
in

* Brown, Charlene Fletcher
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in

* Thomas, William H.
Bureau of Investigation
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* ttps://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/12/us/trump-news/cdc5f612-c092-5f1a-8d2d-cd591fa38301
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, 2022 (nytimes.com) {{DEFAULTSORT:Espionage Act Of 1917 1917 in American law United States federal criminal legislation United States federal defense and national security legislation United States government secrecy 65th United States Congress Presidency of Woodrow Wilson Political repression in the United States United States home front during World War I Espionage in the United States Censorship in the United States June 1917 in the United States Red Scare Obama administration controversies First Trump administration controversies