POLL: Will Congress pass a modern day Espionage Act???

[Selatius]

I don't think we need another reminder of that piece of legislation that was just passed in the House, but I think it's time to look back to see where we may be heading if we don't stop going down this path.

We all know who President Woodrow Wilson is, but what is the Espionage Act? It was a totalitarian piece of legislation passed during America's involvement in the Great War.

Wilson declared, "I will not cry 'peace' so long as there is sin and wrong in the world," making the war a religious crusade and "Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthlessness brutality will enter into every fibre of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street."

The Espionage Act:

Wilson's government began to compel conformity, controlling speech in ways that had never been known before. Wilson pushed the Espionage Act through Congress in 1917, making it a crime "to willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or 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." It became a crime to "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag." The act also targeted those who might "urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production in this country of any thing or things necessary or essential to the conduct of the war." In fact, the Espionage Act even made it illegal to teach, suggest, defend, or advocate any criticism of the government. The bill gave the Postmaster the right to refuse delivery of any periodical he deemed unpatriotic or critical of the administration. The Postmaster soon stopped delivery of virtually all publications and any foreign-language publication that hinted of dissent.

http://www.chicora.org/woodrow_wilson.htm

The fall out from that piece of legislation? Many leading critics of the war and prominent union and socialist leaders on the left were imprisoned. Not even members of Congress were immune. The anti-war movement was liquidated and driven underground, as the above link above shows how the government sent 200,000 APL agents into the countryside to root out and crush dissent in the population.

Criticised as unconstitutional, the act resulted in the imprisonment of many of the anti-war movement. This included the arrest of left-wing political figures such as Eugene V. Debs, Bill Haywood, Philip Randolph, Victor Berger, John Reed, Max Eastman, and Emma Goldman. Debs was sentenced to ten years for a speech in Canton, Ohio, on 16th June, 1918, attacking the Espionage Act.

On 23rd August six members of the Frayhayt, a group of Jewish anarchists based in New York were arrested. Charged under the Espionage Act, the group were accused of publishing articles in the Der Shturm that undermined the American war effort. This included criticizing the United States government for invading Russia after the Bolshevik government signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

One of the group, Jacob Schwartz, was so badly beaten by the police when he was arrested that he died soon afterwards. Mollie Steimer was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. Three of the men, Samuel Lipman, Hyman Lachowsky and Jacob Abrahams received twenty years.

Over 450 conscientious objectors were imprisoned as a result of this legislation including Rose Pastor Stokes who was sentenced to ten years in prison for saying, in a letter to the Kansas City Star, that "no government which is for the profiteers can also be for the people, and I am for the people while the government is for the profiteers." Soon afterwards Kate Richards O'Hare was sentenced to five years for making an anti-war speech in North Dakota.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWespionage.htm

Oh yeah, the Espionage Act's counterpart, the Sedition Act became a handy tool when Wilson provoked the first Red Scare. No, Joe McCarthy was not the first to do that.

The question is will Congress pass such draconian pieces of legislation egged on by a presidency with strong authoritarian tendencies?

[StellaBlue]

1. In light of current events, I am thinking so

Especially since it has actually HAPPENED BEFORE, and at a time when people were more active and more radicalized than now, to boot!

:hi:

[Hugin]

2. Only it won't be called that...

It'll have some happy sounding doublespeak name.

[Selatius]

3. kick n/t