The
Espionage Act of 1917 is a
United States federal law 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). Specifically, it is
18 U.S.C. ch. 37 (
18 U.S.C. § 792 et seq.)
It was intended to prohibit interference with
military operations or
recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime. In 1919, the
Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled through
Schenck v. United States that the act did not violate the
freedom of speech of those convicted under its provisions.
The constitutionality 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 are German-American socialist congressman and newspaper editor
Victor L. Berger, labor leader and five-time
Socialist Party of America candidate,
Eugene V. Debs,
anarchists Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman, former
Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society president
Joseph Franklin Rutherford, communists
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg,
Cablegate whistleblower
Chelsea Manning,
WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange,
Defense Intelligence Agency employee
Henry Kyle Frese, and
National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower
Edward Snowden. Rutherford's conviction was overturned on appeal.
[1] Although the most controversial sections of the Act, a set of amendments commonly called the
Sedition Act of 1918, were repealed on December 13, 1920, the original Espionage Act was left intact.
[2] In 1921,
Woodrow Wilson offered
clemency to most of those convicted under the Sedition and Espionage Acts and the
Supreme Court eventually overturned all of its decisions related with them.
[3]
www.forbes.com
