Fragile Freedoms
Which civil liberties - and whose - can be abridged to create a safer America? Part 1 of a three-part series.
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Fear of a French invasion leads Congress and President John Adams (below) to enact the Alien and Sedition Acts. The acts give the government sweeping powers to deport any alien considered dangerous to the nation's welfare, and to imprison anyone found guilty of criticizing the government. Numerous individuals are sent to prison. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson campaigns against the law, and after his election, pardons those convicted under it. In 1964, the US Supreme Court rules that the law had been unconstitutional.
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln (below) suspends the writ of habeas corpus, arresting anyone who expresses sympathy with the South and holding them without presenting evidence against them or giving them a trial. Hundreds of draft resisters are imprisoned, along with newspaper editors, judges, lawyers, and legislators. By some estimates, more than 13,000 people are arrested overall. When Chief Justice Roger Taney declares the president's actions unconstitutional, Lincoln blatantly ignores the ruling. He also shuts down newspapers that express pro-South views.
Nervousness about German spies during World War I leads Congress and President Woodrow Wilson to approve the Espionage and Sedition Acts. The acts give the government authority to censor the foreign language press, bar antiwar publications from using the US mail, and punish anyone expressing disloyal or antiwar sentiments. Some 2,000 people are prosecuted. Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs (below, left) is imprisoned for a decade, as is Charles Schenck, author of a pamphlet claiming the draft was illegal. The Supreme Court upholds Schenck's conviction.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signs an executive order authorizing the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom are US citizens (below). None is accused of any crime. They are not released until four years later, in 1946. The US Supreme Court upholds the decision. (In 1988, Congress grants surviving internees $20,000 each and an official apology from the US government.) Also in 1942, eight Germans are caught trying to sabotage US war industries and are tried by military tribunal. The Supreme Court upholds the decision, and six are executed.
During 1950s, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (below, center) fans fears of communism, leading to the prosecution of leaders of the Communist and Socialist Parties under the Smith Act. Passed in 1940 but little used until a decade later, the act makes it a crime to advocate violence against the government. Some individuals are sentenced to prison simply for studying works of Marx and Lenin. The Supreme Court upholds the convictions.
After the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh (below), Congress passes counterterrorism legislation limiting habeas corpus for death-row inmates - restricting certain appeals - and allowing immigrants who are terror suspects to be held and deported based on secret evidence.
