22 Facts About Espionage Act

The Espionage Act law imposed much stiffer penalties than the 1911 law, including the death penalty.

The resulting Espionage Act was far more aggressive and restrictive than they wanted, but it silenced citizens opposed to the war.

Wilson was denied language in the Espionage 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.

Espionage Act gave the Postmaster General authority to impound or refuse to mail publications the postmaster determined to violate its prohibitions.

Espionage Act forbids the transfer of any naval vessel equipped for combat to any nation engaged in a conflict in which the United States is neutral.

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Seemingly uncontroversial when the Act was passed, this later became a legal stumbling block for the administration of Franklin D Roosevelt, when he sought to provide military aid to Great Britain before the United States entered World War II.

In 1933, after signals intelligence expert Herbert Yardley published a popular book about breaking Japanese codes, the Espionage Act was amended to prohibit the disclosure of foreign code or anything sent in code.

The Espionage Act was amended in 1940 to increase the penalties it imposed, and again in 1970.

Espionage Act 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.

Much of the Espionage Act's enforcement was left to the discretion of local United States Attorneys, so enforcement varied widely.

The producer, Robert Goldstein, a Jew of German origins, was prosecuted under Title XI of the Espionage Act and received a ten-year sentence plus a fine of $5000.

Espionage Act held his position because he was a Democratic party loyalist and close to the President and the Attorney General.

The Masses was more successful in the courts, where Judge Learned Hand found the Espionage Act was applied so vaguely as to threaten "the tradition of English-speaking freedom".

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.

Espionage Act met the Harvard Law professor Zechariah Chafee and discussed his criticism of Schenck.

Espionage Act was used in 1942 to deny a mailing permit to Father Charles Coughlin's weekly Social Justice, effectively ending its distribution to subscribers.

Espionage Act's 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.

Espionage Act 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.

Prosecution of Morison was used as part of a broader campaign against leaks of information as a "test case" for applying the Espionage Act to cover the disclosure of information to the press.

In 2000, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was convicted under the Espionage Act of spying for the Soviets in the 1980s and Russia in the 1990s.

Espionage Act 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.

Under the Obama and Trump administrations, at least eight Espionage Act prosecutions were related not to traditional espionage but either withholding information or communicating with members of the media.