Espionage Act of 1917#SHIELD Act

The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed, along with the Trading with the Enemy Act, 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, in his December 7, 1915, State of the Union address, asked Congress for the legislation.Moynihan, Secrecy. 89 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.Moynihan, Secrecy, 90–92 That provision aroused opposition, with critics charging it established a system of "prior restraint" and delegated unlimited power to the president.Harold Edgar and Benno C. Schmidt Jr., "The Espionage Statutes and the Publication of Defense Information", Columbia Law Review. v. 73. no. 5, May 1973, 950–951 After weeks of intermittent debate, the Senate removed the censorship provision by a one-vote margin, voting 39 to 38.Moynihan, Secrecy, 92–95 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,Moynihan, Secrecy, 96 after Congress passed the act on the same day.{{cite web|title=History.com: This Day in History — June 15, 1917: U.S. Congress passes Espionage Act|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-congress-passes-espionage-act|publisher=History.com|access-date=December 29, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130313041013/http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-congress-passes-espionage-act|archive-date=March 13, 2013|url-status=dead}}

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 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.{{cite book |author=David M. Kennedy |author-link=David M. Kennedy (historian) |title=Over Here: The First World War and American Society |year=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s6dSIuBcx1IC |isbn=978-0-19-517399-4 }} 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.Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004), 231–232 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 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 authority to impound or refuse to mail publications the postmaster determined to violate its prohibitions.{{cite book |last1=Hagedorn |first1=Ann |title=Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 |date=2007 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |page=29|isbn=978-1-4165-3971-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a7UMG78Z9i0C&q=1917%20mail }}

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, when he sought to provide military aid to Great Britain before the United States entered World War II.Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House, 2007), 467, 755n54

{{main|Sedition Act of 1918}}

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. Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 37.Cornell Law School: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_37.html Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 37], accessed December 4, 2010

In 1933, after signals intelligence expert Herbert Yardley published a popular book about breaking Japanese codes, the Act was amended to prohibit the disclosure of foreign code or anything sent in code.Moynihan, Secrecy, 97; Herbert Yardley, The American Black Chamber (Bobbs-Merrill, 1931) The Act was amended in 1940 to increase the penalties it imposed, and again in 1970.C. William Michaels, No Greater Threat: America after September 11 and the Rise of a National Security State (Algora Publishing, 2002), 21, [https://books.google.com/books?id=SZyWQ805QR0C&pg=PA21& available online], accessed December 1, 2010

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 added {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|793|e}} in 1950 and {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|798}} 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" {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|791}}. 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.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/congressionalrec107dunit#page/n1190/mode/1up|title=Congressional record|via=archive.org|publisher=Washington, The Congress|year=1961}}

In 1989, Congressman James Traficant tried to amend {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794}} to broaden the application of the death penalty.James Traficant, [https://fas.org/irp/congress/1989_cr/h890222-spy.htm Civilian Espionage Penalties Amendments Act] 1989 2 22, fas.org Senator Arlen Specter proposed a comparable expansion of the use of the death penalty the same year.[https://fas.org/irp/congress/1989_cr/s890731-amend-spy.htm National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990 AND 1991], Arlen Spector, July 31, 1989, fas.org In 1994, Robert K. Dornan proposed the death penalty for the disclosure of a U.S. agent's identity.{{USBill|103|HR|4060|pipe=H.R. 4060: To amend title 18, United States Code, to require the imposition of the death penalty for espionage that resulted in the identification by a foreign power of an individual acting as an agent of the United States and consequently in the death of that individual}}

{{Socialism US|history}}

{{wikisource|Debs' Speech of Sedition}}

Much of the Act's enforcement was left to the discretion of local United States Attorneys, 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 was active.Kennedy, Over Here, 83 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 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.{{cite news |title=Harding Frees Debs and 23 Others Held for War Violations |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0DE2D71539E133A25757C2A9649D946095D6CF |quote=Announcement was made at the White House late this afternoon that President Harding had commuted the sentences of twenty-four so-called political prisoners, including Eugene V. Debs, who were convicted under the Espionage act and ... |work=The New York Times |date=December 24, 1921 |access-date=July 31, 2010 }}

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.{{cite book |last=Manchel |first=Frank |title=Film Study: An Analytical Bibliography |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=1990|pages=223 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BebEAji_wH4C&q=frank%20manchel%20espionage%20act&pg=PA223|isbn=978-0-8386-3414-1}}

File:Blessed are the Peacemakers.gif, The Masses 1917]]

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".Christopher Cappozolla, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 151–152 Postmasters in Savannah, Georgia, and Tampa, Florida, 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".{{cite book |last=Paxson |first=Frederic |title=America At War 1917–1918 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |year=1939 |url=https://archive.org/stream/americaatwar1917002444mbp/americaatwar1917002444mbp_djvu.txt}} 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 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.Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You, 153–155 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.Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You, 159

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."{{cite book|last=Abrams |first=Ray |title=Preachers Present Arms |publisher=Wipf&Stock, Eugene, Oregon |year=1969 |pages=183 |isbn=978-1-60-608935-4}} 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.{{cite book|last=Rogerson |first=Alan |title=Millions Now Living Will Never Die |publisher=Constable, London |year=1969 |pages=42 |isbn=978-0-09-455940-0}} The book had been banned in Canada since February 1918 for what a Winnipeg newspaper described as "seditious and antiwar statements"{{cite book|last=Macmillan |first=A.H. |title=Faith on the March |publisher=Prentice-Hall |year=1957 |pages=85|url=http://e-cepher.com/books/fotm/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028120500/http://e-cepher.com/books/fotm/|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 28, 2012}} Archive.org and described by Attorney General Gregory as dangerous propaganda.{{cite book|last=Macmillan |first=A.H. |title=Faith on the March |publisher=Prentice-Hall |year=1957 |pages=89|url=http://e-cepher.com/books/fotm/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028120500/http://e-cepher.com/books/fotm/|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 28, 2012}} Archive.org 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. 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.{{cite book|last=Penton |first=M.J. |title=Apocalypse Delayed |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=1997 |pages=56 |isbn=978-0-8020-7973-2}} In May 1920 the government announced that all charges had been dropped.{{cite book|last=Rogerson |first=Alan |title=Millions Now Living Will Never Die |publisher=Constable, London |year=1969 |pages=44 |isbn=978-0-09-455940-0}}

{{Main|Red Scare|Schenck v. United States|Abrams v. United States}}

File:Palmer Bombing.jpg

During the Red Scare of 1918–19, in response to the 1919 anarchist bombings aimed at prominent government officials and businessmen, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, supported by J. Edgar Hoover, 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 and Alexander Berkman were deported to the Soviet Union on a ship the press called the "Soviet Ark".

File:Freedom of speech in war times.djvu

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 (1919).{{ussc|name=Schenck v. United States|volume=249|page=47|pin=|year=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" 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.Chafee's treatise Free Speech in the United States included a lengthy attack on the Schenck decision. Zechariah Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1920)

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 concept of bad tendency 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".William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–32 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 43

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.Stone, Perilous Times, 191n By early 1921, the Red Scare had faded, Palmer left government, and the Espionage Act fell into relative disuse.

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 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.U.S. Supreme Court Center: [http://supreme.justia.com/us/322/680/case.html Hartzel v. United States], accessed March 14, 2011 In Gorin v. United States (early 1941), the Supreme Court ruled on many constitutional questions surrounding the act.U.S. Supreme Court Center: [http://supreme.justia.com/us/312/19/case.html Gorin v. United States], accessed March 14, 2011

The Act was used in 1942 to deny a mailing permit to Father Charles Coughlin's weekly Social Justice, effectively ending its distribution to subscribers. It was part of Attorney General Francis Biddle's attempt to close down what he called "vermin publications". Coughlin had been criticized for virulently anti-Semitic writings.{{cite news |title=Mails Barred to "Social Justice" |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19420415&id=SzsNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2530,6670133 |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |location=Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |date=April 15, 1942 |pages=1–2 |access-date=January 1, 2010 }}{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{cite journal |last=Stone |first=Geoffrey R. |year=2004 |title=Free Speech in World War II: When are you going to indict the seditionists? |journal=International Journal of Constitutional Law|volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=334–367 |doi=10.1093/icon/2.2.334 |doi-access=free }}

{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,849845,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101014180328/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,849845,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 14, 2010 |title=The Press: Coughlin Quits |date=May 18, 1942 |access-date=March 13, 2011 |magazine=Time}} 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.{{cite book | last=Beito | first=David T. | title=The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance | edition=First | pages=223–230| location=Oakland | publisher=Independent Institute | year=2023 | isbn=978-1598133561}}

The same year, a June front-page story by Stanley Johnston in the Chicago Tribune, 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. 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 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.{{cite book | last = Smith | first = Michael | author-link = Michael Smith (newspaper reporter) | title = The Emperor's Codes: Bletchley Park and the breaking of Japan's secret ciphers | publisher = Bantam Press | date = 2000 | location = London | pages = 142, 143 | isbn = 0593-046412 }} 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 reports. The government proposed using the Espionage Act against them. It later softened its approach, changing the charge to Embezzlement of Government Property (now {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|641}}). A grand jury cleared three of the associates, two associates paid small fines, and charges against the sixth man were dropped. Senator Joseph McCarthy said the failure to aggressively prosecute the defendants was a communist conspiracy. According to Klehr and Radosh, the case helped build his later notoriety.

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 decryptions, the Elizabeth Bentley case, the atomic spies 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 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 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.

In 1948, some portions of the United States Code 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.

In 1950, during the McCarthy Period, Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act over President Harry S. Truman's veto. It modified a large body of law, including espionage law. One addition was {{USCSub2|18|793|e}}, which had almost exactly the same language as {{USCSub2|18|793|d}}. 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 and the "Pumpkin Papers".

{{Main|Brandenburg v. Ohio}}

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" test, a considerably stricter test of the inflammatory nature of speech.{{ussc|name=Brandenburg v. Ohio|volume=395|page=444|pin=447|year=1969}}.

{{Main|New York Times Co. v. United States}}

In June 1971, Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo were charged with a felony under the Espionage Act of 1917 because they lacked legal authority to publish classified documents that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers.{{cite web|title=The Pentagon Papers Case|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/nixon.html|access-date=December 5, 2005}} 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. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110810180657/http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2007/February%202007/0207pentagon.aspx Archived]}} 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.{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/sgp/library/|title=Secrecy and Security Library|website=fas.org}}

United States v. Dedeyan in 1978 was the first prosecution under {{USCSub2|18|793|f|2}} (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.[http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/584/36/155427/ U.S. v Dedeyan] 1978

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 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.[http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/629/908/266362/ U.S. v. Truong], 1980

Alfred Zehe, a scientist from East Germany, 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: [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/22/us/east-german-enters-guilty-plea-to-buying-secret-us-documents.html "East German Enters Guilty Plea to Buying Secret U.S. Documents", February 25, 1985], accessed December 8, 2010United States v. Zehe, 601 F.Supp. 196 (D. Mass 1985); Kent College of Law: [http://www.kentlaw.edu/faculty/rwarner/classes/carter/2008_lectures/2008_cases/zehe.doc United States v. Zehe, January 29, 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: [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/16/weekinreview/the-world-free-to-spy-another-day.html? Milt Freudenheim and Henry Giniger, "Free to Spy Another Day?", June 16, 1985], accessed December 8, 2010; Los Angeles Times: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-11-mn-10338-story.html "U.S. Swaps 4 Red Spies for 25 Held as Western Agents", June 11, 1985], 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".Boston Phoenix: [http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01710021.htm Harvey A. Silvergate, "Freedom Watch: The Real Bob Mueller", July 12–19, 2001] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120614083149/http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01710021.htm |date=June 14, 2012 }}, accessed December 8, 2010

The media dubbed 1985 "Year of the Spy". U.S. Navy civilian Jonathan Pollard was charged with violating {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|c}}, 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2010/110210.htm|title=MEQ: Why Jonathan Pollard Got Life - The Victim Impact Statement|website=www.jonathanpollard.org|access-date=March 25, 2011|archive-date=September 24, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210924001957/https://www.jonathanpollard.org/2010/110210.htm|url-status=dead}} Larry Wu-Tai Chin, at CIA, was also charged with violating {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|c}} for selling information to China.{{cite web|url=http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/848/55/291630/|title=In the Case of United States v. Larry Wu-tai Chin.united States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Cathy Chin, Defendant-appellant, 848 F.2d 55 (4th Cir. 1988)}} Ronald Pelton was prosecuted for violating {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|a}}, {{USCSub2|18|794|c}}, & {{USCSub2|18|798|a}}, for selling information to the Soviets, and interfering with Operation Ivy Bells.{{cite web|url=http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/835/1067/296623/|title=United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Ronald William Pelton, Defendant-appellant, 835 F.2d 1067 (4th Cir. 1987)}} Edward Lee Howard was an ex-Peace Corps and ex-CIA agent charged under {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|17|794|c}} for allegedly dealing with the Soviets. The FBI's website says the 1980s was the "decade of the spy", with dozens of arrests.{{cite web|url=https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-year-of-the-spy |title=FBI — the Year of the Spy |access-date=July 28, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160516015330/https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-year-of-the-spy |archive-date=May 16, 2016 }}

Seymour Hersh wrote an article entitled "The Traitor" arguing against Pollard's release.{{cite magazine |magazine=The New Yorker|url=http://jya.com/traitor.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080121000301/http://jya.com/traitor.htm|archive-date=January 21, 2008|title=The Traitor|first=Seymour|last=Hersh|author-link=Seymour Hersh|date=January 18, 1999}}

Samuel Loring Morison was a government security analyst who worked on the side for Jane's, a British military and defense publisher. He was arrested on October 1, 1984,The New York Times: [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/03/world/spy-photos-sale-leads-to-arrest.html 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.Time: [https://web.archive.org/web/20070706035057/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923689-3,00.html Alessandra Stanley, "Spy vs. Spy Saga", October 15, 1984], accessed March 11, 2011

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: [https://web.archive.org/web/20101029194235/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959281,00.html Anne Constable, George C. Church, "Plugging the Leak of Secrets", January 28, 1985], 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 New York Times: [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/08/weekinreview/the-nation-two-years-for-morison.html Michael Wright and Caroline Rand Herron, "Two Years for Morison", December 8, 1985], accessed March 11, 2011 The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in 1988. Morison became "the only [American] government official ever convicted for giving classified information to the press" up to that time. Following Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1998 appeal for a pardon for Morison, President Bill Clinton pardoned him on January 20, 2001, the last day of his presidency,The New York Times: [https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0B17FC3E5F0C708CDDAA0894D9404482&]Anthony 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: [https://archive.today/20130130113631/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50716FF3B540C748DDDAB0894D9404482& 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, 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.Time: [https://web.archive.org/web/20081221222824/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961418,00.html James Kelly, et al., " Press: Shifting the Attack on Leaks", May 19, 1986], accessed March 11, 2011

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 was convicted under {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|c}} 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 {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|a}} and {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|c}} of spying for the Soviet Union and later for the Russian Federation.{{cite web |url=http://www.hanford.gov/oci/maindocs/ci_r_docs/earlpitts.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=March 25, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718113131/http://www.hanford.gov/oci/maindocs/ci_r_docs/earlpitts.pdf |archive-date=July 18, 2011 }}{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/pitts_nr.htm|title=FBI Special Agent, Earl Edwin Pitts, Arrested for Espionage|website=fas.org}}

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 {{circa}} 1988–1991 ({{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|794|a}}).

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

In the 1990s, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 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".{{cite book|last=Moynihan|first=Daniel|title=Secrecy: The American Experience|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1999|page=[https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/155 155]|isbn=978-0-300-08079-7|url=https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/155}}; {{cite book|last=Vaughn|first=Stephen |title=Encyclopedia of American Journalism|publisher=Taylor & Francis, Inc.|date=July 2007|page=155|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wo8IY5oMpX4C&pg=PA155|isbn=978-0-415-96950-5}}

In the late 1990s, Wen Ho Lee of Los Alamos National Laboratory (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 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, he pleaded guilty to one count under the Espionage Act. The judge apologized to him for having believed the government.NYTimes (September 14, 2000), [https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/14/us/statement-by-judge-in-los-alamos-case-with-apology-for-abuse-of-power.html "Statement by Judge in Los Alamos Case, With Apology for Abuse of Power"], The New York Times 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)

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.{{cite news |last1=Green |first1=Robert |date=June 5, 2001 |title=Ex-Colonel on Trial for KGB Spying |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93172 |website=ABC News |access-date=July 14, 2014}}

Kenneth Wayne Ford Jr. was indicted under {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|793|e}} 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.{{cite web |last=Lichtblau |first=Eric |date=October 6, 2005 |title=Pentagon Analyst Admits Sharing Secret Data |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/politics/06spy.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=March 13, 2001}} Franklin was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced to 10 months of home confinement.{{cite news |title=Sentence Reduced in PentagonCase |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061104280.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 12, 2009 |access-date=March 13, 2011}}

Under the Obama and first Trump administrations, at least eight Espionage Act prosecutions were related not to traditional espionage 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.{{cite web |last1=Greenberg |first1=Jon |date=January 10, 2014 |title=CNN's Tapper: Obama has used Espionage Act more than all previous administrations |url=http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/ |website=PolitiFact |access-date=July 13, 2014}} "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."{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=Scott |date=May 16, 2013 |title=Obama: 'No apologies' for leaks investigation |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/16/obama-no-apologies-for-leaks-investigation/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=July 13, 2014}}

• Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, a former CIA officer was indicted under the Act in January 2011 for alleged unauthorized disclosure of national defense information to James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, 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.{{cite web |last=Thomas |first=Pierre |date=June 1, 2011 |title=Former CIA Agent Jeffrey Sterling Arrested, Accused of Leaking to Reporter as Revenge |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/Blotter/cia-agent-jeffrey-sterling-arrested-accused-leaking-reporter/story?id=12557291&page=1 |work=ABC News |access-date=March 12, 2011}}
• Thomas Andrews Drake – In April 2010, Drake, an official with the NSA, was indicted under {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|793|e}} for alleged willful retention of national defense information. The case arose from investigations into his communications with Siobhan Gorman of The Baltimore Sun 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.{{cite news |last=Shane |first=Scott |date=April 15, 2010 |title=Former N.S.A. Official Is Charged in Leaks Case |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/us/16indict.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=April 17, 2010}}{{cite news |author=Agence France-Presse |date=April 15, 2010 |title=Obama's Justice Department indicts NSA whistleblower |url=http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0415/obamas-justice-department-indicts-nsa-whistleblower/ |archive-date=April 21, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100421020156/http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0415/obamas-justice-department-indicts-nsa-whistleblower/ |url-status=dead |work=Raw Story |access-date=April 17, 2010}}{{cite news |title=Former NSA Senior Executive Charged with Illegally Retaining Classified Information, Obstructing Justice and Making False Statements |url=https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/April/10-crm-416.html |website=United States Department of Justice |date=April 15, 2010 |access-date=April 17, 2010}}{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Greg |last2=Hsu |first2=Spencer S. |last3=Nakashima |first3=Ellen |last4=Leonnig |first4=Carol D. |last5=Kurtz |first5=Howard |last6=Tate |first6=Julie |date=April 16, 2010 |title=Former NSA official allegedly leaked material to media |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041503118.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=April 17, 2010}}{{cite news |last1=Nakashima |first1=Ellen |last2=Miller |first2=Greg |last3=Tate |first3=Julie |date=July 14, 2010 |title=Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake may pay high price for media leak |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071305992.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=January 11, 2011}}[http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=0f053ecd-c945-4b40-9dec-8ae60275b006 United States v. Thomas A Drake. Criminal Indictment of Thomas A Drake], filed April 14, 2010, U.S. District Court, District of Maryland, Northern Division. This is a PDF of the criminal indictment itself, provided via jdsupra.com, in an upload from Justia.com. Accessed April 17, 2010. Considering the prosecution of Drake, investigative journalist Jane Mayer 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, admitted sharing information with a blogger and pleaded guilty under {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|798|a|3}} to one count of disclosure of classified information. As part of a plea bargain, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison.{{cite news |last=Glod |first=Maria |date=May 25, 2010 |title=Former FBI employee sentenced for leaking classified papers |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052403795.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=March 1, 2011}}{{cite web |last=Aftergood |first=Steven |date=May 25, 2010 |title=Jail Sentence Imposed in Leak Case |url=https://fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/05/jail_leak.html |publisher=Federation of American Scientists |access-date=March 13, 2011 |archive-date=January 21, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130121233408/http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/05/jail_leak.html |url-status=dead }}
• Stephen Jin-Woo Kim – In August 2010, Kim, a contractor for the State Department and a specialist in nuclear proliferation, was indicted under {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|793|d}} for alleged disclosure in June 2009 of national defense information to reporter James Rosen of Fox News Channel, related to North Korea's plans to test a nuclear weapon.{{cite web |last=Hosenball |first=Mark |date=August 8, 2010 |title=Justice Department Indicts Contractor in Alleged Leak |url=http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/2010/08/27/justice-department-indicts-contractor-in-alleged-leak.html |website=Newsweek |access-date=March 12, 2011}}{{cite news |last=Savage |first=Charlie |date=August 8, 2010 |title=State Dept. contractor charged in leak to news organization |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082704602.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=March 12, 2011}}{{cite web|url=https://fas.org/sgp/jud/kim/indict.pdf|title=Indictment as to Stephen Jin-Woo Kim}}

File:Chelsea Manning 2022.jpg

• Chelsea Manning – In 2010, Manning, a United States Army 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, which incorporates parts of the Espionage Act {{UnitedStatesCodeSub|18|793|e}}. 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, subject to prosecution, although former prosecutors pushed back, citing Supreme Court precedent expanding First Amendment protections.ABC News: [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-indictment-us-charge-julian-assange-espionage-act/story?id=12369173 Devin Dwyer, "Espionage Act Presents Challenges for WikiLeaks Indictment", December 13, 2010], accessed March 12, 2011 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.{{Cite news |last=Sledge |first=Matt |date=August 21, 2013 |title=Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years In Prison For WikiLeaks Disclosures |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/bradley-manning-sentenced_n_3787492.html |work=HuffPost |access-date=August 13, 2022}}{{Cite news |last=Hanna |first=John |date=August 21, 2013 |title=Manning to Serve Sentence at Famous Leavenworth |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/manning-serve-sentence-famous-leavenworth-20023673 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821172428/https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/manning-serve-sentence-famous-leavenworth-20023673 |archive-date=August 21, 2013 |work=ABC News |access-date=August 13, 2022}} On January 17, 2017, President Obama commuted Manning's sentence to nearly seven years of confinement dating from her arrest on May 27, 2010.{{Cite news |last=Savage |first=Charlie |date=January 17, 2017 |title=Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning's Sentence |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=January 17, 2017}}{{Cite news |title=Chelsea Manning freed from prison decades early |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39947602 |work=BBC News |date=May 17, 2017 |access-date=May 17, 2017}}
• John Kiriakou – In January 2012, Kiriakou, former CIA officer and later Democratic staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was charged under the Act with leaking information to journalists about the identity of undercover agents, including one who was allegedly involved in waterboarding interrogations of al-Qaeda logistics chief Abu Zubaydah.{{Cite web |last=Dilanian |first=Ken |date=January 24, 2012 |title=Ex-CIA officer charged with disclosing classified information |url=https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-jan-24-la-na-cia-officer-charged-20120124-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US |access-date=August 13, 2022}}{{Cite news |last=Seper |first=Jerry |date=January 23, 2012 |title=Ex-CIA officer charged in leak case |url=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/23/ex-cia-officer-charged-in-leak-case/ |website=The Washington Times |language=en-US |access-date=August 13, 2022}} Kiriakou is alleged to have also disclosed an investigative technique used to capture Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002.{{Cite news |last=Perez |first=Evan |date=January 24, 2012 |title=Charges Brought in CIA Leak |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203718504577179070432000002 |work=The Wall Street Journal |access-date=August 13, 2022}} He was sentenced to 30 months in prison on January 25, 2013, and was released in 2015.
• Edward Snowden – In June 2013, Snowden was charged under the Espionage Act after releasing documents exposing the NSA's PRISM Surveillance Program. Specifically, he was charged with "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified intelligence with an unauthorized person".{{cite news |last1=Finn |first1=Peter |last2=Horwitz |first2=Sari |date=June 21, 2013 |title=U.S. charges Snowden with espionage |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-snowden-with-espionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |language=en-US |access-date=June 22, 2013}}
• 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.{{Cite news |last=Mettler |first=Katie |date=June 9, 2017 |title=Judge denies bail for accused NSA leaker Reality Winner after not guilty plea |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/09/judges-denies-bail-for-accused-nsa-leaker-reality-winner-after-not-guilty-plea/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=June 9, 2017}} Her arrest was announced on June 5 after The Intercept published an article describing Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, based on classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents leaked to them anonymously.{{cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/reality-winner-alleged-nsa-leaker-will-plead-not-guilty-lawyer-n769526|title=Alleged NSA leaker Reality Winner to plead not guilty|last2=Grosenick|first2=Kip|date=June 7, 2017|last1=Silva|first1=Daniella|work=NBC News|access-date=June 8, 2017}}{{cite news |last1=Cole |first1=Matthew |last2=Esposito |first2=Richard |last3=Biddle |first3=Sam |last4=Grim |first4=Ryan |date=June 5, 2017 |title=Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election |url=https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russian-hacking-effort-days-before-2016-election/ |work=The Intercept |access-date=June 6, 2017}} 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{{cite news |last=O'Brien |first=Brendan |date=June 22, 2018 |title=Reality Winner to change her plea on leaking Russian interference report |url=https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN1JI0D3 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622114242/https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN1JI0D3 |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 22, 2018 |work=Reuters |access-date=August 24, 2018}} and on June 26 she pleaded guilty to one count of felony transmission of national defense information.{{Cite news |last1=Savage |first1=Charlie |last2=Blinder |first2=Alan |date=June 26, 2018 |title=Reality Winner, N.S.A. Contractor Accused in Leak, Pleads Guilty |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/reality-winner-nsa-leak-guilty-plea.html |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |access-date=August 24, 2018}}{{Cite news |last=Timm |first=Trevor |date=June 26, 2018 |title=Whistleblower Reality Winner, Charged Under the Espionage Act for Helping to Inform Public of Russian Election Meddling, Pleads Guilty |url=https://theintercept.com/2018/06/26/reality-winner-plea-deal/ |work=The Intercept |access-date=August 24, 2018}} 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.{{Cite news |title=Reality Winner pleads guilty: 'All of these actions I did willfully' |url=https://www.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/reality-winner-pleads-guilty-all-these-actions-did-willfully/zmGG8vtG0A4apJkTbGwjYP/ |work=Atlanta Journal-Constitution |access-date=August 24, 2018}}
  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.{{cite news |last=Philipps |first=Dave |date=August 23, 2018 |title=Reality Winner, Former N.S.A. Translator, Gets More Than 5 Years in Leak of Russian Hacking Report |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/reality-winner-nsa-sentence.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=August 25, 2018}}
• Harold T. Martin — former NSA 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.{{cite news |newspaper=The Boston Globe |title=What do the former president and a low-ranking Guardsman have in common? The accusations against them. |author=Mike Damiano |date=June 19, 2023 |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/19/metro/trump-teixeira-indicted/}}
• 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.{{Cite web |last=Speri |first=Alice |title=As FBI Whistleblower Terry Albury Faces Sentencing, His Lawyers Say He Was Motivated by Racism and Abuses at the Bureau |url=https://theintercept.com/2018/10/18/terry-albury-sentencing-fbi/ |website=The Intercept |date=October 18, 2018 |language=en-US |access-date=August 13, 2022}}
• 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.{{cite news |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/opinion/donald-trump-and-reality-winner-espionage-act.html |title=What Donald Trump and Reality Winner Have in Common |date=June 11, 2023 |author=Oona A. Hathaway}}{{cite news |author=Scott Shane |date=25 September 2018 |title=He Took Home Documents to Catch Up on Work at the N.S.A. He Got 5½ Years in Prison. |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/us/politics/nghia-pho-nsa-prison-sentence.html}}

File:RUEDA DE PRENSA CONJUNTA ENTRE CANCILLER RICARDO PATIÑO Y JULIAN ASSANGE (cropped).jpg founder Assange, was release from solitary confinement in a UK prison and convicted in June 2024 on one count of violating the Espionage Act — 14 years after he published US documents that put him in the crosshairs of the US]]

• Julian Assange – On May 23, 2019, the WikiLeaks founder Assange was charged with violating the Espionage Act by seeking classified information.{{cite news |last1=Barrett |first1=Devlin |last2=Weiner |first2=Rachel |last3=Zapotosky |first3=Matt |date=May 23, 2019 |title=WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Charged with Violating Espionage Act |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-charged-with-violating-espionage-act/2019/05/23/42a2c6cc-7d6a-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=}} The revelations of war crimes he published about the Iraq and Afghan wars in 2010, were leaked to WikiLeaks by US army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning. They were published in cooperation with renowned media organizations such as the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, 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 before a US court in Saipan, an unincorporated territory of the US in the Pacific, 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 Belmarsh in the United Kingdom in solitary confinement. The case has been described as having significant implications for the First Amendment in the US and press freedom 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, not a US citizen. Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese, 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.{{cite news |date=June 24, 2024 |title=Julian Assange arrives in Australia |url=https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-06-26/julian-assange-arrives-in-australia-after-12-years-deprived-of-freedom.html |work=El País |access-date=}} The US secret documents on the actions of the United States Army 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 journalists and 2 children badly injured.{{cite news |date=June 26, 2024 |title=Assange-Video enthüllte Kriegsverbrechen der USA im Irak: "Seht euch diese toten Bastarde an" |url=https://www.fr.de/politik/washington-post-julian-assange-wikileaks-freilassung-bagdad-video-journalisten-getoetet-aktuell-zr-93152430.html |work=Frankfurter Rundschau |access-date=}} The serious war crimes that he uncovered in 2010 and 2011 remained unpunished.{{cite news |date=June 25, 2024 |title=Wikileaks — Julian Assange bekennt sich schuldig und kommt frei |url=https://www.tageblatt.lu/headlines/julian-assange-bekennt-sich-schuldig-und-kommt-frei/ |work=Tageblatt |access-date=}}
• Daniel Hale – 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, who wrote Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield and published the Drone Papers.{{cite news |last1=Gilmour |first1=David |date=May 9, 2019 |title=Attorney for Daniel Hale blasts indictment for leaking classified drone documents |url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/daniel-hale-indictment/ |work=The Daily Dot |access-date=April 18, 2021}} 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 on a server called "Thug Shaker Central", parsed from documents he read, according to The Washington Post.{{Cite news |date=April 13, 2023 |title=Discord member details how documents leaked from closed chat group |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/discord-leaked-documents/ |access-date=April 14, 2023 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en}} According to The New York Times, some chat members struggled to understand the summaries or did not take them seriously.{{Cite news |last1=Toler |first1=Aric |last2=Triebert |first2=Christiaan |last3=Willis |first3=Haley |last4=Browne |first4=Malachy |last5=Schwirtz |first5=Michael |last6=Mellen |first6=Riley |date=April 13, 2023 |title=The Airman Who Gave Gamers a Real Taste of War |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/world/europe/jack-teixeira-pentagon-leak.html |access-date=April 14, 2023 |issn=0362-4331}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Iyer |first=Kaanita |date=2023-06-02 |title=Retired Air Force officer sentenced to 3 years for storing classified information at his Florida home |url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/politics/retired-air-force-officer-classified-information/index.html |access-date=2023-06-19 |website=CNN |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2023-06-01 |title=Middle District of Florida — Former U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer Sentenced To 36 Months' Imprisonment For Willfully Retaining Top Secret National Defense Information |url=https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/former-us-air-force-intelligence-officer-sentenced-36-months-imprisonment-willfully |access-date=2023-06-27 |website=www.justice.gov |language=en}}
• Donald Trump – 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.https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/09/indictment-document-trump-classified-documents-pdf/ {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}} He had been under investigation since at least May 2022, a grand jury subpoena was issued for return of the documents on May 11, 2022. On August 8, 2022, the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home and found classified material.{{cite magazine |last1=Vaillancourt |first1=William |date=August 12, 2022 |title=Feds Investigating Trump Over Potential Espionage Act Violation, Search Warrant Shows |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/search-warrant-trump-espionage-act-violation-1396193/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |access-date=August 12, 2022}}{{cite web |last1=Lowell |first1=Hugo |date=August 12, 2022 |title=Trump under investigation for potential violations of Espionage Act, warrant reveals |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/12/fbi-agents-trump-search-mar-a-lago-documents |website=The Guardian |location=Washington, DC |language=en-GB |access-date=August 13, 2022}} That classified material allegedly included materials related to nuclear weapons.{{cite news |last1=Barrett |first1=Devlin |last2=Dawsey |first2=Josh |last3=Stein |first3=Perry |last4=Harris |first4=Shane |date=August 12, 2022 |title=FBI searched Trump's home to look for nuclear documents and other items, sources say |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/11/garland-trump-mar-a-lago/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=August 13, 2022}} The Justice Department also became concerned that Trump was storing official presidential records at his home in violation of the Presidential Records Act which mandates that all presidential documents be preserved and submitted to the National Archives.{{cite web |last1=Bekiempis |first1=Victoria |date=August 11, 2022 |title=FBI search of Donald Trump's home followed tip classified records were there – report |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/fbi-trump-classified-records-mar-a-lago |website=The Guardian |language=en-GB |access-date=August 13, 2022}}
• 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.{{cite news |last1=Beaumont |first1=Peter |title=White House adds journalist to top-secret Yemen war group chat by mistake |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/24/journalist-trump-yemen-war-chat |access-date=March 24, 2025 |work=The Guardian |date=March 24, 2025}}{{cite news |last1=Goldberg |first1=Jeffrey |title=The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/ |access-date=March 24, 2025 |work=The Atlantic |date=March 24, 2025}} A spokesperson for the National Security Council 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. {{Cite web |last=Lawler |first=Zachary Basu,Dave |date=2025-03-24 |title=Top 4 takeaways from Trump Cabinet's explosive leak of Yemen war plans |url=https://www.axios.com/2025/03/24/trump-group-text-yemen-war-bombing-houthis-jeffrey-goldberg |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=Axios |language=en}}

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 whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg 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".{{Cite news|title = Daniel Ellsberg: Snowden would not get a fair trial – and Kerry is wrong|url = https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act|newspaper = the Guardian|access-date = November 26, 2015|date = May 30, 2014|last1 = Ellsberg|first1 = Daniel}} Professor at American University Washington College of Law 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".{{Cite web|url = https://pen.org/sites/default/files/Secret%20Sources%20report.pdf|title = Secret Sources: Whistleblowers, National Security and Free Expression|date = November 10, 2015|access-date = November 25, 2015|publisher = PEN American Center|page = 19|archive-date = May 20, 2022|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220520050104/https://pen.org/sites/default/files/Secret%20Sources%20report.pdf|url-status = dead}} Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, 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".{{Cite news|title = Jesselyn Radack: Why Edward Snowden Wouldn't Get a Fair Trial|url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303595404579318884005698684|newspaper = Wall Street Journal|access-date = November 26, 2015|issn = 0099-9660|first = Jesselyn|last = Radack}} 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 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".{{Cite web|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2019/05/23/Amend-Espionage-Act-Public-interest-defenses-must-be-allowed-whistleblowers/stories/201905230044|title=Amend the Espionage Act: Public interest defenses must be allowed|last=Editorial board|date=May 23, 2019|website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|language=en|access-date=May 24, 2019}}{{clear}}

In an interview with Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, 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, raise the issue of over-classification of documents, or explain the reasons for their actions.{{cite web |title='Hale's Crime Is Not Leaking Information, but Exposing Government Lies About the Drone Program' |url=https://fair.org/home/hales-crime-is-not-leaking-information-but-exposing-government-lies-about-the-drone-program/ |website=FAIR |access-date=April 18, 2021 |date=April 16, 2021}}

{{Div col}}

;Related law

• Alien and Sedition Acts (late 18th century)
• Defense Secrets Act of 1911 (precursor)
• Venona project evidence on Soviet spies
• Executive Order 9835 (President Truman)
• McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)
• Intelligence Identities Protection Act
• Non-Detention Act (1971)
• Economic Espionage Act of 1996
• Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy

;Related persons

• Seymour Stedman
• Lynne Stewart
• Rose Pastor Stokes

;Persons considered whistleblowers and charged under the Act

• Thomas Andrews Drake
• Daniel Ellsberg
• Stephen Jin-Woo Kim
• John Kiriakou
• Shamai Leibowitz
• Chelsea Manning
• Samuel Loring Morison
• Edward Snowden
• Jeffrey Alexander Sterling
• Reality Winner

{{div col end}}

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[https://web.archive.org/web/20121107062245/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812633-3,00.html INVESTIGATIONS: The Strange Case of Amerasia], Time magazine, June 12, 1950. See also [https://books.google.com/ebooks?id=tfrTpBLdl50C The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism] by Harvey Klehr, Ronald Radosh, UNC Press Books, 1996. See also [http://supreme.justia.com/us/354/363/case.html U.S. Supreme Court Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957)], justia.com

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| url-status = dead

| archive-date = February 3, 2011

| title = Espionage: The Spy Who Broke Told

| date = April 16, 1965 | access-date = March 19, 2011

| magazine = Time }}

{{cite magazine | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940001,00.html

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110219014633/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940001,00.html

| url-status = dead

| archive-date = February 19, 2011

| title = Espionage: The Spy Who Skipped

| date = July 6, 1962 | access-date = March 19, 2011

| magazine = Time }}

{{cite web

|url = http://www.eyespymag.com/espionage%20cases/atomspy1.htm

|title = Atom Spy Case

|access-date = March 19, 2011

|publisher = eyespymag.com

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101225224553/http://eyespymag.com/espionage%20cases/atomspy1.htm

|archive-date = December 25, 2010

}}

{{cite web | url = http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_CT4.HTM

| title = Rosenberg v United States

| access-date = March 19, 2011

| author = Doug Linder | publisher = umkc.edu }}

{{cite web

|url = http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/50C4.txt

|title = United States Code Title 50

|access-date = March 19, 2011

|author = U.S. Congress

|publisher = U.S. House of Representatives

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110203210117/http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/50C4.txt

|archive-date = February 3, 2011

}}

{{cite web

|url = https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-atom-spy-case/the-atom-spy-case

|title = FBI #8212; The Atom Spy Case

|access-date = March 19, 2011

|publisher = fbi.gov

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110514024909/http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-atom-spy-case/the-atom-spy-case

|archive-date = May 14, 2011

}}

}}

{{further|Bibliography of the United States Constitution}}

• {{cite book | last=Beito | first=David T. | author-link = David T. Beito| year=2023 | title = The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance| edition=First | pages=4–7| location=Oakland | publisher=Independent Institute | isbn=978-1598133561}}
• {{cite book |last=Chafee |first=Zechariah |title=Freedom of speech |authorlink= |publisher=New York : Harcourt, Brace and Howe |year=1920 |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomofspeech01chaf/page/n7/mode/2up |ref=chafee1920}}
• 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, 1957.
• Preston, William Jr. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
• Rabban, David M. Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Scheiber, Harry N. The Wilson Administration and Civil Liberties 1917-1921. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 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.

{{Wikisource}}

• Strauss, Lon: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/social_conflict_and_control_protest_and_repression_usa Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (USA)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
• Brown, Charlene Fletcher: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/palmer_raids Palmer Raids], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
• Thomas, William H.: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/bureau_of_investigation Bureau of Investigation], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
• [https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/12/us/trump-news/cdc5f612-c092-5f1a-8d2d-cd591fa38301], NYTimes, 2022 (nytimes.com)

{{Woodrow Wilson|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Espionage Act Of 1917}}

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Category:United States home front during World War I

Category:Espionage in the United States

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