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Ärende: 18th century "Patriot Act
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Looks like the Coward-In-Chief flunked history.

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, 
deserve neither liberty or security.
-Benjamin Franklin

The first version of the "Patriot" act:

Alien and Sedition Acts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Alien and Sedition Acts were acts of Congress passed during the 
administration of President John Adams; his signature made them into law 
on July 14, 1798. They were designed to protect the United States from 
aliens alleged to be dangerous and to muffle internal dissent.

Contents
1 Component laws 
2 Background 
3 Language and meaning of the Acts 
4 Constitutionality 
5 Elections of 1800 
6 Full titles 
7 See also 
8 References 
9 External links 
 
Component laws
There were actually four separate laws making up what is commonly 
referred to as the "Alien and Sedition Acts":

The Naturalization Act extended the duration of residence required for 
aliens to become citizens, from five years to 14. Enacted June 18, 1798, 
with no expiration date. 
The Alien Act authorized the president to deport any alien considered 
dangerous, in both war and peacetime. Enacted June 25, 1798, with a two 
year expiration date. 
The Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to imprison (or deport) 
any alien from an enemy nation (meant for use during any war fought on 
enemy soil). Enacted July 6, 1798, with no expiration date. 
The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and 
malicious writing" against the government or its officials. Enacted July 
14, 1798, with an expiration date of March 3, 1801. 

Background
With many Federalists advocating war against a major power (France), 
Federalists in Congress in 1798 passed the laws which they asserted 
would protect national security in the United States and which sought to 
silence internal opposition. They were similar to laws passed at about 
the same time in the United Kingdom and Canada in response to the 
perceived threat of subversion by agents of the radical French 
government.

Jeffersonians, however, recognized that the laws were to be used as a 
tool of the ruling Federalist party to extend and retain their power, 
silencing any opposition. Because most immigrants became Democratic-
Republicans, the Naturalization Act's longer residency requirement meant 
that fewer of them could become citizens and vote against the 
Federalists. Under the Alien and Alien Enemies Acts, the president could 
deport any "dangerous" or "enemy" alien.

Language and meaning of the Acts
Under the Sedition Act, anyone "opposing or resisting any law of the 
United States, or any act of the President of the United States" could 
be imprisoned for up to two years. It was also illegal to "write, print, 
utter, or publish" anything critical of the president or Congress. It 
was notable that the Act did not prohibit criticism of the Vice-
President. Jefferson held the office of Vice-President at the time the 
Act was passed so the law left him open to attack.

There has been considerable debate over the meaning and interpretation 
of the Sedition Act. It is clear that American jurisprudence on the 
freedom of speech at some point broke from earlier British thinking, 
which held to notions that speech was an act that could be "seditious" 
regardless of its truth or veracity, and that free speech could be 
limited based on governmental priorities. For example, the Republicans 
and a number of moderate Federalists successfully added language to the 
Sedition Act that by its terms required "a false, scandalous and 
malicious writing", pointing to the trial of John Peter Zenger that 
established that colonial courts might treat truth as a defense to 
libel. However, many Federalist judges did not interpret the law 
consistently with this reading, and there is an ongoing historical 
debate, highly relevant in particular to originalist interpretations of 
the First Amendment and to the question of whether the Sedition Act was 
unconstitutional, as to when and the extent to which the break with 
British precedent occurred.

Constitutionality
Jeffersonians denounced the Sedition Act as a violation of the First 
Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights, which protected the right 
of free speech. The First Amendment clearly states that "Congress shall 
make no law...abridging the freedom of speech."

At the time, the redress for unconstitutional legislation was unclear -- 
the doctrine of judicial review was not established until Marbury v. 
Madison in 1803 -- and the Supreme Court was openly hostile to the 
Federalists' opponents. The Alien and Sedition Acts were not appealed to 
the Supreme Court for review, though individual Supreme Court Justices, 
sitting in circuit, heard many of the cases prosecuting opponents of the 
Federalists. In order to address the constitutionality of the measures, 
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sought to unseat the Federalists, 
appealing to the people to remedy the constitutional violation, and 
drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, calling on the states to 
nullify the federal legislation. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions 
reflect the Compact Theory, which states that the United States are made 
up of a voluntary union of States that agree to cede some of their 
authority in order to join the union, but that the states do not, 
ultimately, surrender their sovereign rights. Therefore, states can 
determine if the federal government has violated its agreements, 
including the Constitution, and nullify such violations or even withdraw 
from the Union. Variations of this theory were also argued at the 
Hartford Convention at the time of the War of 1812 and by the southern 
states at the time of the War Between the States.

The Sedition Act was set to expire in 1801, coinciding with the end of 
the Adams administration. While this prevented its constitutionality 
from being directly decided by the Supreme Court, subsequent mentions of 
the Sedition Act in Supreme Court opinions have assumed that it would be 
unconstitutional today. For example, in the seminal Free Speech case of 
New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court declared, "Although the Sedition 
Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has 
carried the day in the court of history." 376 U.S. 254, 276 (1964).

Elections of 1800
Although the Federalists hoped the Act would muffle the opposition, many 
Democratic-Republicans still "wrote, printed, uttered and published" 
their criticisms of the Federalists. Indeed, they strongly criticised 
the act itself, and used it as an election issue. The act expired when 
the term of President Adams ended in 1801.

Ultimately the Acts backfired against the Federalists; while the 
Federalists prepared lists of aliens for deportation, and many aliens 
fled the country during the debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts, 
Adams never signed a deportation order. Twenty-five people, primarily 
prominent newspaper editors but also Congressman Matthew Lyon, were 
arrested. Of them eleven were tried (one died while awaiting trial), and 
ten were convicted of sedition, often in trials before openly partisan 
Federalist judges. Federalists at all levels, however, were turned out 
of power, and over the following years Congress repeatedly apologized 
for, or voted recompense to victims of, the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Full titles
An Act to Establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization (Naturalization 
Act of 1798), June 18, 1798 ch. 54, 1 Stat.566 
An Act Concerning Aliens, June 25, 1798 ch. 58, 1 Stat. 570 
An Act Respecting Alien Enemies, July 6, 1798 ch. 66, 1 Stat. 577 
An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States 
(Sedition Act), July 14, 1798 ch. 74, 1 Stat. 596 
See also
Alien Act of 1705 in England 
Alien Registration Act of 1940 
Sedition Act of 1861 
Sedition Act of 1918 

References
Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1995), the 
standard scholarly history of 1790s. 
Miller, John Chester. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts 
(1951) 
Rehnquist, William H. Grand Inquests: The historic Impeachments of 
Justice Samual Chase and President Andrew Johnson (1994); Chase was 
impeached and acquitted for his conduct of a trial under the Sedition 
act. 
Rosenfeld, Richard N. American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns: 
The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic 
Newspaper That Tried to Report It (1997) 
Smith, James Morton. Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and 
American Civil Liberties (1967). 
Stone, Geoffrey R.Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The 
Sedition Act of 1798 to The War on Terrorism (2004). 
Alan Taylor, "The Alien and Sedition Acts" in Julian E. Zelizer, ed. The 
American Congress (2004) pp 63-76 
Wright, Barry. "Migration, Radicalism, and State Security: Legislative 
Initiatives in the Canadas and the United States c.1794–1804" in Studies 
in American Political Development, Volume 16, Issue 01, April 2002, pp 
48-60 

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