"Laws on the Books Are Only as Wise as the People Who Enforce Them"

"In 1917 and 1918, war fever drove many politicians, in all three branches of government, to lose sight of basic rights—just as during other wars a sense of urgency led Abraham Lincoln to wrongfully suspend the habeas corpus writ and subject civilians to military trials, and Franklin Roosevelt to approve the internment of Japanese-Americans. But just as the presence of real communist spies during the early Cold War years helps to explain (but, again, not excuse) the witch hunts that followed, so the legitimate fears of German saboteurs constitute an important piece of the context in which the Espionage Act became law."

David Greenberg in Slate looks to the origins of the Espionage Act of 1917.