On this day, May 16th, in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Sedition Act into law.
It effectively banned disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language towards the US government, the flag, and the armed forces in the midst of the first World War. The Postmaster General was even granted the power to refuse mail delivery meeting the criteria set fourth in the act.
Among the most heinous convictions under the law was of Eugene Debs. He was sentenced to ten years in prison and disenfranchised for life, all for urging resistance to the draft.
Little seems to have changed today, in a world where the military industrial complex grows ever larger and anti-war voices are silenced by the regime.