Criminal Dissent

Criminal Dissent PDF Author: Wendell Bird
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674243889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561

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Book Description
In the first complete account of prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts, dozens of previously unknown cases come to light, revealing the lengths to which the John Adams administration went in order to criminalize dissent. The campaign to prosecute dissenting Americans under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 ignited the first battle over the Bill of Rights. Fearing destructive criticism and “domestic treachery” by Republicans, the administration of John Adams led a determined effort to safeguard the young republic by suppressing the opposition. The acts gave the president unlimited discretion to deport noncitizens and made it a crime to criticize the president, Congress, or the federal government. In this definitive account, Wendell Bird goes back to the original federal court records and the papers of Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and finds that the administration’s zeal was far greater than historians have recognized. Indeed, there were twice as many prosecutions and planned deportations as previously believed. The government went after local politicians, raisers of liberty poles, and even tavern drunks but most often targeted Republican newspaper editors, including Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. Those found guilty were sent to prison or fined and sometimes forced to sell their property to survive. The Federalists’ support of laws to prosecute political opponents and opposition newspapers ultimately contributed to the collapse of the party and left a large stain on their record. The Alien and Sedition Acts launched a foundational debate on press freedom, freedom of speech, and the legitimacy of opposition politics. The result was widespread revulsion over the government’s attempt to deprive Americans of their hard-won liberties. Criminal Dissent is a potent reminder of just how fundamental those rights are to a stable democracy.

Criminal Dissent

Criminal Dissent PDF Author: Wendell Bird
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674243889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561

Get Book

Book Description
In the first complete account of prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts, dozens of previously unknown cases come to light, revealing the lengths to which the John Adams administration went in order to criminalize dissent. The campaign to prosecute dissenting Americans under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 ignited the first battle over the Bill of Rights. Fearing destructive criticism and “domestic treachery” by Republicans, the administration of John Adams led a determined effort to safeguard the young republic by suppressing the opposition. The acts gave the president unlimited discretion to deport noncitizens and made it a crime to criticize the president, Congress, or the federal government. In this definitive account, Wendell Bird goes back to the original federal court records and the papers of Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and finds that the administration’s zeal was far greater than historians have recognized. Indeed, there were twice as many prosecutions and planned deportations as previously believed. The government went after local politicians, raisers of liberty poles, and even tavern drunks but most often targeted Republican newspaper editors, including Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. Those found guilty were sent to prison or fined and sometimes forced to sell their property to survive. The Federalists’ support of laws to prosecute political opponents and opposition newspapers ultimately contributed to the collapse of the party and left a large stain on their record. The Alien and Sedition Acts launched a foundational debate on press freedom, freedom of speech, and the legitimacy of opposition politics. The result was widespread revulsion over the government’s attempt to deprive Americans of their hard-won liberties. Criminal Dissent is a potent reminder of just how fundamental those rights are to a stable democracy.

Criminal Dissent

Criminal Dissent PDF Author: Wendell Bird
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674243873
Category : Alien and Sedition laws, 1798
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
The prosecution of dissent under the Alien and Sedition Acts affected far more people than previously realized. It also provoked the first battle over the Bill of Rights. Wendell Bird provides the definitive account of a dark moment in U.S. history, reminding us that expressive freedom and opposition politics are essential to a stable democracy.

Criminal Dissent

Criminal Dissent PDF Author: Wendell R. Bird
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674243897
Category : Alien and Sedition laws, 1798
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The prosecution of dissent under the Alien and Sedition Acts affected far more people than previously realized. It also provoked the first battle over the Bill of Rights. Wendell Bird provides the definitive account of a dark moment in U.S. history, reminding us that expressive freedom and opposition politics are essential to a stable democracy

Crimes of Dissent

Crimes of Dissent PDF Author: Jarret S. Lovell
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814752497
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
From animal rights to anti-abortion, from tax resistance to anti-poverty, activists from across the political spectrum often deliberately break the law to further their causes. While not behaviors common to hardened or self-seeking criminals, the staging of civil disobedience, non-violent resistance, and direct action can nevertheless trigger a harsh response from law enforcement, with those arrested risking jail time and criminal records. Crimes of Dissent features the voices of these activists, presenting a fascinating insider’s look at the motivations, costs and consequences of deliberately violating the law as a strategy of social change. Crimes of Dissent provides readers with an in-depth understanding of why activists break the law, and what happens to them when they do. Using dynamic examples, both historic and recent, Jarret Lovell explores how seasoned protesters are handled and treated by the criminal justice system, shedding light on the intersection between the political and the criminal. By adopting the unique vantage of the street-level activist, Crimes of Dissent provides a fascinating view of protest from the ground, giving voice to those who refuse to remain silent by risking punishment for their political actions.

Policing Dissent

Policing Dissent PDF Author: Luis Fernandez
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813544742
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
In November 1999, fifty-thousand anti-globalization activists converged on Seattle to shut down the World Trade Organization’s Ministerial Meeting. Using innovative and network-based strategies, the protesters left police flummoxed, desperately searching for ways to control the emerging anti-corporate globalization movement. Faced with these network-based tactics, law enforcement agencies transformed their policing and social control mechanisms to manage this new threat. Policing Dissent provides a firsthand account of the changing nature of control efforts employed by law enforcement agencies when confronted with mass activism. The book also offers readers the richness of experiential detail and engaging stories often lacking in studies of police practices and social movements. This book does not merely seek to explain the causal relationship between repression and mobilization. Rather, it shows how social control strategies act on the mind and body of protesters.

Revolutionary Dissent

Revolutionary Dissent PDF Author: Stephen D. Solomon
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466879394
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
When members of the founding generation protested against British authority, debated separation, and then ratified the Constitution, they formed the American political character we know today-raucous, intemperate, and often mean-spirited. Revolutionary Dissent brings alive a world of colorful and stormy protests that included effigies, pamphlets, songs, sermons, cartoons, letters and liberty trees. Solomon explores through a series of chronological narratives how Americans of the Revolutionary period employed robust speech against the British and against each other. Uninhibited dissent provided a distinctly American meaning to the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and press at a time when the legal doctrine inherited from England allowed prosecutions of those who criticized government. Solomon discovers the wellspring in our revolutionary past for today's satirists like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, and protests like flag burning and street demonstrations. From the inflammatory engravings of Paul Revere, the political theater of Alexander McDougall, the liberty tree protests of Ebenezer McIntosh and the oratory of Patrick Henry, Solomon shares the stories of the dissenters who created the American idea of the liberty of thought. This is truly a revelatory work on the history of free expression in America.

Hell No

Hell No PDF Author: Michael Ratner
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1595587500
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
“Compelling and useful reading” for activists, protest groups, and individuals, from America’s leading constitutional rights group (Booklist). In the age of terrorism and under the current administration, the United States has become a much more dangerous place—for activists and dissenters, whose First Amendment rights are all too frequently abridged by the government. In Hell No, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the country’s leading public interest law organization, offers a timely report on government attacks on dissent and protest in the United States, along with a readable and essential guide for activists, teachers, grandmothers, and anyone else who wants to oppose government policies and actions. Hell No explores the current situation of attacks upon and criminalization of dissent and protest, from the surveillance of activists to the disruption of demonstrations, from the labeling of protestors as “terrorists,” to the jailing of those the government claims are giving “material support” to its perceived enemies. Offering detailed, hands-on advice on everything from “Sneak and Peek” searches to “Can the Government Monitor My Text Messages?” and what to do “If an Agent Knocks,” Hell No lays out several key responses that every person should know in order to protect themselves from government surveillance and interference with their rights. Concluding with the controversial 2008 Mukasey FBI Guidelines, which currently regulate the government’s domestic response to dissent, Hell No is an indispensable tool in the effort to give free speech and protest meaning in a post-9/11 world.

Criminalizing Dissent

Criminalizing Dissent PDF Author: Rob Watts
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351039563
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
While liberal-democratic states like America, Britain and Australia claim to value freedom of expression and the right to dissent, they have always actually criminalized dissent. This disposition has worsened since 9/11 and the 2008 Great Recession. This ground-breaking study shows that just as dissent involves far more than protest marches, so too liberal-democratic states have expanded the criminalization of dissent. Drawing on political and social theorists like Arendt, Bourdieu and Isin, the book offers a new way of thinking about politics, dissent and its criminalization relationally. Using case studies like the Occupy movement, selective refusal by Israeli soldiers, urban squatters, democratic education and violence by anti-Apartheid activists, the book highlights the many forms dissent takes along with the many ways liberal-democratic states criminalize it. The book highlights the mix of fear and delusion in play when states privilege security to protect an imagined ‘political order’ from difference and disagreement. The book makes a major contribution to political theory, legal studies and sociology. Linking legal, political and normative studies in new ways, Watts shows that ultimately liberal-democracies rely more on sovereignty and the capacity for coercion and declarations of legal ‘states of exception’ than on liberal-democratic principles. In a time marked by a deepening crisis of democracy, the book argues dissent is increasingly valuable.

From Dissent to Democracy

From Dissent to Democracy PDF Author: Jonathan C. Pinckney
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190097337
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Peaceful protest is a strong driver for democratization across the globe. Yet, it doesn't always lead to democratic transition, as seen in the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt or Yemen. Why do some nonviolent transitions end in democracy while others do not? In From Dissent to Democracy, Jonathan Pinckney systematically examines transitions initiated by nonviolent resistance campaigns and argues that two key factors explain whether or not democracy will follow such efforts. First, a movement must sustain high levels of social mobilization. Second, it must direct that mobilization away from revolutionary "maximalist" goals and tactics and towards support for new institutions. Pinckney tests his theory by presenting a global statistical analysis of all political transitions from 1945-2011 and three case studies from Nepal, Zambia, and Brazil. Original and empirically rigorous, this book provides new insights into the intersection of democratization and nonviolent resistance and gives actionable recommendations for how to encourage democratic transitions.

Policing Indigenous Movements

Policing Indigenous Movements PDF Author: Andrew Crosby
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
ISBN: 1773630458
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
In recent years, Indigenous peoples have lead a number of high profile movements fighting for social and environmental justice in Canada. From land struggles to struggles against resource extraction, pipeline development and fracking, land and water defenders have created a national discussion about these issues and successfully slowed the rate of resource extraction. But their success has also meant an increase in the surveillance and policing of Indigenous peoples and their movements. In Policing Indigenous Movements, Crosby and Monaghan use the Access to Information Act to interrogate how policing and other security agencies have been monitoring, cataloguing and working to silence Indigenous land defenders and other opponents of extractive capitalism. Through an examination of four prominent movements — the long-standing conflict involving the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, the struggle against the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Idle No More movement and the anti-fracking protests surrounding the Elsipogtog First Nation — this important book raises critical questions regarding the expansion of the security apparatus, the normalization of police surveillance targeting social movements, the relationship between police and energy corporations, the criminalization of dissent and threats to civil liberties and collective action in an era of extractive capitalism and hyper surveillance. In one of the most comprehensive accounts of contemporary government surveillance, the authors vividly demonstrate that it is the norms of settler colonialism that allow these movements to be classified as national security threats and the growing network of policing, governmental, and private agencies that comprise what they call the security state.