A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America

By Michael Parks, AlterNet
Posted on June 21, 2007, Printed on June 22, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/54214/

Ninety years ago, the U.S. government used the Espionage Act to jail hundreds of Americans for speaking out against World War I. Shortly after the war, during America's first Red Scare, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer authorized arrests of thousands of citizens, primarily immigrants, suspected of being Communists. These First Amendment abuses led to the foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and set the stage for what has been a nearly century-long struggle for the realization of every American's right to freedom of speech.

In his book From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America, Christopher A. Finan chronicles how far we have come since World War I and how far we have yet to go. As the chair of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the president of the American Booksellers' Foundation for Free Expression, which has played an active role in lobbying against the USA Patriot Act since 9/11, Finan has over two decades of personal experience with his subject.