sedition

1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
2. Insurrection; rebellion.

[Middle English sedicioun, violent party strife, from Old French sedition, from Latin sēditiō, sēditiōn- : sēd-, sē-, apart + itiō, act of going (from itus, past participle of īre, to go).]

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noun

1. Organized opposition intended to change or overthrow existing authority: insurgence, insurgency, insurrection, mutiny, rebellion, revolt, revolution, uprising. See resist/yield.
2. Willful violation of allegiance to one's country: seditiousness, traitorousness, treason. See trust/distrust.

n.conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

A revolt or an incitement to revolt against established authority, usually in the form of treason or defamation against government.

Sedition is the crime of revolting or inciting revolt against government. However, because of the broad protection of free speech under the First Amendment, prosecutions for sedition are rare. Nevertheless, sedition remains a crime in the United States under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2384 (1948), a federal statute that punishes seditious conspiracy, and 18 U.S.C.A. § 2385 (1948), which outlaws advocating the overthrow of the federal government by force. Generally, a person may be punished for sedition only when he or she makes statements that create a clear and present danger to rights that the government may lawfully protect (Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 [1919]).

The crime of seditious conspiracy is committed when two or more persons in any state or U.S. territory conspire to levy war against the U.S. government. A person commits the crime of advocating the violent overthrow of the federal government when she willfully advocates or teaches the overthrow of the government by force, publishes material that advocates the overthrow of the government by force, or organizes persons to overthrow the government by force. A person found guilty of seditious conspiracy or advocating the overthrow of the government may be fined and sentenced to up to twenty years in prison. States also maintain laws that punish similar advocacy and conspiracy against the state government.

Governments have made sedition illegal since time immemorial. The precise acts that constitute sedition have varied. In the United States, Congress in the late eighteenth century believed that government should be protected from "false, scandalous and malicious" criticisms. Toward this end, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, which authorized the criminal prosecution of persons who wrote or spoke falsehoods about the government, Congress, the president, or the vice president. The act was to expire with the term of President John Adams.

The Sedition Act failed miserably. Thomas Jefferson opposed the act, and after he was narrowly elected president in 1800, public opposition to the act grew. The act expired in 1801, but not before it was used by President Adams to prosecute numerous public supporters of Jefferson, his challenger in the presidential election of 1800. One writer, Matthew Lyon, a congressman from Vermont, was found guilty of seditious libel for stating, in part, that he would not be the "humble advocate" of the Adams administration when he saw "every consideration of the public welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice" (Lyon's Case, 15 F. Cas. 1183 [D. Vermont 1798] [No. 8646]). Vermont voters reelected Lyon while he was in jail. Jefferson, after winning the election and assuming office, pardoned all persons convicted under the act.

In the 1820s and 1830s, as the movement to abolish slavery grew in size and force in the South, Southern states began to enact seditious libel laws. Most of these laws were used to prosecute persons critical of slavery, and they were abolished after the Civil War. The federal government was no less defensive; Congress enacted seditious conspiracy laws before the Civil War aimed at persons advocating secession from the United States. These laws were the precursors to the present-day federal seditious conspiracy statute.

In the late nineteenth century, Congress and states began to enact new limits on speech, most notably statutes prohibiting obscenity. At the outset of World War I, Congress passed legislation designed to suppress antiwar speech. The Espionage Act of 1917 (ch. 30, tit. 1, § 3, 40 Stat. 219), as amended by ch. 75, § 1, 40 Stat 553, put a number of pacificists into prison. Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs was convicted for making an antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio (Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211, 39 S. Ct. 252, 63 L. Ed. 566 [1919]). Charles T. Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were convicted for circulating to military recruits a leaflet that advocated opposition to the draft and suggested that the draft violated the Thirteenth Amendment's ban on involuntary servitude (Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 [1919]).

The U.S. Supreme Court did little to protect the right to criticize the government until after 1927. That year, Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote an influential concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 47 S. Ct. 641, 71 L. Ed. 1095 (1927), that was to guide First Amendment jurisprudence for years to come. In Whitney the High Court upheld the convictions of political activists for violation of federal anti-syndicalism laws, or laws that prohibit the teaching of crime. In his concurring opinion, Brandeis maintained that even if a person advocates violation of the law, "it is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on." Beginning in the 1930s, the Court became more protective of political free speech rights.

Through the 1970s the High Court became more rigorous in its examination of statutes and prosecutions targeting sedition. The High Court has protected the speech of racial supremacists and separatists, labor organizers, advocates of racial integration, and opponents of the draft for the war in Vietnam. However, it has refused to declare unconstitutional all sedition statutes and prosecutions. In 1940, to silence radicals and quell Nazi or communist subversion during the burgeoning Second World War, Congress enacted the Smith Act (18 U.S.C.A. §§ 2385, 2387), which outlawed sedition and seditious conspiracy. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the act in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S. Ct. 857, 95 L. Ed. 1137 (1951).

Sedition prosecutions are extremely rare, but they do occur. Shortly after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, the federal government prosecuted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric living in New Jersey, and nine codefendants on charges of seditious conspiracy. Rahman and the other defendants were convicted of violating the seditious conspiracy statute by engaging in an extensive plot to wage a war of terrorism against the United States. With the exception of Rahman, they all were arrested while mixing explosives in a garage in Queens, New York, on June 24, 1993.

The defendants committed no overt acts of war, but all were found to have taken substantial steps toward carrying out a plot to levy war against the United States. The government did not have sufficient evidence that Rahman participated in the actual plotting against the government or any other activities to prepare for terrorism. He was instead prosecuted for providing religious encouragement to his coconspirators. Rahman argued that he only performed the function of a cleric and advised followers about the rules of Islam. He and the others were convicted, and on January 17, 1996, Rahman was sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Michael Mukasey.

See: Cold War; Communism; Dennis v. United States; Freedom of Speech; Schenck v. United States; Socialism.

(DOD) Willfully advocating or teaching the duty or necessity of overthrowing the US government or any political subdivision by force or violence. See also counterintelligence.

Acts that incite rebellion or civil disorder against an established government.

This is about the law term. For other uses see Sedition (disambiguation)

Sedition is a term of law which refers to overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.

Typically, sedition is considered a subversive act, and the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another. Where the history of these legal codes has been traced, there is also a record of the change in the definition of the elements constituting sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within the study of state persecution.

The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).

Sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state, giving aid to enemies, or levying war against one's state. Sedition is encouraging one's fellow citizens to rebel against their state, whereas treason is actually betraying one's country by aiding and abetting another state. Sedition laws somewhat equate to terrorism and public order laws.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Australia 1.2 Canada 1.3 New Zealand 1.4 United Kingdom 1.5 United States 1.5.1 Civilian 1.5.2 Military 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References

History

Sedition in its modern meaning first appeared in the Elizabethan Era (c. 1590) as the "notion of inciting by words or writings disaffection towards the state or constituted authority". "Sedition complements treason and martial law: while treason controls primarily the privileged, ecclesiastical opponents, priests, and Jesuits, as well as certain commoners; and martial law frightens commoners, sedition frightens intellectuals."

Australia

Main article: Australian sedition law

Australia's sedition laws were amended in anti-terrorism legislation passed on 6 December 2005, updating definitions and increasing penalties.

In late 2006, the Howard government proposed plans to amend Australia's Crimes Act 1914, introducing laws that mean artists and writers may be jailed for up to seven years if their work was considered seditious or inspired sedition either deliberately or accidentally.^[1] Opponents of these laws have suggested that they could be used against legitimate dissent.

In 2006, the then Australian attorney-general Philip Ruddock had rejected calls by two reports — from a Senate committee and the Australian Law Reform Commission — to limit the sedition provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 by requiring proof of intention to cause disaffection or violence. He had also brushed aside recommendations to curtail new clauses outlawing “urging conduct” that “assists” an “organisation or country engaged in armed hostilities” against the Australian military. The new laws, inserted into the legislation December 2005, allow for the criminalization of basic expressions of political opposition, including supporting resistance to Australian military interventions, such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Asia-Pacific region. ^[2]

Canada

During World War II former Mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde campaigned against conscription in Canada. On August 2, 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the National Registration Act. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition. After being found guilty, he was confined in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario, and Gagetown, New Brunswick, until 1944. Upon his release on August 18, 1944, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 50,000 Montrealers and won back his position as the Mayor of Montreal in the election in 1944.^{[citation needed]}

New Zealand

Sedition charges were not uncommon in New Zealand early in the 20th Century. For instance, the future Prime Minister Peter Fraser had been convicted of sedition in his youth for arguing against conscription during World War I, and was imprisoned for a year. Perhaps ironically, Fraser re-introduced the conscription of troops as the Prime Minister during World War II.^[3]

In New Zealand's first sedition trial in decades, Tim Selwyn was convicted of sedition (section 83 of the Crimes Act 1961) on 8 June 2006. Shortly after, in September 2006, the New Zealand Police laid a sedition charge against a Rotorua youth, Christopher Russell, 17, who was also charged with threatening to kill^[4]. The Police withdrew the sedition charge when Russell agreed to plead guilty on the other charge^[5].

In March 2007, Mark Paul Deason, the manager of a tavern near the University of Otago, was charged with seditious intent^[6] although he was later granted diversion when he pleaded guilty to publishing a document which encourages public disorder^[7] Deason ran a promotion for his tavern that offered one litre of beer for one litre of petrol. At the end of the promotion, the prize would have been a couch soaked in the petrol. It is presumed the intent was for the couch to be burned — a popular university student prank. Police also applied for Deason's liquor license to be revoked.

Following a recommendation from the New Zealand Law Commission^[8], the New Zealand government announced on 7 May 2007 that the sedition law would be repealed^[9]. The Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Act 2007 was passed on 24 October 2007, and entered into force on 1 January 2008. ^[10]

United Kingdom

The last prosecution for sedition in the United Kingdom was in 1972, when three people were charged with seditious conspiracy and uttering seditious words for attempting to recruit people to travel to Northern Ireland to fight in support of local Catholics. The seditious conspiracy charge was dropped, but the men received suspended sentences for uttering seditious words and for offences against the Public Order Act.^[11]

In 1977, a Law Commission working paper recommended that the common law offence of sedition in England and Wales be abolished. They said that they thought that this offence was redundant and that it was not necessary to have any offence of sedition.^[11] However this proposal was not implemented until 2009, when sedition and seditious libel were abolished by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010).^[12]

United States

Civilian

There have been 24 attempts in the United States to regulate speech that has been deemed seditious. In 1798, President John Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, the fourth of which, the Sedition Act or "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States" set out punishments of up to two years of imprisonment for "opposing or resisting any law of the United States" or writing or publishing "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the President or the U.S. Congress, but specifically not the Vice-President. This Act of Congress was allowed to expire in 1801 after the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency. He had been the Vice-President at the time of the Act's passage.

In the Espionage Act of 1917, Section 3 made it a crime, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000, to willfully spread false news of the American army and navy with an intent to disrupt their operations, to foment mutiny in their ranks, or to obstruct recruiting. This Act of Congress was amended Sedition Act of 1918, which expanded the scope of the Espionage Act to any statement criticizing the Government of the United States. These Acts were upheld in 1919 in the case of Schenck v. United States, but they were largely repealed in 1921, leaving laws forbidding foreign espionage in the United States and allowing military censorship of sensitive material.

In 1940, the Alien Registration Act, or "Smith Act", was passed, which made it a crime to advocate or to teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same. It was often used against Communist Party organizations. This Act was invoked in three major cases, one of which against the Socialist Worker's Party in Minneapolis in 1941, resulting in 23 convictions, and again in what became known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 in which a number of pro-Nazi figures were indicted but released when the prosecution ended in a mistrial. Also, a series of trials of 140 leaders of the Communist Party USA also relied upon the terms of the "Smith Act" - beginning in 1949 - and lasting until 1957. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 11 CPUSA leaders in 1951, that same Court reversed itself in 1957 in the case of Yates v. United States, by ruling that teaching an ideal, no matter how harmful it may seem, does not equal advocating or planning its implementation. Although unused since at least 1961, the "Smith Act" remains a Federal law.

Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Mexico was investigated for sedition in September 2005^[13] after writing a letter^[14][15] to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence. Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation. Ms. Berg was represented by the ACLU^[16]. Charges were dropped in 2006[1].

Military

Sedition is a punishable offense under the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 94^[17].

See also

• Betrayal
• CIA
• Coup d'état
• Dictatorship
• Espionage
• Fascism
• FBI
• Free speech
• Guerrilla warfare
• Kangaroo court
• Mutiny
• Police State
• Political repression
• Propaganda
• Rebellion
• Resistance movement
• Sedition Act
• Seditious libel
• Single-party state
• Terrorism
• Totalitarianism
• Treason

Notes

1. ^ Satire used to counter new sedition laws, ABC's Lateline transcript, 24 October 2006
2. ^ Australia’s new Sedition Laws, Mike Head, World Socialist Web Site, 27 October 2006
3. ^ Today in History: 22 December 1916 - Future PM Fraser charged with sedition, nzhistory.net.nz, History Group of the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
4. ^ Law advice body wants to scrap crime of sedition, New Zealand Herald, 17 October 2006
5. ^ Sedition by Example XXII: Christopher Russell, No Right Turn weblog, 28 February 2007
6. ^ Police move to cancel 'beer-for-petrol' publican's licence, Infonews.co.nz, 11 April 2007
7. ^ Diversion over petrol-soaked couch promo, Crime.co.nz, 29 March 2007
8. ^ Law Commission recommends abolition of seditious offencesPDF (68.8 KiB), New Zealand Law Commission, 5 April 2007
9. ^ "Sedition law to be repealed". Radio New Zealand. 2007-05-07. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200705071751/sedition_law_to_be_repealed. Retrieved 2007-05-05. 
10. ^ "New Zealand repeals sedition law". Wikinews. 2007-10-24. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/New_Zealand_repeals_sedition_law. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 
11. ^ ^{a b} The Law Commission, Treason, Sedition and Allied Offences (Working Paper No.72), paragraph 47 [1977] EWLC C72, BAILII
12. ^ Coroners and Justice Act 2009
13. ^ VA nurse's letter to newspaper prompts sedition probe, Associated Press, published on First Amendment Center, February 8, 2006
14. ^ Big Brother is Watching: A letter printed in the Alibi leads to the investigation of a local VA nurse for "sedition", Alibi.com, February 9 – February 15, 2006
15. ^ Speaking Truth to Power: An interview with Laura Berg, Alibi.com, March 9 – March 15, 2006
16. ^ ACLU of New Mexico defends VA employee accused of ‘Sedition’ over criticism of Bush Administration, ACLU, January 31, 2006
17. ^ http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/usc_sec_10_00000894----000-.html Uniform Code of Military Justice

References

Wikinews has related news: Auckland man convicted of sedition

• Breight, Curtis, C. Surveillance, militarism and drama in the Elizabethan Era, Macmillian 1996: London.
• A synopsis of the Australian sedition lawsPDF

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - tilskyndelse til oprør

Nederlands (Dutch)
opruiing

Français (French)
n. - sédition

Deutsch (German)
n. - Aufruhr

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εξέγερση, στάση, προτροπή σε εξέγερση

Italiano (Italian)
sedizione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - sedição (f), rebelião (f)

Русский (Russian)
подстрекательство к бунту, восстание

Español (Spanish)
n. - sedición

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - upproriskhet, uppvigling, upprorsanda

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
煽动骚乱, 骚动, 妨害治安

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 煽動騷亂, 騷動, 妨害治安

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 선동, 치안방해, 폭동 교사 행위

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 煽動

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تحريض على ألفتنه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮המרדה, הסתה, חרחור ריב, תסיסה נגד סמכות המדינה, שיסוי‬

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