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When a state officially declares war on another state, it unofficially declares war on a second front: domestic dissidents. The dynamics of the latter can be seen by tracking one of the most powerful phenomena of the last century: the Red Scare(s). Anti-communist hysteria followed World War I and did not cease until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. One law epitomized the dynamics: The Alien Registration Act of 1940.
Most often called the Smith Act, after Congressman Howard Smith (D-Va.), the Alien Registration Act is a federal statute that required all adult non-U.S. residents to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service; it also made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of any U.S. government, including a “State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein.”
It said that anyone who “knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government” was ...
Should the feds be permitted to treat anyone who is not a choirboy like a criminal suspect? Unfortunately, local, state, and federal agencies have a long history of targeting, harassing, and entrapping fans of untraditional music. Because so many innocuous activities have become criminalized in recent decades, it has never been easier for the feds to tar any group they please. Precedents established against devotees of unruly music could be used in the future against peaceful libertarians.
From the 1930s onwards, the feds often went after jazz musicians in part because of their frequent use of marijuana — which was proscribed nationally by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. After the end of Prohibition, there were plenty of unemployed federal agents, and the launch of a new war — spurred by films such as Reefer Madness — provided full employment for meddlers with guns and badges.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the feds launched vendettas against Grateful Dead fans. Although the ...
