The First Amendment was not even a decade old when fear of influence on America by French agents was used to support the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. This outlawed "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the US government, Congress, or the president and made it illegal to conspire "to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States."

The weaponization of politics is another example of how hysteria over alleged foreign threats leads to less liberty. The claim that opponents of US government policy were serving interests of France is an early example. Sadly, critics of US government policy have been smeared for spreading disinformation to benefit hostile foreign powers many times since.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln oversaw the shutting down of newspapers and even the arresting of state legislators. After the US became involved in World War I, Congress passed a new Sedition Act banning "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" toward the military or US government. This act was used to imprison Eugene Debs, who then ran for president as the Socialist Party nominee while in prison.