To the Editor:

In any time, troubling or not, it can be instructive to view current events within a combined legal and historical prism.

Here's one, very brief case in point that seems to have relevance in our troubled times:

Sedition: acts, deeds, writing, or speeches that can, even if not intended, stir up the peace of the state or that move the people to dislike, resist, or subvert the government of the day. (Collins Dictionary of Law, copyright W.J. Stewart, 2006)

Sedition is, of course, considered less egregious than espionage and treason.

Federal prosecutions for sedition are extremely rare and the last such successful case was taken against the participants of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

A 1927 ruling of the Supreme Court (Whitney v. California) upheld the primacy of the First Amendment right to criticize the government and relegated the legal enforcement of sedition to those acts that advocate incitement where the advocacy would be immediately acted upon.

Respectfully yours,

Peter McLoughlin

26 Pleasant Hill Road, Newtown         May 31, 2017