When I start going off about Eric Holder declaring Freedom Road a terrorist organization (while the NRA continues on - business as usual) it is things like the Palmer Raids that are informing my view. These were under a democratic president (Wilson) in the early decades of the 1900s.
1918 - The Sedition Act, a further refinement of the Espionage Act, was passed. This wide-ranging law made it illegal to criticize the government or hamper the war effort in almost any manner. Thus many labor activists, dissidents and radicals became the targets of government prosecutors. To be a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union put one at the risk of deportation. Anyone found violating these acts could be fined up to $10,000 and/or sentenced up to twenty years in jail. Rose Pastor Stokes, Eugene V. Debs, Victor Berger and Emma Goldman were notable individuals that were arrested and charged under these laws.
The Palmer Raids took place during November 1919 and January 1920. The U.S. Department of Justice, under the leadership of the Attorney General Alexander M. Palmer, sought to arrest and/or deport all radicals and anarchists living in the United States. Palmer used his connections with officials in the Labor Department and Bureau of Immigration to establish probable cause on those affiliated with any labor, socialist, anarchist, or Russian immigrant groups. The main purpose of the raids was to purge the United States of anarchists and radical socialists; however, while many of those deported (over 500 in total) were anarchists, many were simply members of immigrant organizations such as the Union of Russian Laborers.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/worldwidemovements/uspalmerraids/bio.html
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