Please join us for a lecture by Sam Lebovic, George Mason University

State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America’s Secrecy Regime

The Espionage Act is one of the most controversial laws in U.S. history, having been used not only to punish spies, but also to prosecute dissidents during World War 1 and leakers of classified information today. Tracing the surprising evolution of this confusing law over more than a century, this talk will reveal a fundamental shift in the way that the national security state has sought to police U.S. debate about foreign policy: where once the state used the Espionage Act to censor speech, today it uses the same law to keep secrets. The resulting secrecy regime – improvised, sprawling, flawed – poses real threats to American democracy, and is in dire need of reform.

Sam Lebovic is a professor of history at George Mason University, where he specializes in the histories of U.S. politics, culture, civil liberties, and foreign relations. His most recent book is State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America’s Secrecy Regime (Basic, 2023), which was named a best book of 2023 by the New Yorker and was a finalist for the ABA's Silver Gavel Award. He currently serves as co-editor of the Journal of Social History.