"The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.

Examining the relationship between sedition and liberal democracies, particularly in India, this book looks at the biography of sedition laws, its contradictory position against free speech, and democratic ethics. Recent sedition cases registered in India show that the law in its wide and diverse deployment was used against agitators in a community-based pro-reservation movement, group of university students for their alleged ‘anti-national’ statements, anti-liquor activists, and anti-nuclear movement, to name a few. Set against its contemporary use, this book has used sedition as a lens to probe the fate of political speech in liberal democracy. The lived reality of the law of sedition in changing anthropological sites is juxtaposed with its positivist existence. Anushka Singh uses a comparative framework keeping in focus the Indian experience backed by fieldwork in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Delhi, and includes a comparative perspective from England, the USA, and Australia to contribute to debates on sedition within liberal democracies at large, especially in the wake of the proliferation of counter-terror legislations.

The Indian Penal Code was formulated in 1860, three years after the first Indian revolt for independence. It was the country's first-ever codification of offences and penalties. But it was only in 1870 that Section 124A was slipped into Chapter VI ('Of Offences against the State'), defining the offence of 'Sedition' in a statute for the first time in the history of common law. When India became independent in 1947, the Constituent Assembly expressed strong reservations against sedition as a restriction on free speech as it had been used as a weapon against freedom fighters, many of whom were a part of the Assembly. Nehru vocally opposed it. And yet, not only has Section 124A survived, it has been widely used against popular movements and individuals speaking up against the establishment. Where did this law come from? How did it evolve? And what place does it have in a mature democracy? Concise, incisive and thoughtful, The Great Repression by Chitranshul Sinha, an advocate on record of the Supreme Court of India, tells the story of this outdated colonial-era law.

Our Documents is a collection of 100 documents that the staff of the National Archives has judged most important to the development of the United States. The entry for each document includes a short introduction, a facsimile, and a transcript of the document. Backmatter includes further reading, credits, and index. The book is part of the much larger Our Documents initiative sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National History Day, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the USA Freedom Corps.

This collection of essays looks at over 200 major court cases, at both state and federal levels, from the colonial period to the present. Organized thematically, the articles range from 1,000 to 5,000 words and include recent topics such as the Microsoft antitrust case, the O.J. Simpson trials, and the Clinton impeachment. This new edition includes 43 new essays as well as updates throughout, with end-of-essay bibliographies and indexes by case and subject/name.

Most American historians and legal scholars incorrectly assume that controversies and litigation about free speech began abruptly during World War I. However, there was substantial debate about free speech issues between the Civil War and World War I. Important free speech controversies, often involving the activities of sex reformers and labor unions, preceded the Espionage Act of 1917. Scores of legal cases presented free speech issues to Justices Holmes and Brandeis. A significant organization, the Free Speech League, became a principled defender of free expression two decades before the establishment of the ACLU in 1920. World War I produced a major transformation in American liberalism. Progressives who had viewed constitutional rights as barriers to needed social reforms came to appreciate the value of political dissent during its wartime repression. They subsequently misrepresented the prewar judicial hostility to free speech claims and obscured prior libertarian defenses of free speech based on commitments to individual autonomy.

Considers legislation to limit Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over congressional investigations, Federal or state security programs, school board decisions on teacher subversive activity, or state bar association lawyer admission practices regarding subversive activity.