Woodrow Wilson

Wilson's wartime record is among the worst for free speech: the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 led to around 2,000 prosecutions, including Eugene Debs's ten-year sentence for an anti-war speech, and the Post Office barred radical publications from the mails. The Palmer Raids of 1919 and 1920, under his attorney general, detained thousands of suspected radicals and deported hundreds. He also segregated the federal civil service. The Espionage Act remains in use against leakers today.