Reply #5: the Alien and Sedition acts were a direct threat to American rights early

[NoodleBoy]

on. They made the waiting period for naturalised immigrants to vote 14 years instead of 7 to try to discourage them from participating at all, and they made some forms of criticism of the government treasonable offences.

Fortunately, they had a sunset, much like the current Patriot Act. We can only hope that there'll be many more Freedom Fries conversions in the next week to defeat that hoorid piece of legislation.