It started in 1919. It was ruled in the Schenk case that the Espionage Act (1917) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917) did not violate the freedom of speech of those convicted under it. Schenk mailed out anti-draft leaflets during WW1, and jailed for it. Per wikipedia:
'The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional. The First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging insubordination, because, "when a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."'
So, precedent: freedom of speech doesn't apply if it impairs the ability of the state to wage war.
The next step was the gradual institutionalization of a permanent on-going state of war. This has been sliding into place since WW2, from the early days of the Cold War onwards, by way of the gradual militarization of the federal system; from the outside, the USA of today looks like an Imperial colossus, out-spending the rest of the planet on weapons (and out-deploying it, too).
Where you have a permanent state of war you have a permanent justification for emergency authority (as Orwell observed in 1984 -- what did "We have always been at war with EastAsia really signify?"). So wartime regulations overriding normal constitutional protections become embedded.
Finally, we have the virtualization of the permanent state of war: from a war stance pointed at a concrete enemy with tanks and nuclear missiles, to a war on an abstraction, "terror", which is drawn so widely that it leads to officials making statements like this: "We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously ... But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism."
Wasn't that ruling overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio in order to protect members of the KKK from arrest? (US history is really pretty awful sometimes.)
'The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional. The First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging insubordination, because, "when a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."'
So, precedent: freedom of speech doesn't apply if it impairs the ability of the state to wage war.
The next step was the gradual institutionalization of a permanent on-going state of war. This has been sliding into place since WW2, from the early days of the Cold War onwards, by way of the gradual militarization of the federal system; from the outside, the USA of today looks like an Imperial colossus, out-spending the rest of the planet on weapons (and out-deploying it, too).
Where you have a permanent state of war you have a permanent justification for emergency authority (as Orwell observed in 1984 -- what did "We have always been at war with EastAsia really signify?"). So wartime regulations overriding normal constitutional protections become embedded.
Finally, we have the virtualization of the permanent state of war: from a war stance pointed at a concrete enemy with tanks and nuclear missiles, to a war on an abstraction, "terror", which is drawn so widely that it leads to officials making statements like this: "We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously ... But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism."
Source: http://www.alternet.org/environment/tennessee-official-says-...
It's a slippery slope, but the USA is already surprisingly far down it -- the bottom is within reach already!