Explore how President Wilson’s crackdown on dissent during World War I, which was strengthened by the Sedition Act in 1918, put civil liberties at risk, in this video adapted from The Great War | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Anyone who spoke out against the United States government, the flag, or the armed forces could be arrested and/or imprisoned. This led to a “chilling effect” on civil liberties at the same time that the United States was fighting in a war to “make the world safe for democracy.”