1/ #OTD IN COUNTERINTELLIGENCE & SECURITY HISTORY: On 21 Aug. 1776, the Continental Congress enacts the first law in America against espionage, authorizing the death penalty for the crime. The promulgation of this law was hastened by the continuing imprisonment of... 
2/ Dr. Benjamin Church, chief physician of the Continental Army - and a British spy. There was no civilian espionage act and the provisions of military law did not provide a sufficiently strong incentive against committing the crime. Although Congress had actually added the...
3/ death penalty for espionage to the Articles of War in Nov. 1775, the law was not applied retroactively, leaving Church in jail. The new law read, in part that those who "shall be found lurking as spies...shall suffer death..." In Feb. 1778, Congress broadened the definition...
4/ the definition to include 'any inhabitants of these states' whose intelligence activities resulted in the capture or death of "Patriots." Learn more here: cia.gov/library/public….
