Treason, Sedition and Offenses Against the State

Offenses that attack a state's own political authority, sovereignty or security from within, rather than violating the laws of war or seeking to terrorize a population for a cause. This group gathers treason and its lesser relatives sedition, misprision of treason and treachery; the historical offenses of lese-majeste and lese-nation, defamation against the dignity of a monarch or a nation; a violent uprising against government authority in its several named forms (insurrection, rebellion, a coup d'etat and its bloodless variant a soft coup); sabotage of a state's defense, production or infrastructure capability; criminal anarchy and seditious libel, historical offenses criminalizing advocacy against the government; wartime collaboration with an occupying enemy; and threatening the president of the United States as a modern statutory descendant of the same underlying concern for the safety and authority of a head of state. It excludes offenses against the laws of war or against humanity as such, which belong under War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Atrocity Law, even though a coup, rebellion or act of collaboration can sometimes also give rise to those offenses.