# A text-only poster warning of death or thirty years for five acts

A text-only warning poster catalogued at 1941 prints "In time of war you are liable to punishment by death or imprisonment for not more than 30 years," with "YOU" and "DEATH" in large red type, followed by five numbered acts and "Know the law for your protection." No issuer is printed. NAID 514622.

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- A text-only poster warning of death or thirty years for five acts

      In time of war you are liable to punishment by death or imprisonment for not more than thirty years

      A text-only poster warning of death or thirty years for five acts
      A 1941 text poster: "In time of war you are liable to punishment by death or imprisonment for not more than 30 years" for five listed acts. No issuer

## Techniques named on the archive record

Fear appeal
      Date1941Made byIssuer not printedMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514622; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) Issuer not printed. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-1095 (NAID 514622).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  A text-only warning poster catalogued at 1941 prints "In time of war you are liable to punishment by death or imprisonment for not more than 30 years," with "YOU" and "DEATH" in large red type, followed by five numbered acts and "Know the law for your protection." No issuer is printed. NAID 514622.

## What the sheet prints

No illustration appears. Two words are set far larger than the rest, in red: the reader, and the penalty. Between double borders the sheet lists five kinds of conduct and closes with advice.

IN TIME OF WAR

YOU

ARE LIABLE TO PUNISHMENT BY

DEATH

OR IMPRISONMENT FOR NOT MORE THAN 30 YEARS

FOR

PERFORMING ACTS WITH INTENT TO INJURE THE UNITED STATES OR TO THE ADVANTAGE OF FOREIGN NATIONS. AS FOLLOWS:

1 Obtaining or helping to obtain vital information concerning military installations.

2 Obtaining, willfully, photographs, blue-prints or documents.

3 Intrusting, willfully, information to unauthorized parties.

4 Permitting through gross negligence, military information to be stolen or destroyed.

5 Disclosing information affecting national defense to a foreign government or its agents.

KNOW THE LAW FOR YOUR PROTECTION

FRAME transcription, with line breaks joined. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. National Archives NAID 514622.

## Who issued it

The sheet prints no issuer and the record does not supply one. The National Archives holds it in Record Group 44 as 44-PA-1095. The archive slug calls it an espionage-law poster, but the sheet itself names no statute, section, or court. FRAME lists the purpose as warning or informing, the themes as security and home front, and tags one device, fear appeal.

## How to read it

A government is right to tell people what the law forbids. Spying for a foreign power is a real crime, and a notice that says so is not propaganda simply for existing. The issue is how this notice says it.

The typography does the arguing. "YOU" and "DEATH" are the words a passerby takes away. The qualifiers that actually limit the law, "with intent to injure the United States" and "willfully," are in small type. Item 4 goes further and reaches "gross negligence," which is not intent at all. A worker who glances at this sheet learns that he could be executed; he is less likely to learn that, by the sheet's own wording, most of the listed acts require intent.

The closing line, "Know the law for your protection," is the strangest part. The poster does not give the law. It gives a summary with no citation, so a reader who wanted to know exactly what was forbidden had nowhere to look. Due process starts with laws people can find and read. A notice that frightens without citing is asking for caution in place of understanding.

The earlier wartime use of espionage law against speech is covered on the Committee on Public Information page, and the 1917 statute and the prosecutions under it on the First World War censorship page.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, In time of war you are liable to punishment by death or imprisonment for not more than thirty years, catalogued 1941. Issuer not printed.

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, NAID 514622 (44-PA-1095), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/in-time-of-war-you-death-espionage-law-1941/