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Two key areas come to mind. I will give you a brief description, but you'll want to try and figure them out on your own.

A) Discussing the Alien and Sedition Acts. There were 4 of them that were drawn up during the John Adams presidency, each having to deal with foreigners on US Soil, but the final one, the Sedition Act, made it a crime to make "false statements" against the federal government. But these acts were also bent in order to restrict people in a much broader context. Could be worth exploring.

B) The Espionage Act of 1917 criminalized certain types of actions and speech that hindered military recruitment during the First World War, however, it quickly was used to prosecute people outside this narrow scope. It has been renewed several times over the 20th century. It could be helpful to see the effects of this law and study the people it directly affected.