What are the national security arguments made for The Espionage and Sedition Acts during WWI?

The United States had many European immigrants in the era leading up to WWI.  While most of America sided with the Allies in the war, there were many German Americans, Austrian Americans, and Irish Americans who wanted to see the Entente Powers fail.  There was also worry over work stoppages as after 1917 many industrialists feared a proletarian revolution.  The State Department knew that Germany had spies in the United States, and many were even operating out of the German Embassy.  They were responsible for sabotage, with their most successful attack taking place at Black Tom in New Jersey, where German saboteurs destroyed a munitions plant.  
By making it easier to deport these Americans if they were suspected of helping the Central Powers, the United States hoped to ensure that its men and supplies reached the front in a timely manner.  Many were jailed on the grounds of sedition for speaking out against the war and the draft.  Eugene Debs was incarcerated for saying that the war was only making capitalists on both sides rich.   After the war, the act was continued in an attempt to try to stop a communist takeover of the government.  Many communists and anarchists were deported back to the Soviet Union in the early 1920s.