In 1845, the State of New York passed a law which forbade the wearing of masks. It authorized the pursuit and arrest of anyone who "having his face painted, discolored, covered or concealed, or being otherwise disguised, in a manner calculated to prevent him from being identified, shall appear in any road or public highway, or in any field, lot, wood, or enclosure."

It was originally adopted to thwart armed insurrections by Hudson Valley tenant farmers who dressed and painted themselves as Native Americans to attack law enforcement officers over rent issues. The law was then shelved for most of the 20th Century until 1965, when it was used to criminalize transvestites and drag queens who wore too much make-up for the authorities to bear.

More recently, the law has resurfaced in two contexts: At a KKK rally in 2001 and during the large-scale protests of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in January 2002. In the last year, through efforts of the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the New York Civil Liberties Union, the mask law was temporarily overturned as a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. In January 2004, just 15 days after the RNC signed on to NYC, the mask law was reinstated.