The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees citizens the right to secure their home, papers, persons and effects from “unreasonable search and seizures,” a phrase that is often analogous with a person’s right to privacy. Additionally, the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights prevents the government from creating laws which inhibit or prevent a citizen’s right to speech and the free expression thereof. While such rights and privileges are held in highest regard, even these rights can be abridged when the greater good is at stake. Many critics and civil libertarians declare that such an act took place with the passage of the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Supporting America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act signed into law on October 26, 2001, a mere forty-five days after the terrorists on New York City and Washington, D.C., that occurred in September of the same year. Although many normal citizens and patrons of libraries supported and accepted the extension of the government’s wiretapping and surveillance privileges that had been expanded by sections of the PATRIOT Act of 2001, few realized the expansive powers of the intelligence community would include the government-sanctioned surveillance and data mining of private conversations between or amongst innocent civilians like themselves. Most alarming to librarians and information scientists is Section 215, the so-called “Library Provisions” section. Even fewer Americans realize that the most of the measures within the PATRIOT Act were merely amendments to pre-existing laws (Marcovitz 2008). One of the amended provisions was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) whose enactment occurred in 1978 after shocking ...
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In early June 2013, Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former defense contractor who had access to NSA database while working for an intelligence consulting company, leaked classified documents reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) is recording phone calls of millions of Americans along with gathering private data and spying foreign Internet activity. The Washington Post later broke the news disclosed PRISM, a program can collect data on Internet users. The leaked documents publicly stated a vast objection. Many people were shocked by the scale of the programs, even elected representatives were unaware of the surveillance range. A nationwide debate over privacy rights have been sparked. Although supporters claim that the NSA only does its best to protect the United States from terrorists as well as respecting Americans' rights and privacy, many civil rights advocates feel that the government failed to be clear about the limit of the surveillance programs, threatening Americans' civil...
The Patriot Act Pros and Cons is a topic that is much like a double-edged sword. On one hand many people feel they would like to be protected and feel that they will give up some ...
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"The USA Patriot Act: What's so Patriotic About Trampling on the Bill of Rights?" 12
Since September 11, 2001 many people can say that America has changed. Many people question if America has changed for the better or has it just gotten worse. Since the day those four planes crashed around the United States people’s lives have been changed. Many may not realize how their lives have changed, but with new laws passed life is different within America. The United States Patriot Act is one of the laws passed after 9/11: singed into order on October 26, 2001 just 45 days after the attack. The United States Patriot Act was put in place in order to protect Americans, yet has been affecting American’s civil liberties and caused controversy all over the United States.
While this paper will later explain the many and often repeated criticisms that the Patriot Act entails, it is very important to outline what the Patriot Act allows and what it brought into law. For starters, the original bill was a lengthy 320 pages and changed 15 federal laws so there was a massive overhaul in how security would function in what many considered to be a new nation. Essentially, the Patriot Act does an assortment of things. Though it may come off as paranoid to the people that say the government is watching you, this is true. The
When one hears the words National Security and Privacy together the terms Snowden, NSA, and Patriot Act are often at the forefront of any discussions. It has become common knowledge that the way the United States deals with national security has changed. Since the implication of the Patriot Act in 2001, the way that the United States has dealt with security and antiterrorism issues has created a never ending fight with civil liberty groups regarding such laws being constitutional or not. Those civil liberty groups argue that such laws infringe upon the fourth amendment, imposing unwarranted searches on civilians who have shown no probable cause to endure such invasion. But the question remains: what is considered probable cause? While
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. Its title is a ten-letter acronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. After the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon the United States has developed mitigation controls to decrease the risk of these reoccurring. One of these mitigation controls is the USA Patriot Act. The Patriot Act’s purpose is to combat future acts of terrorism against the United States. Though its intentions are to prevent destruction of the United States; the access of personal information is causing an out roar throughout the country with questions of moral and ethical rights. When the Patriot Act was first signed into law, there was a surprising lack of objections regarding the effect the radical provisions would have on our society. The short time period in which the bill was written,
Today, in the United States, national security is a major issue. With countless terrorist attacks being inflicted on the U.S., government officials seek to fix the problem by any means possible. In 2001, shortly after the attack on September 11, the George W. Bush administration drafted legislation designed to prevent future terrorist attacks; however, controversy broke out concerning people’s rights to privacy. In effect, The Patriot Act was passed to support the public’s demand to combat terrorism in the wake of 9/11 and resulted in the expansion of the surveillance of federal law-enforcement, and controversy regarding the violation of basic constitutional rights.
Stewart, K. B. (2003). USA Patriot Act unpatriotic. New York Amsterdam News, 94(29), p. 13. Retrieved on October 20, 2004, from EBSCOhost Database.
Citizens feeling protected in their own nation is a crucial factor for the development and advancement of that nation. The United States’ government has been able to provide this service for a small tax and for the most part it is money well spent. Due to events leading up to the terrifying attacks on September 11, 2001 and following these attacks, the Unites States’ government has begun enacting certain laws and regulations that ensure the safety of its citizens. From the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 to the most recent National Security Agency scandal, the government has attempted and for the most part succeeded in keeping domestic safety under control. Making sure that the balance between obtaining enough intelligence to protect the safety of the nation and the preservation of basic human rights is not extremely skewed, Congress has set forth requisites in FISA which aim to balance the conflicting goals of privacy and security; but the timeline preceding this act has been anything but honorable for the United States government.
Gonchar, Michael. “What Is More Important: Our Privacy or National Security?” New York Times. New York Times, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.