Patriot Act Pros And Cons

Even if the Patriot Act was formulated to serve as a tool to prevent future terrorist activities, there are major sections in the Act that seem to infringe immensely on 21 the rights of individuals. Evaluating major parts of the Act, I have shown that substantive rights under the Constitution seemed have been disregarded because of the cry of terrorism. When looking at such a complex issue one needs to simply conduct a balancing test to weigh out the costs and benefits of such an act. The benefits that the government seem to give for the Patriot Act is that it will act as a deterrent for terrorists who plan to plot another terrorist attack against the American people. This is when the costs start to play in. The more the government seeks to

protect the American people, the more they seem to take away from our liberty. A core democratic value that America lives by is freedom and liberty. The Bill of Rights is specifically planted in the first part of the Constitution to prove that the rights of the people and freedom are what make a democracy. The government has previously intruded on the rights of Americans in other times of crises. Still however, there are parts in the Patriot Act that allows the government to do things that they never before have done.

As the reporter that I quoted earlier said there are things that the government was doing that was unprecedented. More costs to the Patriot Act include the direct violations of the Constitution. Many sections of the Patriot Act go against numerous amendments. Also, something that isn’t explicitly in the Constitution is the right to privacy. The Patriot Act shuts this down though as well. Even though the Supreme Court in Griswald, determined that the right to privacy does exist in the Constitution, the Patriot Act completely disregards this. Another major cost to the Patriot Act is that it undermines the notion of checks and balances. When one branch of 22 government is given immense power over the other, the threat of tyranny is taken into account. The Patriot Act allows for the Executive to snoop in documents that they would normally not allow them to do without the check of the other branches of government. The checks and balances principle is another principle that makes the American government so distinct from others. With the Patriot Act threatening this all for the possible prevention of terrorism doesn’t seem to be that much of a benefit to the

people. Of the cases I have discussed and read about, they barely have even cracked down on these terrorists that might plan out another attack. For ever person that is being caught as being a threat to our safety who actually turns out to be terrorists, millions of Americans rights are being infringed upon. The costs do outweigh the benefits with the Patriot Act. To me and to a number of other Americans who seem to agree that parts of the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, the potential security of the government with the exchange of the people’s privacy being gone, doesn’t seem to be a good enough trade off. It is the job of the Supreme Court and the judicial branch of government to ensure that the other branches of government are acting with accordance to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court however doesn’t seem to want to tackle this issue probably for political reasons.