Patriot Act Pros And Cons

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,

signed, and voted through Congress did not allow people enough time to think logically about the best solution.

Almost fifteen years after the destruction of the World Trade Centers, the US has not yet experienced an event as horrific. We have had near misses when it comes to terrorist attacks on the United States. Some examples of theses near misses are: the underwear bomber on Christmas Day, 2009, the Times Square bomber in May 2010, and we experienced the shootings of twelve soldiers by an Arab-American military psychiatrist at Fort Hood Army base in November 2009. Nonetheless, there have not been any recurrences of terrorist killing in the United States on a mass scale. Why? A simple answer is that we are no longer the unaware, unprotected country we were in early September 2001. Airport security procedures are more elaborate, and the notion of "if you see something, say something" has become widespread. Nonetheless, it is important to ask if we have just been fortunate or if we are demonstrably better at international counterterrorism.

The Patriot Act allows law enforcement to have easier access to bank accounts, emails, financial records, telephone conversations, etc., under suspicion of terrorism.

Knowing these things has brought up the question on whether the Act is morally and/or ethically right or wrong. Though the intent of the Patriot Act is to protect the US from terrorist attacks; like anything else, if power is put into the wrong hands it becomes unethical. Our country needs protection against terrorism, but there should be an alternative Act in place. The Patriot Act is unethical because it compromises people’s communication privacy by monitoring their personal lives in an unprecedented way. The Act strips U.S. citizens of some of their privacies and still does not guarantee them enhanced security. There is no public evidence available that shows that the Act’s new surveillance methods will stop an attack. It also eliminates government accountability because it decreases checks and

balances.

The Patriot Act’s surveillance authorizations permits spying on groups and individuals make a mockery of the Fourth Amendment privacy protections. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.