Patriot Act Of 1978 Analysis

Then there are those individuals who oppose the warrantless cellphone searches. The main reasoning for the opposition is that it is in direct violation with the Fourth Amendment which has a ban on unreasonable searches. The national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Steven R. Shapiro, calls the ruling “revolutionary” and feels that “we have entered a new world but, as the court today recognized, our old values still apply and limit the government’s ability to rummage through the intimate details of our private lives”. Amos Toh, New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice reasons that this decision can prove to be a powerful protection against overzealous government searches that may come up in the future. “Today’s

Although not every aspect of The USA PATRIOT ACT is radical, section 215 in The USA PATRIOT Act is one of the more critically addressed problems of this already controversial piece of legislation. Probably because most sane individuals would not like the government walking into a library or book store and ask for a list of anyone who purchased a book that may or not be considered radical enough to be flagged as possible terrorist activity. Summarized best by Dahlia Lithwick, “Section 215 modifies the rules on records searches. Post-Patriot Act, third-party holders of your financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, church, synagogue, and mosque records can be searched without your knowledge or consent, providing the government says it's trying to protect against terrorism.” (Lithwick part 1) This raises concern that the government may cry wolf (terrorism) to circumvent the Bill of Rights for any investigation it so desired. John Ashcroft, as quoted by an unnamed CNN writer, said "If we ever make an inquiry about any kind of record or business record, it has the judicial supervision, so that a federal judge would look carefully and simply not allow it if it were not a part of a case that merited the involvement of the authorities." (CNN 1) It would seem that the term privacy never evolved alongside technology, allowing even greater

Without a warrant, searching through a person’s intimate records is considered illegal and unconstitutional according to the U.S Fourth Amendment. However, these infractions are still being committed today, some are even being committed by the U.S government. When the government agreed upon the Patriot Act, after the law was signed, confidential agencies were formed, such as, the NSA. The NSA was assembled by the government to collect and store data secretly, this information is received from popular internet companies and phone companies. The NSA derives information from a total of nine American Internet companies, and tracks millions of Americans using data from Verizon, AT&T, and BellSouth. By court order, Verizon is forced to provide

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) is a law granted by the United States which defined procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance that was deemed in the best interest of national security. This gave congress the ability to oversee foreign intelligence surveillance while maintaining secrecy in conducting surveillance of national security threats. The Patriot Act enhanced the FISA capability to conduct wiretap surveillance without warrants. According to Matthew A. Anzaldi and Jonathan W. Gannon (2010), FISA "provides the legal framework through which the Intelligence Community lawfully collects intonation about those who pose national security threats to our country” (p.1690). The right of privacy that’s protected

Consequently, law enforcement officials have until passage of the Patriot Act have needed to present a reasonably strong case to a court in order to obtain a warrant to enter a private home or business, confiscate certain types of property, or eavesdrop electronically on private conversations and communications. An ACLU spokesperson maintains that the Act represents "an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court," (Surveillance, 2005, p. 3). From arrests without evidence to random search and seizure, the Act represents a potential danger to the rights and civil liberties of the American people much more than it helps as a practical tool in combating terrorism.

The article explains the faultiness of the act, which it provides more than necessary coverage of American privacy online. It says, “The Procedures allow the government to keep and analyze even purely domestic communications if they contain significant foreign intelligence information, evidence of a crime, or encrypted information. Again, foreign intelligence information is defined exceedingly broadly. The result is that the NSA is steadily building a database of Americans' purely domestic calls and emails.” The lack of directness of what is considered “foreign intelligence information” puts Americans’ privacy at risk and they wouldn’t even know it. If the government had a search warrant to collect those calls, the specific American would know they were being listened too and could fight for their privacy. The article goes on to

Many argue, including Deborah Jacobs, executive director of ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey) that the Patriot Act violates the 4th Amendment. What many do not know, is that there are warrants that the government use for homeland security. Warrants such as the ‘Sneak and Peek Warrants’ or the ‘Trap and Trace Searches’. The American Civil Liberties Union argued how the ‘Trap and Trace Searches are a breach of the 4th Amendment because their are no probable cause requirements in obtaining the warrants. In fact, according to Pewresearch.com, 32% of the people asked said they were more concerned that the government has gone too far in restricting the average person’s civil

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was originally enacted to protect entities from abuse of surveillance for national security reasons. FISA contains policies associated with the process of gathering foreign intelligence by the intelligence community for national security reasons (Addicott & McCaul, 2008, p. 46-47). FISA also consisted of a secret court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which had eleven unnamed federal judges who issued warrants regarding surveillance or searches for the intelligence community, and a court review board, which consisted of three federal judges who reviewed the actions of the secret court. After the passing of the Patriot Act by the Bush Administration, the NSA was essentially given full authority to collect information on citizens without a warrant, thereby circumventing the FISC, and Bush fully defended the NSA, stating “‘The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time.’” (Schwartz 2009

A. Thesis: The Patriot Act is violating American’s right to privacy. Mainly, the right to hold a private phone conversation.

After the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, a controversial piece of legislation was adopted and passed called the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The title for this bill is an acronym for "the United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" (USA Patriot Act).

The Patriot Act was signed into law on October 26, 2001 by President George W. Bush. The act expanded the surveillance capability of both domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies. When this law was passed it was under the assumption “to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes” (The USA Patriot). The Patriot Act has given the government the power to spy on the average American through monitoring phone records and calls, gaining banking and credit information, and even track a person’s internet activity. This is an unbelievable amount of power intelligence agencies wield all under the umbrella of national security. This power has gone too far, is unjustified, unconstitutional, and infringes on the privacy of the

The threat of terrorism creates a fear that allows government agencies to subvert the United States Constitution and common morals out of the threat that they will be unable to combat terrorism without performing these rights violations. After the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. on September 11th, 2001, the United States Congress passed the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act (“NSA Surveillance Programs”). This act essentially gives a blank check of domestic and foreign rights violations to the federal government, specifically the National Security Agency, as long as the violation is done in the name of fighting terrorism. Reports came out numerous times over the next decade, specifically December 2005, May 2006, and March 2012, detailing how the National Security Agency was able to stretch its powers, even beyond this liberal and controversial bill, to surveil its citizens’ private phone conversations with neither warrants nor provable suspicion of a crime taking or about to take place (“NSA Surveillance Programs”). The former of these reports was by the New York Times, which had known for nearly a year about this program but

After the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, an American public was shocked, flabbergasted, and lost for words for the first time since Pearl Harbor. Out of these fears the PATRIOT act was conceived; promising to help stop future terrorist plots the bill was initially met with high praise from the public and media. It was not for another decade that the side-effects of the patriot act were revealed to the world. The American public was appalled at the circumvention of their fourth Amendment rights. Still there is a clear divide between those who believe that the National Security Agency Is not violating the constitution and what they are doing is good for the betterment of the country and those who believe that their privacy and undeniable American freedoms were violated in part of the NSA spying with both parties bringing their own views and ideals to the field. The September eleventh attacks were the beginning of the end of privacy for American citizens the PATRIOT act which was signed a month later granted full access to the phones and computers of the people. It took over a decade for the public to become aware of the illegal spying that the NSA had conducted. The NSA spying is a complicated and controversial matter while there have been several judicial courts that have ruled against the spying there has also been just as many cases of the court 's finding the spying constitutional.

To begin, government spying creates potential risks to public trust, personal privacy, and civil liberty, which is why dometic programs that allows bulk data to be stored should be put to an end. With the Patriot coming to an end, the senate voted to end NSA’s bulk data collection programs to end on may 13. “[T]he House overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act by a vote of 338-88 . The bill would take the storage of bulk telephony metadata away from the government and would instead rely on the telecom

After September 11, 2001, terrorist’s attack, President George W. Bush signed into law the U.S. Patriot Act on October 26, 2001. The Patriot Act violates the fourth adjustment to the bill. It states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”The act allows for the exercise of roaming wiretaps to offer observation for law enforcement agencies, also to admit every concrete part of data regarding American citizens and individual residing in the United States and the capability to follow and offer observations on objectives with no bind to the terrorist union, also referred to as “lone wolves.”Technology is an IMSI-catcher (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) used for telephone eavesdropping. It allows for interrupting cellphone traffic and following movements of mobile phone users (Cullen & Wilcox 2010). It acts as a bogus cell phone tower that sits between the target mobile phone and the service provider's real towers. StingRay technology intercepts calls; Internet traffic can infuse malware on a cellular phone device, send false texts, and trace aimed. The device can be used in the police cruiser making it available to use anywhere on anyone. The ACLU has spoken out against employing