Essay on Patriot Act Violates Civil Liberties

From the beginning, the United States Constitution has guaranteed the American people civil liberties. These liberties have given citizens rights to speak, believe, and act freely. The Constitution grants citizens the courage to express their mind about something they believe is immoral or unjust. The question is, how far are citizens willing to extend the meanings of these liberties? Some people believe that American citizens take advantage of their civil liberties, harming those around them. On the contrary, many other people feel that civil liberties are necessary tools to fight for their Constitutional rights.

One beautiful morning in September 2001 many people went about their day like they have before. Some off to work, or traveling for business, or to visit family, and in a blink of an eye our lives in America changed forever. We were attacked, on our own soil, not once, but four times. That fourth plane didn’t make it to its destination, thanks to the brave souls aboard that sacrificed their lives to save others. On that fateful day 2,753(NYmag) families would never be the same, as well as the rest of us that watch in disbelief. The attacks on September 11th 2001 led to something called the Patriot Act. In the days after 9/11 Congress hurried to pass a bill to give law-enforcement agencies the power to fight domestic terrorism. On October 26, President George W. Bush signed three hundred page USA Patriot Act into law (Crf.org). The USA Patriot Act of 2001 was created to prevent and catch terrorist in the United States and around the world. The contents of it has been one of great controversy in the rights of our privacy and the violation of our constitutional rights. Can we give up too much freedom to keep us safe? Where do we draw the line to keep our Country safe?

     The United States of America is a country that is based upon a principle of balancing the rights of an individual, while still preserving public order. The U.S. Constitution (specifically the Bill of Rights) guarantees every American certain Individual rights. Some of these rights include; freedom from unreasonable search and seizures, a right to due process of law, and protection against cruel and unusual punishment (The 4th, 5th and 8th Amendments). Historically the criminal justice system has preserved these rights of peopled accused of crimes. However on September 11, 2001, the United States became the victim of the largest terrorist attack the World has ever seen. According to Schmalleger in 2003, that

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

After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 the United States became a very different place. This drastic change was caused by the initial emotional reactions that American citizens, as well as government leaders had towards the tragic event. The government, in an effort to assure that these events never happen again passed the USA PATRIOT Act, which is an acronym that stands for the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. The major goal of this act is to combat terrorism by giving the government more leeway in what areas they are allowed to use their surveillance tools and also to what circumstances these tools can be used. The major issue that arise with this act are the fact that many of the act can be seen as unconstitutional.

Technology has affected the field of justice studies in many ways. After the events of September 11th 2001, technology has had an even greater impact on the field of justice studies. Rapidly advancing technology has made surveillance cheaper and easier to conceal. Tools such as wiretapping, surveillance for e-mails, and other forms of surveillance tools that were before a violation of peoples' right to privacy, are now allowed to be used without probable cause. These tools now allow the FBI to find terrorists before they commit their act of violence. These surveillance tools that are now allowed to be used by the FBI were passed under the USA Patriot Act. Given that the USA Patriot Act now allows the FBI to look through what many

The Patriot Act was established after the tragedy of September, 11, 2001 in a moment of weakness. It gave unprecedented and unnecessary powers to intelligence agencies under the wide umbrella of national security. The Patriot Act has used an “us vs them” mentality as well as pro-American propaganda to accomplish its goals. This new authority of the intelligence agencies has gone too far, is unjustified, unconstitutional, and infringes on the privacy of the American people, as well as others in the world. The Patriot Act should be weakened in order to preserve the rights of the American people and to reaffirm to the world that the U.S will not tolerate violations of human rights.

The United States government changed the face of computer and internet use when it signed the USA Patriot Act on October 26, 2001. This act was created in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11 that same year. Many people believe that this act is a good thing and will help in defense against any future attacks. What most people do not know, however, is the effect of this act on the more general public. This includes individual people, public libraries, colleges and universities, and even trucking or hauling companies.

September 11, 2001 sparked many different feelings into the hearts of Americans. People sprang into action to seek revenge and protect America’s precious soils from another deadly attack by reinforcing America’s strength through her government. The men and women of Congress retaliated to the terrorist attacks by drafting and passing the USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001, which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” The bill was moved through Congress with amazing speed and little hesitation. After the passing, the unsuspecting citizens of America were bombarded with many new rules and regulations that

On June 28th 2015, the U.S Senate failed to reapprove the already expired Patriot Act, resulting in at least a temporary fear of national security. The senate entered into a debate in regards to this expiring act late Sunday night, without coming to a conclusion by midnight the Patriot Act expired, pushing against three laws such as the National Security Agency bulk data collection program. “The lapse was a huge victory for privacy hawks who have called for changes to that program and others under the Patriot Act since Edward Snowden first blew the lid off the NSA's domestic surveillance programs in 2013” (Diamond 1). On the brighter side, the Senate is expecting to restore the Patriot Act during the end of this week. The expiring of the Patriot

Another week, another series of patches to download from Microsoft. It seems like every week, Microsoft is under siege from one virus or another. The complexity in the billions of lines of code embedded in its products make it impossible to be error-free. If it is this easy for hot-headed M$ haters to breach the world’s largest software maker, one has to ask: how hard would it be to expose vulnerabilities in the most sophisticated and technologically dependent country in the world?

The Patriot Act, an act passed by Congress in 2001 that addressed the topic of privacy in terrorist or radical situations, is controversial in today's society. Although it helps with protection against terroristic events, The Patriot Act is not fair, nor is it constitutional, because it allows the government to intrude on citizens' privacy, it gives governmental individuals too much power, and because the act is invasive to the 4th amendment right. To further describe key points in the act, it states that it allows investigators to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking, and it allows law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant anywhere a terrorist-related activity occurred.

A paradox has always exists between the issue of civil liberties and national security. Democracy creates civil liberties that allow the freedom of association, expression, as well as movement, but there are some people use such liberal democracy to plan and execute violence, to destabilize State structures. It illustrates the delicate balance existing between reducing civil liberties to enhance security in a state. States have detained suspects for years and have also conducted extensive privacy incursions as strategies to combat terror, however it risks violation of civil liberties. This essay discusses the extent to which a state should be allowed to restrict civil liberties for the enhancement of national security and not abandon democratic values. It looks at aspects of the legal response to terrorism in the United States after the 9/11 attack.

Privacy. What do you think the average American would say if you told them they have no Constitutional Right to Privacy, as privacy is never mentioned anywhere in the Constitution? That the information they share over the World Wide Web has little if any protection by or from the government. Of course our government is hard at work to modernize the form of weeding out the unsanitary to which some cenacles might call censorship. But the main question still stands, do we have a right to privacy and is the government violating our natural freedoms, or do we need someone to monitor the actions of our society to keep order. The question is as old as government; to what extent should the government influence our lives. When you

After the devastating attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, this country scrambled to take action to provide future protection. New techniques had to be developed to protect the nation from the menace of terrorism. Along with the new techniques came the decision to enact laws that some believed crossed the threshold of violating civil liberties this county and those living in it were guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. “On October 26, 2001, the Public Law 107-56, Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, also known as the USA Patriot Act, was signed into effect” (Stern, 2004, p. 1112). While speaking to Congress,