The Rights Of American Citizens

Snowden’s leaked information prompted debates all over and it brought major concerns about personal privacy and the security of citizens. His actions to risk his personal freedom to bring controversial information to the public domain is an act of great patriotism, it upholds the virtues contained in the US constitution. (Gurnow, 2014) Nonetheless, ever since the events of terrorism in 2001, the NSA has given spy agencies mandates to carry out surveillance on suspicious persons, thus reducing acts of

Contraceptives are widely used throughout the United States in today’s age and age, but in the early 1950s, Connecticut and Massachusetts were the only states in the union that still had anticontraception policies such as the 1879 Connecticut statute prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives (Johnson 6). Estelle Griswold accepted a job as executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and began a fight to give access for women to use contraceptives legally. It was very predictable the verdicts for the lower court cases during Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) as many judges took the side of the 1879 precedent. However, by the time it reached the Supreme Court, the main issue focused was the right to privacy which

When The United States came into being, the heads of the country made a great deal of emphasis in making sure the country fulfilled one requirement: the United States needed to be the living image of freedom. This image of freedom needed to exist not only as a geographical and political entity, meaning free from the English, but as a society as well, and that is why it opted for a democracy as a system to rule, to let the citizens be able to live freely. Despite the obvious issues presented in the country on that moment that we might call hypocrite, like slavery; the founding fathers knew what they wanted the country to achieve, and laid a great base for getting there, The Bill of Rights, the document that preceded the Constitution in

While all the Court Justices in Griswold v. Connecticut agreed that the legislation prohibiting the use of contraception was purely irrational, Justices Douglas and Black differed with the Court’s judgment about the case decision. Justice Douglas expressed the majority’s opinion in which he stated that the Connecticut law that banned the use or supply of contraception was unconstitutional because it failed to obey the “right to privacy” derived from certain privacy rights listed on the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, Justice Black disagreed with Justice Douglas by stating that the rights enumerated by Douglas were a mere implication of privacy and that the “right to privacy” didn’t reflect anything stated directly on the Constitution.

Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said, “ Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”(“John,” p.1). Indeed, throughout the course of history of United States, peoples’ liberty has been established as the most important aspect of American people. Liberty is understood as a basic right of freedom in which everyone can engage without control or interference by a government or other power. Based on that principle, Selective Incorporation is a process of constitutional law in which some provisions of the Bill of Rights are nationalized to the states through the Fourteenth

On June 6, 2013 the details of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance activities where given by Edward Snowden to the public; raising concerns of Americans about their privacy. Edward Snowden, a former employee of the NSA, gave the alarming details of surveillance programs in his interview on how the NSA accesses our emails, calls, internet activity, and anything else that is related to technology. In this system of surveillance the NSA can gather data from companies and tap the cables that are vital for moving around information from technological devices, they may also use their relationships with technology companies to get emails or information straight from U.S. servers. (Cawley, Kiss, Boyd, Ball) Nevertheless, the claim is

The “Move to Amend” organization has put forth a proposed twenty-eighth amendment, that if ratified to the U.S. Constitution would take the constitutional rights away from all artificial entities such as corporations, and limit all campaign expenditures including the candidate 's own contributions and expenditures. The Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that according to the fourteenth amendment corporations are individuals that have constitutional rights. If corporations have the same rights as individuals, then under the first amendment they have the right to spend their money on political campaigns as they choose. I am against both parts of this proposed twenty-eighth amendment, the Supreme Court has already set precedence and I believe that the addition of this amendment would directly contradict the first amendment since political speech is at the core of the first amendment. If you set limits on campaign expenditures, you are limiting someone’s ability to effectively campaign and get their message out. If a corporation chooses to spend large sums of money on political advertising then that is their choice, most people don’t want to be told how they can spend their money and neither do corporations.

Every year people from all over the world come to the United States for a myriad of reasons. Some to seek employment, some education, and others to seek safe haven from violence and oppression from foreign governments. Regardless of the reason, the beauty of the United States is that the protections afforded by the constitution apply to anyone within its territory. However, since the terrorist attack against the United States on September 11, 2001, the protections of the constitution have since become a blurred line. Legislation such as the Patriot Act, and methods in which law enforcement conduct operations to combat terrorism have pushed the limits of the constitution. Finding the balance of working within the confines of the constitution is a constant challenge. The growing challenge elicits the potential for legal, policy and ethical issues, which ultimately undermine the very purpose of what the constitution is intended to protect.

Direct democracy is a government in which the people directly elect their officials, and vote on the laws which govern them. When a nation has a representative democracy, the people’s officials are elected to act in their stead (Text Pg. 24). The politicians are empowered by the people to govern and pass laws. A constitutional democracy is one in that the politicians are representatives of the people (Text Pg. 21). The politicians acknowledge that there are limitations on their power, and that the people are sovereign.

Ever since the American public was made aware of the United States government’s surveillance policies, it has been a hotly debated issue across the nation. In 2013, it was revealed that the NSA had, for some time, been collecting data on American citizens, in terms of everything from their Internet history to their phone records. When the story broke, it was a huge talking point, not only across the country, but also throughout the world. The man who introduced Americans to this idea was Edward Snowden.

Human rights are inherent to being human and essentially a right obtained by any being born in the world. These rights do not discriminate whether one was born in the United States or in Mexico. Essentially, they are what it means to be a human being, not if you are a citizen to a specific country. Lawful permanent residents of the United States prior to 1996 were eligible for public benefits programs suck as the Food Stamp Program, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), all on terms similar to those of native-born citizens (Capps, 2002). Bill Clinton’s administration enacted Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) in which significantly

Become a citizen of one of the best nations in the world is a privilege that not many people have. I’m talking about the United States of America. If you are an U.S natural born citizen you have rights and responsibilities that protect you based on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S Constitution. People who are in the position to become U.S. citizens gain the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities of citizenship as natural born American with the only restriction that they can’t be eligible for President of the United States.

Digital privacy concerns, which have been a major issue in our country since 2001, increasingly violate our basic human rights as global citizens. The growing amount of government surveillance has manifested in the enactment of acts such as SOPA and CISPA. Although their intent on stopping digital piracy and attacks were clear, both were immediately met with harsh criticism; they allowed big corporations to violate our privacy rights by sharing our personal information with both other companies and the government. Our President, although publicly expressing his acknowledgement of the issue, failed to discuss an array of other pressing dilemmas regulated by the recently exposed National Security Agency (NSA), especially those involving

Privacy has endured throughout human history as the pillar upon which our authentic nature rests. Yet, in an age darkened by the looming shadow of terrorism, another force threatens to dominate the skyline and obscure the light of liberty behind promises of safety and security: government surveillance. As an employee of the NSA, Edward Snowden broke his vow of secrecy to inform the public of our government’s furtive surveillance acts, but does this render him traitorous? To answer this, we must first ask ourselves, traitorous to whom? When the very institution established to protect our fundamental liberties intrudes on our privacy from behind a veil of secrecy, should such informed individuals resign from judicious autonomy and

In early 2013 a man by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden began leaking classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents to media outlets, which in turn ended up in public ears. These documents, mainly involving intelligence Snowden acquired while working as an NSA contractor, are mostly related to global surveillance programs run by the NSA. This has raised multiple ethical issues ranging from national security, information privacy and the ethics behind whistleblowing in general. The reach and impact of these leaks have gone global and have put in question the very government that protects us as well as the extent of the public’s rights on privacy. Various foreign