The United States Will Fight Foreign And Domestic Terrorism

On the day of September 11, 2001, the United States faced one of the most massive terrorist attacks in history, and responded with immediate action. After the attack on the Twin Towers, President George W. Bush passed the Patriot Act, which gave the government more opportunities to pursue terrorists through the use of technology, such as computer-enabled device-tracking systems (“The USA Patriot…”). President Bush stated, “This legislation is essential not only to pursuing and punishing terrorists, but also preventing more atrocities in the hands of the evil ones. This government will enforce this law with all the urgency of a nation at war” (“President Bush…” 4). In America, at this time, many were traumatized by the loss of fellow Americans, and were counting on the government to reassure their safety. If Bush had not intensified cybersecurity, there is a chance that another massive terror attack could have taken place and put the lives of men, women, and children in jeopardy. Bush claims that America has “seen the horrors terrorists can inflict” and that the country “may never know what horrors our country was spared by the diligent and determined work of our police forces, the FBI, ATF agents, federal marshals, Custom officers, Secret Service, intelligence professionals and local law enforcement

The Patriot Act was hastily passed just a month later October and it severely limited the privacy of Americans and gave unprecedented power to the government and private agencies to track innocent Americans, turning regular citizens into suspects.5 In addition, the great technological evolution and emerged of social media that occurred round the same time, and shortly thereafter, created the perfect storm for the emergence of the largely unregulated surveillance society that we live in today.6 The result is digitization of people’s personal and professional lives so that every single digital trace that people leave can be identified, stored, and aggregated to constitute a composite sketch of ourselves and its only getting worse. In 2008, passed the FISA Amendments Act, which expands the government’s authority to monitor Americans’ international communications, in addition to domestic communications.7 In short, after 9/11 the U.S is left with a national surveillance state, in which “the proliferation of government technology and bureaucracies that are able to acquire vast and detailed amounts of digital information about individuals with minimal or no judicial supervision and often in complete secrecy,” giving the government and corporations with access to the data that the government compiles the ability to single

Over the last several years, cyber attacks have been continually rising. This is in response to emerging threats from rogue nations and terrorist groups. They are increasing their attacks on government, military and civilian installations. According to James Clapper (the Director of National Intelligence) these threats have become so severe. It is surpassing terrorism as the greatest challenge facing the nation. In response, the National Security Agency (NSA) began conducting surveillance on those who are involved in these activities and others which are threat to US national security interests. This program became so broad; it started continually collecting phone records and emails on ordinary Americans. This angered many, who felt that the US was acting in a way that circumvented established legal guidelines and procedures. To fully understand what is taking place requires focusing on the event, the government 's response and the ways it did / did not meet our national security goals. Together, these different elements will illustrate what occurred and the lasting impacts on everyone. (Greenwald 2014)

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 devastated the United States people. As they mourned over the deaths caused by the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City, Americans began looking for a way to prevent anything like this from happening again. Consequently, an act known as the USA PATRIOT act was passed by Congress. This act opened up many doors previously closed to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. With these new opportunities available to them, they have the capability to obtain information about specific individuals believed to be involved in terrorist activities and organizations. Very beneficial to the United States, the Patriot Act provides easier access for different government law enforcement agencies to share information, allows government agencies investigative tools that non-terrorist crimes already use, and helps to dismantle the terrorist financial network. Although many people claim that the Patriot Act violates the United States Constitution and the freedoms of the American people, it contains many elaborate safeguards to fight against such abuse.

The increasing power and functionality of technology has increasingly invaded privacy and complicated security. Technology has made it possible for the government to

He called this collection a “logical program” (qtd. In Isikoff), although when pressed for any examples of this database being used to stop terror attacks, Stone replied simply, “We found none.” The thing about the Patriot Act that is truly terrifying, is “the lack of government candor in describing its implementation” (Lithwick and Turner). This means that the American people don’t trust their government to use their powers as the people were told they would be.

The tragic events of September 11th, 2001 showed the vulnerabilities of this country as a whole, reflecting the lack of attention this nation gave to terrorism. Following September 11th, it was clear that drastic preventative measures needed to be taken in order to avoid reoccurrence of a destructive and deadly act of terrorism (Simon, 2009). As a response to the attacks, The Patriot Act was passed in October of 2001 in order to give federal agencies a substantial increase in power in accessing, monitoring, and examining records and citizens who have been identified as, or could potentially be, risks to this country. This act also allowed federal agents to single out and watch potential individuals labeled as terrorists without evidence linking them to an actual terrorist organization, as well as allowing for an increase in wiretapping phones of potential suspects (Banks, 2010).

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.

Privacy is what allows people to feel secure in their surroundings. With privacy, one is allowed to withhold or distribute the information they want by choice, but the ability to have that choice is being violated in today’s society. Benjamin Franklin once said, “He who sacrifices freedom or liberty will eventually have neither.” And that’s the unfortunate truth that is and has occurred in recent years. Privacy, especially in such a fast paced moving world, is extremely vital yet is extremely violated, as recently discovered the NSA has been spying on U.S. citizens for quite a while now; based on the Fourth Amendment, the risk of leaked and distorted individual information, as well as vulnerability to lack of anonymity.

Many innocent Americans lives were taken by an act of terrorism on September 11, 2001. This has terrorized many people who lost loved ones on this day. There was much controversy among the government’s officials and American citizens on what the course of action is to prevent this tragedy from happening again. After many days of formulating a plan, A bill was passed on October 26, 2001 by George W. Bush to help solve this issue. This new regulation became know as the Patriot Act. This bill provided the government the necessary tools to intercept American citizens private information, which would help discover suspicious activity among suspected terrorists threats. The main bill’s focus was to help prevent future terrorists from executing their malicious attacks. Despit the law’s ability to keep this country safe, we sacrifice some of our freedom for the good of each of us. Although the American government has retrieved personal information throughout history, our civil liberties should be preserved along with the safety of our exclusive information from the United States government.

Imagine someone living in a country that turns surveillance equipment on its own citizens to monitor their locations, behavior, and phone calls. Probably no one is willing to live in such place where privacy is being undermined by the authorities. For people living in the U.S., their private information has been more vulnerable than ever before because the government is able to use various kinds of surveillance equipment and technology to monitor and analyze their activities, conversations, and behaviors without their permission, in the name of homeland security. Mass surveillance has jeopardized people’s privacy and deprived individuals of their freedom, which is associated with dignity, trust, and autonomy. In the

After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 our country underwent a change that has drastically affected the fundamental values that our founding fathers instilled in this country. Since that tragic day in September the aftermath of the attacks has started to implicate our Civil Liberties that in this country we hold so dear. Just 45 days after the September 11 attacks, with virtually no debate, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act on October 5th, 2001. This act expanded the surveillance powers of domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies. The controversy that must be discussed is whether or not this legislation fully or in part has violated the Constitution and/or endangered our civil

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.

As this issue has been recognized in the past, the agency has been forced to go to court to face the accusation of law bending. In some of these cases, there has been a ruling of unconstitutionality, however, as time progressed and more of these cases had come to surface, former U.S. President Bush moved all cases of this degree to a specific court. By doing this, the public began to feel that the agency’s illegal activities can be automatically defended by a mysterious and unexplained claim of ‘maintaining national security’. When attempting to evaluate the legality of their actions, only the information available to the public can be evaluated, but even then, there are issues that have appeared. When reviewing legality concerning national security, the president and congress will undoubtedly come into play. This is a responsibility and action that the president gives approval for to maintain his standards of national security. However, this does not mean that it is a legal route as “FISA is a valid regulation of presidential powers, and therefore that the wiretapping program is illegal” (Lee). As the agency’s activities can be accused to be unconstitutional or illegal, it is easy to assume they are aware of the loopholes and methods to get around this type of ‘technicality’ in their eyes. Along with the concern of legality of surveillance, the ethics behind

The cause of terrorist attacks like 9/11 tragedy the government has ramped ups the security and surveillance of the activist, journalist and dissidents. It is no secret that the government are able to have assess of people phone call records and text messages but for that reason that, activists avoid using telephones, instead they use tools like Skype. Which they think they are immune to interception but they are wrong. Over the last years there has been an industry of companies who provide surveillance technology to the government, technology that allows the government to hack into computers. Rather that intercepting the commutations as they go over the wire, instead the government now hacks into your computer, enable your webcam and your microphone and able to steal and look through documents from your computer. In the article “ Quasi- Constitutional Protection and Government Surveillance” by Emily Berman argues “ The government may collect and analyze unprecedented amounts of information about U.S persons’ communications, but without concomitant safeguards against infringing on individual privacy” (781). According to this, it indicates that all the access the government is able to see and how it is invading American’s privacy.