Power Corrupts: The US Patriot Act

Now in today’s standards, you only have freedom of semi-privacy that the Patriot Act believes is non-threatening. By them monitoring your texts, emails, history along with things you look for in search engines you never truly free to say anything or look up anything you want. Also what followed after this act were the random abductions of people. They take the “random,” person and ship them to another country to loophole their laws of not permitting torturing someone in this country. Instead they hire other countries to do their dirty work. Even Obama who promised, “In his campaign for the presidency, a repeal of some of its more sinister provisions (surveillance, wiretaps and so forth). It has not been repealed… Obama this year signed a four-year extension of it.” The Quote makes a point that the government officials believe that everything under the patriot act should still

"I can 't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they 're secretly building" (Edward Snowden). The NSA began monitoring and collecting sensitive and personal information from Americans such as their emails, phone calls, photos and other private material. Massive surveillance began in 2001 after the terrorist attack in New York and since then there has been a big peak in government watching. It 's unnecessary for the NSA to monitor American’s private conversations as well as other sensitive data because people should be able to have a sense of privacy in personal communication with others.

Technically NSA has been violating this act ever since it has been enacted in 2008 because, as we know, they have been monitoring all US citizenry. NSA hides the fact that they are monitoring on US citizens without the warrant as they find some connection between the person monitored and some illegal activity to justify their monitoring. At first, after the 9/11, President George W. Bush started a program of mass monitoring of US communication. He had started it without FISA Court’s knowledge and when the population find out about this Congress had to create and enact the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 and inside was the crucial Section 702 that, by law, validates mass monitoring over the last 7 years.

The NSA or the National Security Agency carries out most of the domestic surveillance in the United States. Before the 9/11 attacks the NSA needed approval from a court, but after the attacks, they were given free reign to copy any data that possibly linked to terrorist activities. This led to many arguments over whether this collection of data was unconstitutional or not. The extent of this surveillance shocked many people; many civil rights advocates thought that this surveillance breached United States citizens’ rights. Because of the threat of domestic surveillance in the United States it should be decreased drastically but not entirely stopped.

After the gruesome attacks of 9/11, the United States government passed a legislation called the Patriot Act in attempt to cut down on the terror attacks. This act gives the NSA, or National Security Agency, the ability to oversee our actions. The NSA’s approach to surveilling the population is obtaining the information by tapping into technology, such as phone calls, internet pages and searches, and viewing emails and texts. Thus, controversy has triggered due to the fact that these actions are unconstitutional, and much terrorism that remains. The NSA should be greatly altered because they invade the privacy of Americans, unlawfully goes against the constitution, and we lose our rights.

One group that argues this is the American Civil Liberties Union, which strongly disagrees with the Patriot Act. They have stated that investigations into the Patriot Act, “reveal thousands of violations of law,” (ACLU), while this is simply not true. One controversial piece of the Patriot Act are roving wiretaps. These allow government investigators to follow and put surveillance on certain people, rather than certain devices, so that they may save time and effort. According to Nathan Sales, a law professor at George Mason University, “Federal courts agree that Title III’s roving wiretaps authority is constitutional and… provides strong support for constitutionality,” (Sales). This is a clear example that shows that even the most controversial parts of the Patriot Act are not just constitutional, but strongly supported by the Constitution. From this, many see that any attempted claims that the Patriot Act is wrong in the law are based merely on thought. But, there are more than one sections of the Patriot Act that are up for debate. Any arguments against the Patriot Act are destroyed quickly due to the fact that, “no single provision of the Patriot Act has ever been found unconstitutional,” (McNeil). Once again, it is clear that the Patriot Act is constitutional. This becomes extremely important in the eyes of the law however, because there is now no argument against the Patriot Act when seen from this

The patriot act has in my opion violated the 4th amendment. It has its advantages as far as terrorizim but to normal citzens this is a complete violation of our privacy. bThe late Benjermin Franklin warned us about trading our liberty for sucureity. This act has taken away a lot of our liberties it gives the government way too much power to invade our privacy. They now have unprecedented power to monitor the phone calls, e-mails, without a warrant. This is a great way to monitor terrorist but for the normal non criminal citizen it 's a violation simply because they can collet such things as religous affilations. medical conditions, close friends, romantic partners, gun owners and any additions. there is a movement in congress for a cleaner auterazation

Have you ever wondered why the Patriot Act played a big part in history or why it is so important to us? Well the government has compromised our civil liberties through the use of the Patriot Act. They also abused our privacy which wasn’t fair for us. The history of the Patriot Act, the abuse of our rights, and the way everything ended made the Americans feel like they couldn’t trust their government because they felt like they were always being watched.

The USA Patriot Act was signed into law on Oct. 26, 2001, due to the need for cooperation among all levels of security. Police and other department agencies were given powerful authority and encouraged to share information. This is to meet the goal for a safer America in times of turmoil including international affairs. But as the years have passed and as terrorist attacks seem to cease, people have begun to question if there’s too many restrictions on law enforcement were called off.

The government needs to do its civil duty of protecting the American citizens by most any means necessary under good conscious and reasoning. The Patriot Act has already saved thousands of lives by simple things that will go unnoticed such as simple communication between branches of the FBI. While some may say this act is an invasion of privacy the majority of the population would choose life over a simple communication with a work colleague. If the government repeals the Patriot Act many innocent lives could be taken by terrorist attacks that could have been stopped by communication or gut feeling. Life is a precious thing that America deserves and will receive through the protection of The Patriot

On September 11th, 2001, tragedy struck America. A terrorist attack was carried out resulting in 2,753 Americans killed. America became locked in a war, and it needed more security on its own soil. So, congress passed a law known as the Patriot Act. This allowed the N.S.A (national security agency) to gain information of individual citizens or groups of individuals by using library records, phone calls and other surveillance. Recently, on January 1st of 2015 the Patriot Act has expired. Many members of government are stuck in a debate if it should be renewed. It should be reauthorized by Congress again as it already has been twice because it is approved and supported by the Constitution. Even though some argue that the Patriot Act infringes

I feel that this is an extremely important and still completely relevant amendment. Without the protection of the fourth amendment, no one would feel safe. The police/government could target individuals for little to no reason, enter our homes, and take whatever they pleased at any time they felt the urge to. The thought of that even being possible is scary beyond belief. I am not a criminal, and have nothing to hide, but the thought that the government could burst into my home whenever they pleased is terrifying. Not just that, but imagine the corruption that could breed. If they didn’t need probable cause, but could enter a person’s home on a whim, it would be asking for problems of corruption within those

“The Patriot Act broadly undermines the rights of all Americans. It reduces judicial oversight of a host of investigative measures, including wiretaps, expands the government 's ability to track individuals ' Internet use and gives federal officials expansive new powers that are in no way limited to investigating terrorist crimes.( thenation) It authorizes an end run around the Fourth Amendment by allowing the government to conduct wiretaps and searches in criminal investigations, without probable cause of a crime, as long as the government claims that it also seeks to gather foreign intelligence--an authority that is particularly questionable in light of recent disclosures from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the FBI has

Civil liberties are rights guaranteed to citizens in the Constitution that the government cannot interfere with, however, in the name of national security, they do. The government sometimes finds it necessary for Americans to give up some of their basic rights to keep the nation protected, but many people find this unnecessary. A law-abiding citizen’s extremely personal information should not be essential to finding terroristic threats within this society. Under no circumstances should an American citizen’s civil liberties be violated in a time of war or crisis, because those are assured rights that are most valuable to their freedom during national conflicts.

The Patriot Act was designed to help law enforcements in the fight against terrorist, future terrorist attacks, and to help gather information. A positive result to the Act is that it gives an increase of surveillance systems and allows the federal government to capture and monitor many different ways to communicate. An example of this would be, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) development and use of an intercepting program called the Carnivore. This Program allowed the FBI to capture, record, and sort digital communications like a computer email or a text message. The FBI discontinued the Carnivore program in 2002, the organization wanted a more gainful product instead. (media) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had an advantage from the USA Patriot Act and really wanted Congress to have it reauthorized in 2005. The Patriot Act broke down road blocks within the intelligence community and allowed a more collaborative way of sharing information globally which was a huge advantage to fighting terrorism. The Patriot Act was reauthorized in 2006 and 2010-2011. (Charles P.