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Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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The Patriot Act (the full name is the USA Patriot Act, or "Uniting and Strengthening America Act by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001") was signed on October 26 by the former U.S. President George W. Bush in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. The main purposes are to improve the level of domestic security and to strengthen the powers of law-enforcement agencies in terms of identifying and eliminating terrorists. The US government and its supporters believe that it is one of the most useful tools to investigate and arrest terrorists within and outside the borders of the country. However, critics argue about Acts “overpower” which treats the civilians in non-democratic way and …show more content…

But Why? The reason is that other articles are controversial and usually are widely criticized.
The first thing, which should be mentioned, is obviously how the Patriot Act passed so quickly. It was shorter than 48 hours between the presentation of the bill and its passing in both houses of Congress. Critics are still arguing that such “powerful” Bill had to be debated and deliberated.
Secondly, it is also considered that Patriot Act violates the constitutional civil liberties of the United States, especially: right to privacy, freedom from unreasonable searches, conducting wiretaps, using NSLs, search the private property without any notification and detain a material witness or a suspect with no access to lawyer. There are many evidences when the law was used inappropriate towards non-terrorist criminals. New York Times writes: “The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.” This article shows that the government started to use “new” authority under the Patriot Act to investigate cases on drug trafficking, money laundries, blackmailers and child pornography. Justice Department arguments their position …show more content…

In many of these cases, the agents, without any authorization, forced the internet providers and communication companies to give the information. Moreover, FBI agents could use the Patriot Act “guise” for their own

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Assignment 2: Unit Four-State Hearing

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Requiring sixty senators to end debate, this forethought allows senators to point out flawed legislation and debate possible complications. Further review may circumvent the issues of unpopular laws. The Patriot Act was passed quickly by congress in the wake of terrorist attacks. Although opposed by a minority of senators, the bill was quickly passed by Congress and approved by the President. Despite the perceived necessity, the bill was widely criticized by the American people and later revised.

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10/26/01 Patriot act signed into law. The Patriot act allows the US government to spy on people.

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The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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The Patriot Act is one of today’s most controversial laws. The law’s official name is the USA PATRIOT Act, which stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. The law was passed in 2001 after the September Eleventh terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The act greatly increased the power of the government in preventing terrorism, but it also increased the amount of surveillance that the government performs on citizens.

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Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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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.

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Pros And Cons Of The US Patriot Act

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The opposition suggests that the USA Patriot Act grinds down several elements in the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment, the freedom of speech and assembly, is violated because it restricts our speech, albeit, indirectly but it is still restricted. People are losing the right to say what they feel and they have to be careful with their words when discussing politics or the government because they can be prosecuted for saying what they think. The Fourth Amendment, the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, is violated because the Patriot Act does not require a probable cause or a warrant to search through someone's data and personal information and with the Patriot Act, the victim does not need to be informed this search is happening.

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9/11 Shaped American Society

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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.

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Patriot Act Pros And Cons

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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.

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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.

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Patriot Act Advantages

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I am in favor of the patriot ACT. I know many people think, it is kind of violation of the privacy, but the patriot ACT make the U.S. a better place to live. There are countries, which try to do some damage to the U.S., and they will do anything to accomplish it. The patriot ACT made it easier for the law enforcement whenever they needed to arrest someone, whether is a drug dealer, a terror organization or someone who tries to make some damages through technology. These acts can have huge impact on the people and the society, law enforcement should act faster than the enemies in order to get them before they get what they want.

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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. These communication monitoring systems rely on these two statutes: FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (Section 702) and Patriot Act (Section 215).

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“ No single provision of the Patriot Act has ever been found unconstitutional. This is a testament to the act’s limited applicability, procedural safeguards, and extensive oversight

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Abuse Of The Patriot Act

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4. Abuse of the Patriot Act— Several provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the end of 2005 and, despite opposition from across the political spectrum and more than 400 community and state resolutions expressing concern about the Patriot Act, Congress reauthorized the law without reforming its most flawed provisions to bring these extraordinary powers back in line with the Constitution. Since then, the Justice Department 's Inspector General found that the FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of national security letters, a majority against U.S. persons, and many without any connection to terrorism at

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911 Amendment Pros And Cons Essay

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Patriot Act also happened within a hundred year span of everything else. The U.S. Patriot Act was passed for multiple reasons. Those reasons being that the citizens would feel safer with 9/11 just happening; and the other is that they predicted more restricted freedoms in the near future. President George W. Bush stated that the U.S. Patriot Act would also help law enforcement officials. One way is that it gives the opportunity to operate, not on separate tracks, but so they can share very crucial information on terrorist attacks before they have the chance to occur.

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This is arguable because the act doesn’t restrict freedom, it protects liberties. The Patriot Act is justified by the 9/11 attacks because it has helped put dozens of terrorism attempts in the ground, it has broken down communication barriers that were built between the branches of the government, and overall has heightened every

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1030 Words | 5 Pages

population about this policy are controversial and have been hot topics in the news ever since. Lastly, the fallout after 9/11 associating with the USA PATRIOT Act has brought Americans to become suspicious of their own government. They were completely unaware of the FBI’s database meant to spy on them and gather exceptionally personal information. The amount of focus people have placed upon their leaders has made the country more lawful and

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