Patriot Act Essays (Examples)

Patriot Act
In response to the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, Congress passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act, an act that gives federal officials more authority to track and intercept communications, for both law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering purposes (Doyle, 2002). The Patriot Act also gives the Secretary of the Treasury regulatory powers to prevent corruption of U.S. financial institutions for foreign money laundering purposes.

The U.S.A. Patriot Act was an urgent response to the terrorist attacks and, thus, was a bill that passed through the legislative and executive branches quickly. As a result, the Patriot Act was a controversial topic. According to Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist at the American Law Division, the Patriot Act "seeks to further close our borders to foreign terrorists and to detain and remove those within our borders. It creates new crimes, new penalties, and new procedural efficiencies for use against domestic and international…

Patriot Act: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages

Increases the Effectiveness of Law Enforcement Agencies

The Patriot Act which was signed as law by President George W. Bush on October 27, 2001 reads like a wish list of the law enforcing agencies. It was long-standing complaint of the law enforcers that the provisions contained in the Bill of ights such as the "due process" of the Fourth Amendment constrained them in their investigations of suspected terrorists. The PATIOT Act removes most of these constraints. For example, Section 213 of the Act contains a judicially authorized "sneak and peek" provision that allows law enforcement agencies to perform a search but delay notification for a period of up to three months. Such provisions increase the effectiveness of the law enforcement agencies in pursuing terrorists. (Lithwick and Turner, 2003)

Enhances the Security Environment

A related advantage of the Patriot Act is that it has improved the security environment in the…

Patriot Act
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act was passed soon after September 11. The groundbreaking legislation, which has caused tremendous controversy and outcry among civil rights activists, has become one of the most important pieces of legislation passed in Congress in recent American history. The U.S.A. Patriot Act contains previsions included in previous anti-terrorist bills, including one that was passed only one month before September 11. The Patriot Act's provisions strengthen the overall powers of law enforcement, enabling a number of various ex-parte surveillance and investigative actions, in lieu of Fourth Amendment rights to due process of law. This means that citizens may be subject to invasions of their privacy, such as through wire tapping, if suspected of being a part of a terrorist organization. However, the extent of the expansion of law enforcement powers the Patriot…

It is, in one sense, a give and take relationship, but underlying it are the philosophies of Rousseau and Smith, in spite of the fact that both are full of contradictions. Rousseau, for example, states that man's "first law is to provide for his own preservation, his first cares are those which he owes to himself; and, as soon as he reaches years of discretion, he is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving himself, and consequently becomes his own master" (14-15). Yet within the same breath he can assert that man is not his own master when he has Big Brother: "As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, the shepherds of men, i.e., their rulers, are of a nature superior to that of the peoples under them. Thus, Philo tells us, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, concluding equally well either that…

PATIOT ACT V. FOUTH AMENDMENT
Patriot Act & 4th Amendment

The Fourth Amendment was created in 1791 primarily to end the existence of general warrants, which the American colonialists hated and feared. These warrants were used by the English government to conduct door-to-door searches and mass arrests, often as a coercive method for achieving social and political goals (Maclin and Mirabella, 2011, p. 1052). With this history in mind the text of the Fourth Amendment makes perfect sense:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (FindLaw, 2011)

The wording of the Fourth Amendment represents a straightforward attempt to eliminate general warrants and thus protect personal privacy, which…

" According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). A "national security letter" (NSL) is basically a written demand by the FI or other federal law enforcement agencies for a group or organization to turn over records or data or documents, with no warrant attached to the demand. They are given out without probably cause or any justice-related back-up, and have been used extensively since the Patriot Act; they are seen by civil rights activists, legal scholars and others as an example of the over-reaching authority granted to federal agencies by the Patriot Act (and clearly in conflict with the Fourth Amendment).
Indeed, an article in the New York Times Magazine (Rosen 2007) NSLs are "especially susceptible to abuse because they're not subject to independent review by a judge or a magistrate." And that fact is as it is because "recipients are forbidden to discuss them." The article quotes from the…

" Prohibiting "a bill of attainder" means that the U.S. Congress cannot pass a law that considers individual or aggregation blameworthy and later discipline them. Disallowing an ex post facto law implies that the U.S. Congress cannot make any given act a crime after the time the act had been committed. It is doubtful that this applies to a few sections of the Patriot Act. Individuals who monitor the Supreme Court are sitting tight for a case to make its direction up so the judges can run on it (Ball, 2008).
The scope of the research of the Patriot Act

This study is based on available online books and journals focusing on this topic. A thorough investigation and research reveal that many of the measures implemented under the U.S. Patriot Act have been broadly affirmed. However, handful experts consider sections in the provisions as unconstitutional. These sections are accepted to go against…

This change is likely to come about as lawmakers realize how their skirting of Constitutional protections for one area they are in favor of can easily be applied to other areas once the door is opened for working outside the appropriate framework.
ibliography

Edgar, T.H., (2003, February 14). Section-by-section analysis of Justice Department draft "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," also known as "Patriot Act II." ACLU. http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/17203leg20030214.html

Lithwick, D. And Turner, J. (2003, September 8). A guide to the Patriot Act, Part 1. Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2087984/

Myths and Realities about the Patriot Act. ACLU. http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/facts.html#four

Probable cause. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause

Rosenzweig, P. (2004, May 5). Aiding terrorists - an examination of the material support statute. http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/tst050504a.cfm

Rosenzweig, P., Kochems, a. And Carafano, J.J. (2004, September 20). The Patriot Act reader: Understanding the law's role in the war on global terror. http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/upload/69895_1.pdf

Strom, R. (2004, December 5). Patriot Act II: Pro-security, or anti- freedom? WorldNetDaily. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41722

The USA Patriot Act:…

Patriot Act in egards to Its Authorization
of Surveillance and Search and Seizure

The Patriot Act:

The Patriot Act was enacted into law in 2001 to unite and strengthen America through the provision of suitable tools that are necessary to interrupt and barricade terrorism acts. This legislation was established with the dignified intention of identifying and indicting international terrorists operating on the United States' soil ("USA Patriot Act," n.d.). The Act, which amended more than 15 several statues, consists of different provisions that recommend concluding the information-sharing gaps amongst different governmental agencies. Compliance with the Patriot Act is the foundation for political and monetary support for projects that may be technically viable. However, regardless of the good intentions of the legislation, it has raised various perspectives since its enactment. Consequently, it's important to examine the ethical and homeland security implications of the Patriot Act especially in regards to its authorization of surveillance and…

These include "books, letters, diaries, library records, medical and psychiatric records, financial information, membership lists of religious institutions, and even -- as Attorney General Ashcroft himself conceded in testimony before Congress -- genetic information" ("ACLU").
A real life example of how an innocent individual's civil rights can be so easily violated was presented by Jason Halperin's account, in his article Patriot aid. Halperin had gone with his roommate to see the Broadway show ent. Before heading to the musical, the two men decided to stop at a favorite Indian restaurant, in the heart of midtown New York, just off Times Square. They had just begun to eat dinner when five NYPD officers, in bulletproof vests, stormed into the restaurant, guns drawn and pointing at the customers and the restaurant staff.

Halperin further goes on to tell of how the police officers had all of the terrified patrons and staff go to…

ome have even been detained for long periods of time without being informed when they would be released or even the reason for their detention. The situation at airports is no less dire. ome airlines have even refused to let Arabs on board because of their ethnic heritage and their perceived connection to terrorism.
One important issue that is overlooked with regard to this is the fact that many white citizens in the country have joined the Al Qaeda cause, because it gives them something to believe in and to fight for. The true terrorists are however ignored in favor of innocent citizens as a result of their skin color. This is certainly not democracy, and nor does the diminishment of equal rights guarantee safety, as the targets of such practices are innocent in most cases.

The issue of ethnic heritage and prosecution after 9/11 are also addressed by Nancy Baker…

Though out-and-out electronic monitoring of private information as evidence in a terrorist-related trial is highly unlikely, it nonetheless puts the average American citizen in a position where his or her privacy is greatly compromised (Soma, Nichols, ynerson, Maish, and ogers, 2005).
Another section that deems careful scrutiny is Section 215 of the Patriot Act. This section allows the FBI to demand production of any "tangible things" for terrorism investigations. Vagueness and ambiguity seem to be recurring themes throughout the Patriot Act. Section 215 is exceptionally vague in terms of "what is" and "is not" fair game to FBI acquisitions. It seems that the Patriot Act is written in such a way that "anything" could be conceived as being open in the eyes of investigators, including private and confidential handwritten information, tape recordings, hard drives, and CD-OM -- simply because they are "tangible things" (USA Patriot Improvement and eauthorization Act of…

It loosened the regulations needed to tap into conversations of suspect individuals, allowing the government to ease drop with much more ease. The act also allowed for greater freedom in collecting intelligence over seas and lesser restrictions on detaining suspects and deporting foreign nationals deemed to e dangerous y the U.S. government (Lithwick 2003). This allowed much greater power on the ehalf of the federal government to detain suspicious individuals without charging them right away. Along with this, it also helped increase the deportation power of the government within a wide variety of cases.
Such new found freedoms of the reign of the federal government as estalished through the provisions of the Patriot Act insurrected great controversy within the minds of citizens all across the country. Many citizens elieve the patriot Act to e a direct infringement on the civil lierties of American citizens (Americans Civil Lierties Union 2003). It…

Those that believe that the Patriot Act represents a grave breaking of basic individual freedom ignore the fact that although governmental agencies have the right to obtain personal data about a person and to put that person under surveillance without notification, they cannot do so without the approval of a judge. The Patriot Act does not fully allow the FI or the CIA to access personal data; it merely gives them the possibility to do so if a judge agrees that they have sufficient reason for it.

The greatest opposition against the Patriot Act provisions is centered on the fact that it allows agencies to have access to personal information, that is and should remain private. However, the Patriot Act does not break the privacy right stipulated in the Fourth Amendment because the Fourth Amendment does not refer to items disclosed to third parties. For example, a credit card user reveals…

Patriot Act became part of the United States' law following its enactment in 2001 for the purpose of uniting and strengthening the country by providing appropriate tools that are necessary in barricading and interrupting terrorism acts. The law was also enacted with the dignified objective of spotting and indicting global terrorists operating on America's soil. Since its enactment, the legislation has continued to draw sharp controversies due to the emergence of ethical concerns and homeland security implications. The huge debates have regarding the Patriot Act has risen because of certain provisions in the legislation with both republicans and democrats raising various issues. However, while the controversies have become synonymous to the legislation, the act has various advantages especially on America's homeland security. The advantages basically emanate from the fact that the legislation has improved America's counter-terrorism efforts. Some of these benefits or advantages include & #8230;
Permitting Government to Use Techniques…

Patriot Act
Understanding the Origins and Impact of the Patriot Act: From September 11th to the Modern Day

National security is one of the most essential concerns for any society or state, and arguably the most essential concern for any nation in the modern era that is marked both by non-government-affiliated aggressors as well as many disputed borders and territories that lead to intergovernmental conflicts. If national security is breached in any meaningful fashion, then all of the other responsibilities and efforts of a given government or state will become essentially worthless, as they will be under direct and imminent threat from whatever force is threatening the security of the state as a whole. In addition, protecting the very lives of its citizens must be seen as an essential goal for any government, as even the most rudimentary political philosophies have established that the government exists for the better protection and prosperity…

However, cases about terrorism where police investigate individuals who are fundamentalist Muslims, the religious group known to have produced the September 11 terrorists, are an almost immediate cry of "racial and religious profiling." Claims of racial profiling are complaints against what is an established police investigation method and are a last resort by accused individuals to divert attention away from their crimes and toward a more favorable outcome.
Situations of blatant racial discrimination (requiring Arab males to take a loyalty oath to the U.S., for example) or of invasions into private, law-abiding citizens' lives (pulling their library records), while contradictory to our ideals of individual rights, are really not likely to happen. The priority of the federal government is currently and will remain, naturally, in pursuing terrorist suspects whom they already have reasonable suspicions about as opposed to investigating and intruding into the private lives of law-abiding citizens.

A came to…

Patriot Act Debate: Pros and Cons
Pros

Cons

Arguments in favor of the Patriot Act

The Patriot Act was passed soon after the terrorists attacks of 2001 on America. The aim of the act was to improve the counter terrorism efforts the country to help prevent future such attacks.

The act allows the government and the government security agencies to use the tools that were already available in order to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking which was believed to be financing the terrorists (Cassella, 2003).

The act also allowed the security agencies to engage in using of greater surveillance methods and tools against crimes of terror. This included the conduct of electronic surveillance to investigate any ordinary and non-terrorism crimes that included drug crimes, mail frauds and passport frauds. The security agencies could tap in phone calls and all of their forms of electronic information and data transfer between people who are not suspected to…

Patriot Act
On September 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks occurred, a contentious piece of legislation was adopted and passed called the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Research shows that the title for this bill is an abbreviation for what is recognized as "the United and Strengthening America by Giving Appropriate Tools Required to Interrupt and Obstruct Terrorism Act" (Dolar). Years later since the Patriot Act was passed, there has been much debate and controversy on the subject of the positive and negative rewards, and penalties of this bill. Many on the police force community, have experienced firsthand some of the changes the Patriot Act has brought upon this nation. A result of this experience alongside with information gained in the studying of this act and concerns, has led many people to believe in this bill as a way for combating terrorism against the United States of America. ith that said, the Patriot…

Patriot Act
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States had severe and immediate consequences. One of the most far-reaching of these is probably the ease with which terrorists were able to plan and carry out the attacks. This brought the government's attention certain shortcomings in the security measures in place at the time. The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act is one of the controversial results of the government's panicky response to the 9/11 attacks. It might be seen as an unobjective and emotional response to a time of crisis. Indeed, the increasing negative responses to the Act appears to substantiate the notion that the Act was passed in haste, without the opportunity for sufficient debate and in-depth thought.

PATRIOT" is an acronym for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." This Act provides the government and its law enforcement agencies with several freedoms that…

USA Patriot Act
What is the issue?

The view that had been taken by the authorities is that America was a country with too much of liberty - more than was good for its security. Along with this the feeling was that federal law enforcement agencies did not have enough powers. Thus when the situation of 9/11 came up, the government had to act, the least it could do was to stop future such incidences from happening, and it came up with Patriot Act. The new act has turned America into a country where there is now less privacy and possibly increased security. One of the main areas where privacy has disappeared is financial positions. (More Surveillance Equals Less Liberty: Patriot Act reduces privacy, undercuts judicial review)

The situation is that banks, brokerage houses, insurers and all other financial institutions have now been forced to become state informers. The government has the power…

USA Patriot Act on Law Enforcement
Patriot Act

Impact of the U.S.A. PATIOT Act on Law Enforcement

Impact of the U.S.A. PATIOT Act on Law Enforcement

A number of legislative bills and provisions were considered by the U.S. Congress in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the New York World Trade Centers and the Pentagon (Wong, 2006a). With close to 3,000 Americans having lost their lives in the attacks, the public and its representatives wanted to do whatever was possible to prevent a recurrence. The most controversial bill to make its way through Congress was the U.S.A. PATIOT Act (referred to here as the Patriot Act), which expanded the powers of domestic law enforcement (H.. 3162, 2001). This act was signed into law by then President George W. Bush just 45 days after the attacks, on October 26, 2001 (Wong, 2006a).

Interpretations of what the Patriot Act did for law enforcement…

USA Patriot Act
United States has been utilizing and exploiting all possible means of thwarting potential terrorist attacks and eliminating terrorist elements from the country. Various laws have been enacted to control information flow and to curtail any risk of terrorism activity against the United States. With communications means becoming more advanced, the country also needed to monitor the terrorist activities carried out through communication channels including Internet, emails and telephones. For this reason important laws were passed that gave Federal agencies increased surveillance powers.

One such Act that was signed into law in October 2001 is the U.S.A. patriot Act that actually stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools equired to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001" that not only grants increased surveillance powers to various intelligence and federal agencies but also violate some earlier laws including First and Fourteenth Amendment. While the Patriot Act itself has…

WAR ON TERROR LEGISLATION 2War on Terror LegislationThere are many costs when it comes to the war on terror. Some of those costs are easy to measure and quantify. Some of the others are difficult to impossible to quantify. Just a few examples of both would include civilian loss of life, military loss of life, military equipment usage or loss, the cost of the legislation that comes along with the War on Terror (e.g. The Patriot Act), the cost of doing nothing and so forth. In defining the problem at hand with those costs and projecting or measuring the same, this report shall look at a number of angles including a broad overview, the root causes of the problems and issues at hand, the impacts of events that have happened and prior decisions made and so forth. While this report and its analysis shall include only two pieces of legislation,…

com. etrieved on November 24, 2004 from http://slate.msn.com/id/2088161/
'The U.S.A. PATIOT Act: Preserving Life and Liberty." (2003). Department of Justice. etrieved on November 24, 2004 from http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/

Note: Synopsis and outline are on next page

The PATIOT Act: Synopsis and Outline

The USA Patriot Act, which was signed as law in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks gives sweeping powers of search and surveillance to the law enforcing agencies and is aimed at eliminating the terrorist activities in the U.S. The Department of Justice and the Bush administration claim that the Patriot Act has been instrumental in preventing further terrorist attacks in the U.S. after 9/11. However, the Civil libertarians claim that the Act severely compromises the civil liberties granted in the U.S. constitution and violates the due process law of the Fourth Amendment.

Outline:

Introduction:

Provides basic information about the U.S.A. PATIOT Act and a 'contract statement' of the essay, i.e., what the essay is…

The bill before me takes into account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to indentify, to dismantle, to disrupt and to punish terrorist before they strike." (Marcovitz, 2008) This is significant because it allows for the effective tracking of suspected terrorists activities. As a result, the overall quality and amount of intelligence gathered will allow law enforcement to determine what is taking place, before a tragedy occurs.
A third benefit of the Patriot Act is: it allows for improved coordination. A 2005 study conducted by the Justice Department showed that the Patriot Act helped intelligence / law enforcement officials to identify over 40 different terrorist organizations operating in the United States, they were able to successfully arrest 500 suspected terrorists with ties to different organizations around the world and a total of 57 people were convicted of raising money for terrorist…

Application of the Act

Although the Justice Department claims that the PATIOT Act has been largely responsible for the prevention of further terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11 (see the official website of the Justice Department), the application of the Act has made the U.S. more of a "police state" than ever before. Provisions in the Patriot Act such as Sections 411 and 412 that allow detention and deportation of aliens without court rulings or judicial review mean that immigrants are now living in a general state of fear. They way over-zealous law enforcement officers apply the Act on immigrants remains largely uncovered by the main-stream press. Shocking stories of such abuse, however, filter out sometimes. For example, a vivid eye-witness account of a PATIOT-authorized police raid on an Indian restaurant appears in the Alternet. (Halperin, 2003).

Current Opinions

President George W. Bush repeatedly declared during his re-election campaign that he…

PATIOT ACT legal authority conduct covert surveilance. - I faxed a hours paper, I 1-2 sources buy make cited .
The Patriot Act represents perhaps one of the most important legal instruments created since 2001 to provide legitimacy of covert actions that would contribute to the fight against terrorism that the United States is fighting since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The Patriot Act introduced new legal protection for actions that relate to covert surveillance conducted through all means such as wiretapping, electronic communication, or any type of electronic communication.

The Patriot Act provided the legal framework to conduct such operations by amending existing laws such as "The Wiretap Statute," "Electronic Communications Privacy Act," or "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" (Dept. Of Justice, 2012)

The enactment of the Patriot Act has determined a lot of controversy in terms of the privacy restrictions it imposes. This is largely due to the fact…

forum #4: Civil liberties/Civil rights
One recent famous 't-shirt' case involving the civil liberties of a defendant was Guiles v. Marineau, in which a middle-schooler who wore a t-shirt openly critical of President George Bush was suspended from school for being disruptive. Zachary Guiles "was later allowed back in school, but he was told that he couldn't wear the T-shirt unless he taped over certain pictures on the T-shirt -- pictures of a martini glass, lines of cocaine, straws, and razor blades. The pictures were references to substance abuse problems President Bush is said to have had as a younger man. These problems were also described in words on the T-shirt" ("Student Free Speech Rights: Guiles v. Marineau: Issues). Although the Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the case, the Second Circuit judges where the case was decided "determined that for speech that isn't vulgar…Schools may not regulate such student…

The Patriot Act "became law only a month after September 11, 2001 -- with little review and amid an atmosphere of fear," an atmosphere counter-productive to positive acts of law enforcement. "The law gave the government sweeping surveillance powers without including accountability and oversight." Non-citizens or 'outsiders' can be indefinitely incarcerated, as a result of the act, and even citizens can find their mail scrutinized and their library and website visitation tracked and documented by the government.
Although security is necessary, these stipulations of the act cause one to ask -- why must certain groups and behaviors be demonized, or deemed suspicious, merely because they are engaged in a free search for information? What is the purpose of protecting freedom, if the means of law enforcement curtail that freedom? Although terrorism may indeed be a threat, limiting the tools that Americans have to express themselves without fear, and selecting certain…

Patriot Act
The U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed because of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. e realized that our current body of laws did not completely address the task of finding terrorists before they take action. The Patriot Act was passed to make it easier for us to protect ourselves from future terrorist acts. The Act has been controversial because although most people recognize the need to effectively prevent future attacks, some people feel the law has gone too far and infringed on civil liberties. Other critics contend that the law doesn't give government enough power (Doyle, 2002).

The Patriot Act makes various actions by the government when trying to identify who might be a terrorist easier to execute. It extends wiretapping to email, provides for nationwide permission to use wiretapping and related investigatory techniques rather than having to get those permissions on a state by…

PATIOT Act
The United States of America's PATIOT Act (formally the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools equired to Interpret and Obstruct Terrorism Act) was a hurriedly created legislation against terrorism reacting to the terror attack on September 11, 2001. Little debate and oversight was given to the large, complex law by the Congress and President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 26, 2001. PATIOT offers sweeping surveillance, and search to both domestic officers and foreign intelligence agencies and removes many checks and balances that initially gave the courts the chance to make sure that the powers were never abused. The developing PATIOT and follow-up legislation (Gouvin, 2003) threaten the basic rights of most Americans.

The Origin

The United States of America PATIOT Act, also known as USAPA brought in several legislative amendments that had a significant increase on the investigative and surveillance powers of the U.S. law…

Patriot Act
The following will be an in-depth look at the Patriot Act.

History of the Patriot Act

This Act was developed after the terrorism tragedy on September 11 in New York, and became a law on 10/26/2001. It was a contentious law, since it made huge alterations on how the law enforcement should look into its communications. The Patriot Act was passed amid much disapproval, making it contentious to date (History of the Patriot Act -- Patriot Act). The enthusiasts of this Act believed that it allowed the law enforcement to prevent future terrorism. The critics, on the other hand, describe the law as ambiguous and intrusive. They also say that it is doubtful, considering the scope of the legislation, that it was directly based on the attack. It was apparently meant to finally give the law enforcement a chance to be more aggressive, using the terrorism tragedy as a loophole.

Controversial Provisions

The…

Patriot Act
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the government passed legislation designed to protect the country. Included amongst these was the Patriot Act which has become the center of debate by parties who are either in favor of or against the legislation. There are many provisions to this act and the ones that are most debated include: reducing certain limits on law enforcement, giving additional powers to the Secretary of the Treasury, and giving law enforcement the ability to arrest, detain, or deport any immigrants who are suspected of involvement with terrorism (Schulhofer 2005). After 9/11, America was in a frenzy of fear and patriotism which allowed laws to pass which have seriously infringed on the civil rights of citizens as well as allowing for unlawful activity to be performed by members of the government who claim they are doing it for the good of the country. In…

Patriot Act Homeland Security Act 21st Century form foundation United States' domestic response terrorist attacks September 11, 2001. Many legal political voices advocated acts resulted a reduction rights citizens a loss civil liberties.
The Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act:

Are they a violation of our constitutional rights?

According to the U.S. government, the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act gave the government the necessary tools to investigate acts of terror, including greater leeway in the use of surveillance technology; greater leeway in sharing information between law enforcement agencies, and increased the penalties for terrorist-related crimes (The U.S. Patriot Act, 2014, Department of Justice). However, it is very difficult to establish whether a law has genuinely prevented crime, particularly a crime with such complex causality as terrorism. Furthermore, civil liberties groups have criticized the Act for limiting the freedom of innocent Americans. ather than improving the safety of Americans, organizations…

Through experience, the FBI has acquired insights into the fact that there are no dividing lines distinguishing foreign intelligence, terrorist and criminal activities. Foreign intelligence, terrorism, and criminal organizations and activities are interdependent and interrelated (Abele, 2005). Files belonging to the FBI are full of investigation cases where the sharing of information between criminal intelligence, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism investigations is essential to the ability of the FBI. This is in regards to the protection of the nation from criminal activities, foreign intelligence activity, and terrorists. Some investigations beginning as counterintelligence investigations end up becoming criminal cases. In some cases, the FBI initiates the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, or parallel criminal cases in maximizing their ability to conduct effective investigations. This has helped in addressing and identifying various threats to the U.S. hence implementing protective measures to protect vulnerable methods and sources. The success in the provision of accurate assessments of intelligence…

U.S.A. PATRIOT Act Remain in Effect in Its Present Form?
For more than 200 years, the level of civil liberties afforded American citizens has waxed and waned according to the perceived level of threats arrayed against the nation's interests, with the most recent example of curtailment being the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act which was enacted hard on the heels of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite the guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights, this law has seriously eroded the civil liberties of all Americans in an overly zealous attempt to ferret out terrorists wherever they may hide. This paper provides a definition of the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act's purpose and main powers, following by a review of the relevant literature concerning whether it should be abolished or preserved. An argument in favor of the Act's abolishment is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the…

Patriot Act and Constitutional Freedom
Thomas Jefferson said: 'The price of freedom is constant vigilance.' Unfortunately in a large nation dedicated to the individual freedom and liberty of all its citizens, the only time when the nation learns that is has not been vigilant enough is when a person, or group of persons take advantage of that freedom, and abuse the liberty of others in order to further their own destructive purposes. The tragedy of 9-11 is the most recent case in point of how a nation can take its freedom and liberty for granted, which ultimately makes a doorway for others to tear down that which has taken over 200 years to build, protect, and defend.

When our country endured similar acts of threat or war, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or the expansion of communism into the Western Hemisphere in Cuba, the government has oven reacted with…

Those that present themselves as against the Patriot Act are not necessarily unpatriotic or protective towards terrorists hiding on U.S. territory, but merely people that are supportive of the basic freedoms that Americans have and which represent the most important asset of USA.
Through the Patriot Act the U.S. government can constantly monitor any terrorism suspect and the people that he interacts with. For example, any phone that might at one point be used by a terrorism suspect can be legally supervised indefinitely and so even those that have no relation with a terrorist suspect and simply use a public phone or accidentally come in contact with a terrorist suspect can be supervised and their phone can be monitored. The biggest concern is that the government will have easier access to personal information of any citizen and that there is no guarantee that that personal information will not be used…

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools equired to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism is the extended terminology that refers to the U.S.A. Patriot Act which, following the events of 9/11 was passed by the Senate immediately and almost unanimously. When the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were attacked in 2001, concerns over national security and America's susceptibility to terrorist threats emerged more so as the country remained baffled at what had just happened. Governmental figures needed to address people's concerns and overall, the issue of law enforcement being able to prevent such attacks from ever happening again. With Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh having authored the act shortly after the events and upon reviewing existing practices and methodologies, Jim Sensenbrenner, member of the epublican Party, presented it to Congress. It should be noted that, generally, the Patriot Act is embedded in America's history of electronic surveillance that emerged…

Against the Patriot Act of 2001
What is the Patriot Act of 2001? The Act was passed in order to unite and strengthen the United States of America by providing all the appropriate and the necessary tools with which to fight terrorism. The President George W. Bush signed the Act on October 26th in 2001, after the devastating terrorist attacks that occurred on the nerve center of the United States of America, the World Trade Center, on September 11, 2001. (USA Patriot Act) These terrorist acts were a cleverly coordinated series of attacks on the Pentagon, which is the Headquarters of the Department of Defense of the United States of America and holds more than 23,000 civilian as well as military employees, and also more than 3,000 non-defense personnel, and on the World Trade Center, which is the center of global commerce that is responsible for providing network access to several…

" (Lindsey, 2004, p.1) it is interesting to note that one of the young protestors stated: "[the world leaders] are sitting over there on Sea Island having their little party only talking about how to fix things, but we are over here actually doing something to make things better" -- Laurel Paget-Seekins (Lindsey, 2004, p. 1) the U.S.A. Patriot Act has been touted to do just this - or to make things better in terms of security of American citizens and it is certain that the provisions of this Act have served to increase levels of security for American citizens but this security has come with a cost attached and for some Americans the cost is too high and too intrusive upon their basic civil rights. One such instance of the complexity created within the security paradigm are the no-fly lists that have been implemented in U.S. airports since September…

The result is thousands of people denied the necessary refuge that they seek. Clintora condemns this as a "major policy gap (that) threatens not only human rights in individual countries but also jeopardizes international and regional stability and American regional influence and economic interests."
Kreimer (2007) expounds upon the fact that few legislators had time to fully read the PATIOT Act, when it was first proposed. Once enacted, there was significant concern about the expansion of powers for unchecked surveillance. However, many of the Acts provisions were subject to a four-year sunset requirement. It was believed that Congress would carefully examine how organizations, such as the FBI, utilized their power under the PATIOT Act, when deciding whether or not to certain provisions would go by the wayside come 2005. Yet, in 2006, after much political wrangling, most of the PATIOT Act was reenacted, with little change to the original wording,…

It is a work that seems to be eerily familiar to what is happening in many areas of society today, and that is one aspect of the novel that makes it exceedingly frightening to read.
eferences

Abdolian, Lisa Finnegan, and Harold Takooshian. "The U.S.A. PATIOT Act: Civil Liberties, the Media, and Public Opinion." Fordham Urban Law Journal 30.4 (2003): 1429+.

A secondary source that gives useful information on the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Includes commentary on the pros and cons of the act, and how the media portrayed it. Also includes opponents to the act, and some of the most controversial policies included in the act.

Deery, June. "George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four." Utopian Studies 16.1 (2005): 122+.

A secondary source that talks about Orwell's novel, why he wrote it, and when it was reissued in 2003. Also discusses Orwell's motives for writing the novel, and what influenced him. It is a review of the reissue,…

These liberties are those on which this country was formed and have been upheld for many years as absolute certainties.
The Patriot Act has put a lot of doubt on whether these liberties are still protected guarantees. With this act giving the Government the power to use wiretaps to spy on people, search warrants to look for things that they don't even have to tell you about and the ability to look at ones private computer records it makes you wonder what this country is coming to. How is it that we the people have allowed it to come to this? What has happened to the guts on which this country was built? Back then this type of act would never have been passed and put into practice. Although it can be argued that this is because times are so much different now than they were back in the day,…

(Proposed encryption, 2004, USA Today). As Bruce Schneier's text Schneier on Security indicates, encryption is being increasingly used by watchful and responsible people to protect their security online. The concern about implicating an innocent person or giving a harsh sentence to someone for a minor offense is not far-fetched given the ubiquitous nature of encryption technology. The useful and benign nature of encryption means that to increase the potential penalties for a crime simply for using encryption may allow many small and possibly great injustices to occur within the judicial system.
eferences

Proposed encryption laws could prove draconian, many fear. (2003, March 31). USA Today.

etrieved December 17, 2009 at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-03-31-crypto-rights_x.htm

Schneier, Bruce. (2008). Schneier on Security. New York: Wiley.

Patriotic Act
Arguments for and against the Patriot Act

The unusual events surrounding the creation and passing of the Patriot Act make it a suspect bill in many eyes. However, major media reports like this one: "Fifty-nine percent in an ABC News/ashington Post poll favor continuing the additional investigative authority in terrorism investigations that was granted to the FBI starting in 2001. President Bush urged such an extension of the Patriot Act today" (Langer) insist that there are others who support it and promote it as a protection against the kind of terrorism that was seen on 9/11. For supporters the idea of sacrificing civil liberties for security measures such as the TSA is, while unfortunate, a necessary evil. Those who oppose it, like alternative media journalist Ryan Dawson and Sen. Ron Paul, decry it as government intrusion. This paper will give arguments for and against the Patriot Act and show why…

Government Performance esults Act
The General Accounting Office (GAO) may be one of most essential agencies in the federal government, because of its investigative oversight, but to the average American citizen, it may also be among the lesser known agencies. That is because the average hard-working nine-to-five person - whose contact with "news" is a few sound bites on television after work - might never dig into newspapers deep enough to read up on how taxpayer dollars are spent in Washington D.C. It's regrettable that the average person complains loudly about taxes, and "politicians" - yet knows little of the GAO's pivotal work. Meanwhile, this paper will focus upon the GAO report on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), titled, "Status of Achieving Key Outcomes and Addressing Major Management Challenges" - which is clearly a wise use of taxpayer monies, whether taxpayers know about the GAO or not.

The GAO Critiques DOJ

The…

Moreover, a prosecution of the core leadership of an organization under RICO charges is likely to produce revelations concerning the relationship between leadership and other members who are either guilty of racketeering or some lesser scope of individual crime. This is to say that RICO was essentially designed to push the door open on the activities of such typically obscured enterprises in order to systematically disrupt its initiatives and priorities.
Still, as this investigation finds as a recurrent theme in considered research materials, even when armed with RICO's expansive authorities, there remains a fundamental difficulty in overcoming the effectively obfuscating structure of the modern organized crime enterprise. In the case of the long-ingrained style of activity instituted by La Cosa Nostra, the protective degree to which structure is designed to insulate the activities, connections and implications relating to real decisions-makers and bosses tends to effect the ability of RICO statutes…

popular films, The Patriot and Glory to discuss and evaluate leadership illustrations. The writer focuses on the leadership qualities in each film. The writer then explores the differences and similarities between the two especially when it comes to leadership. There were six sources used to complete this paper.
Most movie goers will agree that the silver screen productions that they go to view have a theme. The theme may be obvious and blatant, or the theme can be nothing more than an undertone that runs through the storyline. The themes are not always evidenced immediately, but are savored only after one has been able to enjoy the film and digest its more obvious elements and truths. Two popular movies provide a theme of leadership. Leadership is a broad-based topic of discussion in many arenas today, as it is possible to display and recognize leadership in many different ways. Leadership is…

Prince
Theme

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, is a practical handbook of political advice for leaders. Its primary purpose is to explain the best ways to obtain and keep political power. The essence of Machiavelli's philosophy is that when it comes to gaining and maintaining power, "the ends justify the means" (94). This is the theme throughout the book. Machiavelli analyzes both contemporary and historical examples of rulers, power, and strategy to support his contentions. He begins with an overview of various forms of government and how they might be best manipulated and ruled by a prince. Mixed monarchies serve a new leader's purposes best because they have no remaining hereditary families to oppose a new prince (35-42). Machiavelli then discusses how to rule newly acquired lands. The best way for a prince to consolidate power in a new territory often depends on how the territory was acquired. Machiavelli looks at…

Dyson_NewsStory
April 15, 2013 is Patriots' Day in Massachusetts, and a particularly notable day in Boston because of the running of the marathon. Local news coverage in the morning consisted of pre-race interviews with runners and spectators. By mid-afternoon, tragically, the focus had shifted from the elite athletes and their sport to the explosions that killed two and injured many others. The explosions occurred before millions of people, both those at the scene and those watching on television in the Boston area, where the entire event is covered live.

Reporters spoke rapidly in excited voices. There were reporters at the scene and in the studio. They all struggled to make sense of what happened and tried to relay to viewers what little information was known. At first, there was speculation that the explosions were an accident, but it soon became apparent that small bombs were detonated deliberately to disrupt the event and…

Patriot Act also has the ability to strip the American public of their basic rights to privacy. The Patriot Act allows easy access to financial records, pen registers and trap-trace devices could be installed on personal computers and telephones, and student records can be accessed without consent of the school (Unpatriotic Acts). These unregulated powers are guaranteed by the Patriot Act in three amendments. These three amendments include the Title III, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act). They allow the government to search through private records in the interest of "national security." As result of these three amendments, thousands of immigrants in the United States have been detained and interrogated based upon their religions. Many of these immigrants, as in some cases, even American citizens, have been in federal military custody for months at a time while their…

Patriot Act
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States by violent fanatics, the federal government passed legislation which was designed to protect American citizens and to prevent further deaths. One piece of legislation, Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, more simplistically known as the Patriot Act, has been at the center of vehement debate on both sides, in support of and in opposition of the document. Among the many provisions of the act, some of the most contentious include: reduction of restrictions of law enforcement agencies, allows the Secretary of the Treasury to regulate financial transactions, and gave further powers to law enforcement and immigration officials in allowing them to detain, arrest, or deport immigrants who have been suspected of terrorist activities (Schulhofer 2005,-page vi). Following 9/11, there was a national grief over the tragic events and…

Patriot Act and current developments in the United States
In 2011, the PATIOT Sunsets Extension Act made possible the tracking of small businesses and corporate affairs that are on the territory of the United States. The applicability of this law can be seen in the most common working spaces and, thru this, the confidentiality of the information shared and traded via the Internet becomes a matter of the past. The Patriot Act is therefore an issue of concern and at the same time a matter of ensuring security for the population of the United States. However, it is important to consider the price in terms of privacy that both the average American as well as its international counterparts need to pay in order to obey by the Patriot Act and the necessity for safety.

There are several aspects to consider. The Internet as a means of communication, the privacy as a…

The most worrying aspect in this case is the fact that the Patriot Act seems to be endangering some of the fundamental liberties of the American individual. The motivation seems simple: the country is at war and, in any such conditions, it is allowed to resort to all means to achieve victory. On the other hand, the fact that certain governmental practices (many of which have probably been going on in the past, but had never been exposed) are now out in the open and even regulated.

The case of the American citizen Yaser Hamdi is quintessential for the application of policies in times of war. Yaser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, deemed to be a member of al Qaeda and was categorized as an "enemy combatant." He had been held imprisoned without being charged for almost two years, with no access to attorneys or trials.

His case brings about the dilemma…

Privacy" Does Not Love an explores darkness lurking beneath dom
James Adcox's novel Love Does Not is many things; a dystopian fantasy, a biting satire, a tale about the perversity of love. Yet it is also a scathing social commentary about the state of privacy in the world today -- and in America in particular -- in the wake of the burgeoning ar on Terror. Beneath the undercurrent of sex, intrigue, and murder, lies a pervasive sense of espionage and an abandonment of the right of individuals to enjoy basic civil liberties such as privacy. hen interpreted with this perspective, the novel is one in which characters and scenes are carefully constructed to illustrate the gradual eroding of the very laws that were initially formed to guarantee autonomy and an egalitarian, republican state as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. There are a number of salient similarities between these characters and…

This springs from the inherent flaw to the logical and practical underpinnings of the 2001 bill. Its twofold set of assumptions-that safety
can only be preserved through the sacrifice of personal liberties and that
terrorism is the product of bureaucratic obstacles to law-enforcement-both
proceed from a faulty ideological seedling that far predates 9/11.
In its forceful attainment of new authorities which have even further
removed it from the province of democratic process, the United States
government has implemented legislation that may usher in a new era of
sustained McCarthyism. ith the 'terrorist' tag supplanting the
'communist' label that was considered social, professional and political
anathema in the 40's and 50's, the Patriot Act is the first and broadest of
post-9/11 tools for the extension of ideological hegemony in an age of
highly charged philosophical division. Much like the witch-hunt that
McCarthyism engendered, the Patriot Act's impact on the Bill of Rights
demonstrates a common flight of misdirection in our representative
democracy. hen 19 foreign…

They now work together in what has become an ideological battle against the U.S. In this vicious battle against the terror outfits, our people have been robbed of their cherished freedom, which has always been the cornerstone of our constitution.
As history has time and again illustrated, 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. This can be extended to the patriot act, which has given absolute power to the law enforcers at the cost of the freedom and privacy of its citizens. Ethnic profiling and 'speculation without any accountability' have undermined the rule of law and overridden civil and constitutional rights of thousands of citizens. The much-touted 'preventive paradigm' of which the patriot act is an important tool has resulted in much wrongdoing. The former president's acceptance that Iraqi invasion was a 'terrible mistake' is enough proof of the strategic misadventure of a failed intelligence system backed by emergency terror…

FISA's recent rise to fame has been due to attempts by the Bush Administration to apply the law as justification for warrant-less wiretaps of U.S. citizens in apparent disregard of their Fourth Amendment protections. This issue will be examined in more detail below, however, it is important to first discuss some of the key court cases that help establish the Constitutionality of FISA. Specifically, this report will address three cases that directly feed into the Constitutional requirements of FISA: Olmstead v. U.S. (1928), Katz v. U.S. (1967), and U.S. v. U.S. (1972).
Olmstead v. U.S. (1928)

For the civil libertarian, the case of Olmstead v. U.S. (1928) is a nightmare violation of constitutionally guaranteed Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. In the case, oy Olmstead was convicted of bootlegging during the Prohibition years of U.S. history. Without obtaining any kind of judicial approval, federal agents placed wiretaps in the building Olmstead kept…