USA PATRIOT Act The USA PATRIOT Act was enacted in response to the September 11,
ID: 3683874 • Letter: U
Question
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act was enacted in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The act allows law enforcement officials to listen to phone conversations or view emails to investigate a potential threat of terrorism. Some believe this power is an invasion of privacy, especially when the country is not in a heightened state of security.
There is a tremendous amount of debate over whether the USA PATRIOT Act and similar laws should be effective only when the country is in a heightened state of terrorism alert.
• Comment on how well the USA Patriot Act balances the interests of law enforcement versus individual rights to free speech and privacy. Does the terrorism threat level affect your views? Explain and give examples where appropriate.
• Perform a web search to identify a law or regulation meant to protect against terrorism or similar security threats in a country other than the U.S. How does this law or regulation affect individual free speech or privacy when using a phone, sending e-mails, or surfing the web? Do you think this is appropriate? Explain.
Explanation / Answer
Answer for Question:
The USA PATRIOT Act stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." This bill was signed into law with little debate on October 26, 2001, only 45 days after the attacks that rocked our country. The vote in favor of the law was overwhelming and bi-partisan – 98 to 1 in the US Senate and 357 to 66 in the US House of Representatives. Yet, the bill was 342 pages long, and many members of Congress now say they did not even read it before voting in favor.
Author Steven Brill (2003) asserts in his book, After: Rebuilding and Defending America in the September 12 Era, that the version of the USA PATRIOT Act voted on by Congress was not the bill that had been approved in committee and that had been endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Additionally, no conference report was included when the bill was presented to the Congress, meaning the compromise product negotiated by the conference committee was not submitted to each chamber of Congress for its consideration.
According to Bernard Weiner (2003), professor of American politics and international relations at Western Washington University and San Diego State University: "The White House hustled the so-called USA PATRIOT Act through a frightened Congress in a patriotic blur, just a few days after the attacks, with few, if any, of the legislators having had time to read the final version."
If such claims are true, then the law may not by a rational response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Rather, the law could possibly be a well-coordinated and long-planned effort by some in the Justice Department to tilt the scales so far in favor of law enforcement and intelligence agencies that civil liberties of Americans may be sacrificed as a result. Only time will tell if this is the case.
In this paper, I outline basic facts of the USA PATRIOT Act, discussing its benefits and threats to civil liberties. I also lay out important realities of the law, including how it is being used, and examine whether the intrusions it imposes on American citizens are reasonable. I also discuss the backlash against the law. I conclude with a discussion on the likely future of the law and implications of the law for the criminal justice discipline. The main purpose of the paper is to thoroughly summarize and critically analyze the USA PATRIOT Act, for the benefit of those working in the discipline of criminal justice – who have, as of the current day largely ignored the law.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.