Homeland Security
Questioning the Legality of the Patriot Act
The Department of Homeland Security
After the September 11 attacks, the United States was, undoubtedly, in a state of fury, sadness, desperation and general turmoil. Our country's iconic positivity had to be rebuilt, and threats, above everything else, had to be kept at bay and far away from U.S. soil. The State Department undertook a number of policies to achieve this goal, and one of these policies was instituting a department that would be able to share information with both the CIA and the FBI, as well as focus on the things that the two previous agencies had missed at such a high cost. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as this body was called, would thus be able to not only work with fellow governmental institutions, but also monitor foreign and domestic threats. Yet, as it often happens, nobody is truly sure where threats come from, and the DHS was given various powers in the form of presidential directives, including those relating to the Patriot Act.
The USA PATIOT Act of 2001
In the aftermath of the same attacks, Congress also voted on a number of laws that were to be known as the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001)[footnoteRef:1], which were signed into law by President Bush. This Act undertook a campaign to essentially monitor both American citizens and aliens by employing various privacy-invading policies (i.e. wiretapping and monitoring of funds) that sparked a feverish debate. Some would state that this Act went against the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, and others would deem it necessary in order to keep our country safe. [1: Acronyms: USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. (2011). The Free Dictionary. Retrieved October 20, 2011, from < http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/USA+PATRIOT+ACT >.]
Linkages and Legality
The DHS eventually took some laws out of the Act, and utilized them to achieve its scopes. As recently as May of this year, President Obama signed an extension of some of the policies of the Act, thereby enabling the DHS to continue to utilize various aspects in order to "protect the country." This paper will thus analyze the Patriot Act, how it relates to national security, and will also question its legality and determine whether this act was legally sound.
It is important to...
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