¶ … 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. Rather than improving the safety of Americans, organizations such as the ACLU allege that it has merely made the U.S. more vulnerable to charges that it practices discrimination against Muslims and is willing to trample the civil rights of individuals. What use are more stringent laws against terror if the take away the liberties they are ostensibly supposed to protect?
Throughout American history, there have been many examples of times where fears during wartime resulted in a curtailment of national liberties, including during the McCarthyism of the Cold War in which people with left-leaning sympathies were targeted as potential 'communists.' However, the Patriot Act actually...
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
" (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
" 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
" According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). A "national security letter" (NSL) is basically a written demand by the FBI 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
The Department can then choose to act upon such intelligence by identifying and possibly detaining foreign and domestic individuals who would act violently toward the U.S., and who would seek to compromise the safety and security of the nation. With the development of the Department of Homeland Security, the nation might then feel more safe and therefore be less affected by terrorism, when it is curtailed or limited by actions,
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.
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