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 Raid. Halperin had gone with his roommate to see the Broadway show Rent. 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 the back of the restaurant, making the kitchen staff crawl out on their hands and knees. Everyone was patted down while ten more officers entered while some of the original officers searched the restaurant for other people in the facility. Two of the new officers approached Halperin and identified themselves as officers of the INS and Homeland Security Department.
When asked why he was being held, when he was just there to eat dinner, Halperin was told that they would be released after it was confirmed that he had no outstanding warrants and that his immigration status was OK'd.
These events seem to fly in the face of the Fourth Amendment that protects citizens...
However, thanks to the Patriot Act, the Fourth Amendment is now swept under the carpet, to be trampled on at will by law enforcement.
Conclusion:
With many of the most important pieces of the Patriot Act set to sunset at the end of 2005, many efforts have been undertaken to shore up support for this controversial piece of legislation (Lithwick & Turner). Certainly, the protection of the United States need to be of great concern. The agencies put in place to protect American citizens need the tools to complete their jobs effectively and efficiently. However, in so doing, the civil liberties of the American public, as well as the amendments of the Constitution, should not be trounced on, at will, by these agencies. Equilibrium needs to be met between protection of a nation and protection of the individual's rights, and regretfully, the Patriot Act does not fulfill that requirement.
References
ACLU Says Justice Dept.'s Patriot Act Website Creates New Myths About Controversial Law. 26 Aug 2003. ACLU. June 24, 2005 http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13371&c=206.
Halperin, Jason. "Patriot Raid." AlterNet (29 Apr 2003). June 24, 2005 http://www.alternet.org/story/15770.
Lithwick, Dahlia & Turner, Julia. "A Guide to the Patriot Act, Part 1." MSN (8 Sept 2003). June 24, 2005 http://slate.msn.com/id/2087984/.
The Patriot Act. 20 Jun 2005. Wikipedia.org. June 24, 2005 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Patriot_Act.
