The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees citizens the right to secure their home, papers, persons and effects from “unreasonable search and seizures,” a phrase that is often analogous with a person’s right to privacy. Additionally, the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights prevents the government from creating laws which inhibit or prevent a citizen’s right to speech and the free expression thereof. While such rights and privileges are held in highest regard, even these rights can be abridged when the greater good is at stake. Many critics and civil libertarians declare that such an act took place with the passage of the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Supporting America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act signed into law on October 26, 2001, a mere forty-five days after the terrorists on New York City and Washington, D.C., that occurred in September of the same year. Although many normal citizens and patrons of libraries supported and accepted the extension of the government’s wiretapping and surveillance privileges that had been expanded by sections of the PATRIOT Act of 2001, few realized the expansive powers of the intelligence community would include the government-sanctioned surveillance and data mining of private conversations between or amongst innocent civilians like themselves. Most alarming to librarians and information scientists is Section 215, the so-called “Library Provisions” section. Even fewer Americans realize that the most of the measures within the PATRIOT Act were merely amendments to pre-existing laws (Marcovitz 2008). One of the amended provisions was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) whose enactment occurred in 1978 after shocking ...
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Marcovitz, Harold. Privacy Rights and The Patriot Act. Edina, Minnesota: ABDO Publishing Publishing Company, 2008.
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Less than one week after the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act was introduced to Congress. One month later, the act passed in the Senate with a vote of 98-1. A frightened nation had cried for protection against further attacks, but certainly got more than they had asked for. Russell Feingold, the only Senator to vote down the act, referred to it as, “legislation on the fly, unlike anything [he] had ever seen.” In their haste to protect our great nation, Congress suspended, “normal procedural processes, such as interagency review and committee hearings,” and, “many provisions were not checked for their constitutionality, lack of judicial oversight, and potential for abuse.” Ninety-eight senators were willing to overlook key civil liberty issues contained within the 342 page act. The lone dissenting vote, Wisconsin Senator Russell Feingold, felt that our battle against terrorism would be lost “without firing a shot” if we were to “sacrifice the liberties of the American people.” Feingold duly defended American civil liberties at the risk of his career, truly exemplifying political courage as defined by John F. Kennedy.
U.S. Department of Justice. The USA PATRIOT Act: Preserving Life and Liberty. n.d. web. 11 November 2013.
Cole, D., & Dempsey, J. X. (2006). Terrorism and the constitution: sacrificing civil liberties in the name of national security. New York: New Press.
"The Triumph of Technique – The Logic of the NSA." LibrarianShipwreck. WordPress.com, 22 June 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2014.
Since the terrorist attacks at Sept. 11, 2001, the surveillance issue often has turned away the table in the debate of individual privacy or counterterrorism. By passing the Patriot Act, Congress gave President Bush an immense law enforcement authority to boost U.S's counterterrorism, and the President used his enlarged powers to forward specific programs in order to reduce the threat of terrorism and defend the country’s safety.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Analysis of the Provisions of the USA Patriot Act.” October 31, 2002. American Civil Liberties Union. “USA Patriot Act Boosts Government Powers While Cutting Back on Traditional Checks and Balances.” November 1, 2002.
Since September 11, 2001 many people can say that America has changed. Many people question if America has changed for the better or has it just gotten worse. Since the day those four planes crashed around the United States people’s lives have been changed. Many may not realize how their lives have changed, but with new laws passed life is different within America. The United States Patriot Act is one of the laws passed after 9/11: singed into order on October 26, 2001 just 45 days after the attack. The United States Patriot Act was put in place in order to protect Americans, yet has been affecting American’s civil liberties and caused controversy all over the United States.
Domestic Surveillance Citizens feeling protected in their own nation is a crucial factor for the development and advancement of that nation. The United States’ government has been able to provide this service for a small tax and for the most part it is money well spent. Due to events leading up to the terrifying attacks on September 11, 2001 and following these attacks, the Unites States’ government has begun enacting certain laws and regulations that ensure the safety of its citizens. From the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 to the most recent National Security Agency scandal, the government has attempted and for the most part succeeded in keeping domestic safety under control. Making sure that the balance between obtaining enough intelligence to protect the safety of the nation and the preservation of basic human rights is not extremely skewed, Congress has set forth requisites in FISA which aim to balance the conflicting goals of privacy and security; but the timeline preceding this act has been anything but honorable for the United States government.
The word “privacy” did not grow up with us throughout history, as it was already a cultural concept by our founding fathers. This term was later solidified in the nineteenth century, when the term “privacy” became a legal lexicon as Louis Brandeis (1890), former Supreme Court justice, wrote in a law review article, that, “privacy was the right to be let alone.” As previously mentioned in the introduction, the Supreme Court is the final authority on all issues between Privacy and Security. We started with the concept of our fore fathers that privacy was an agreed upon concept that became written into our legal vernacular. It is being proven that government access to individual information can intimidate the privacy that is at the very center of the association between the government and the population. The moral in...
The government gives each American citizen a set of unalienable rights that protect them from the government’s power. These rights cannot be broken, yet the government violates the Fourth Amendment daily to find ways to spy on the American public under the guise of protecting against terrorism. In 2007 President Obama said the American administration “acts like violating civil liberties is the way to enhance our securities – it is not.” Americans need to understand that their privacy is worth the fight. The people need to tell their neighbors, their congressmen, and their senators that they will not allow their internet privacy to be violated by needless spying. American citizens deserve the rights given to them and need to fight for the right to keep them by changing privacy laws to include Internet privacy.
Solove, Daniel J. “5 Myths about Privacy” Washington Post: B3. Jun 16 2013. SIRS. Web. 10
Censoring school books in libraries can often lead to censorship of our basic freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. In some cases, a minority ends up dictating the majority in censorship
ACLU. "What's Wrong With Public Video Surveillance?" American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., 25 Feb. 2002. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Gonchar, Michael. “What Is More Important: Our Privacy or National Security?” New York Times. New York Times, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.
Right of Privacy Timeline. N.p.: Leading Issues Timelines, 2013. N.p. Web.