Life & Liberty

Life and Liberty “A bill of rights are what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse.” –Thomas Jefferson 1781 “There has been no abuse of rights, and sometimes we must weigh rights against responsibilities.” -Attorney General John Ashcroft 2004 Since our founding fathers first drafted a constitution, America’s core values have been life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; without interference from the government. For the better part of two hundred years, Americans have focused on developing a fair and free democracy, in which everyone has an equal say and as many individual rights and freedoms as are possible in an effective society. Every once in a while, (America fights a major war about every twenty years on average.) improving and maintaining democracy falls into the shadows, and protecting what we have created becomes American’s foremost concern. The U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed on October 26, 2001, with almost no opposition from Congress. (Senate 98-1, House of Representatives 357-66.)(Life & Liberty) The country was still shaken by the event of September the 11th. In fact while the bill was in deliberation, there was almost no opposition of any kind from special interest groups or organizations nationwide. Once the bill was enacted, two distinct sides were formed, one side confident that any loss of privacy was worth ensuring our safety and protecting our free democracy, and the other side questioning whether the assurance of safety was worth trading away our personal freedoms and right to privacy piece by piece. The three-hundred forty-two page Patriot Act effects many American institutions, from local laws and civil policies all the way up to the Constitution, and most controversially, the Bill of Rights. The Bush administration maintains that the Act is an instrumental device in counteracting terrorism. They point to Sections 203 through 211 of the bill (Evergreen, Title II), which change the way info... ... middle of paper ... ...ely” (PIPA). With varied poll results like these, it is easy to resolve that the American public is wholly unsure of how the Patriot Act affects them. While the Bush administration seeks to calm Americans and assure them that the Act protects our freedoms, groups like the ACLU seek to frighten and enrage Americans, alerting them to what freedoms have been taken away. With 62% of Americans still in the dark about what the USA Patriot Act actually means and does (Gallup), this is a battle that surely will not end soon. Works Cited: Evergreen State College; “Official legal summary of the USA Patriot Act”, February 14, 2003 Gallup Polling Organization poll conducted August through September 2003, released September 6, 2003 On-Air interview with Larry King October 21, 2004, taken from cnn.com Supreme Court case decisions taken from lawlibrary.com/supremecourt “Letters of Thomas Jefferson”, 1781, Virginia State Library Foundation Congress voting results taken from Life&Liberty.gov PIPA (Program on International Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security Studies) University of Maryland. Poll conducted August through September 2003, released September 18, 2003.