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Edward Snowden's Limitations On Civil Liberties

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Recommended: The patriot act of 2002

Most recently, the “war on terror” has led to limitations on civil liberties. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, President George W. Bush authorized the PATRIOT Act. This act gave the government more power to conduct searches of suspected terrorists, detain and remove suspected terrorists, and place wiretaps on belongings of suspected terrorists. Edward Snowden, former computer specialist at the CIA and NSA, released about 1.7 million classified documents exposing a global surveillance project. Not only has the government been spying on suspected terrorists, but also the American people. Snowden leaked documents that exposed phone and Internet corporations, like Verizon, handing over daily phone records of unsuspected
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174 Words | 1 Pages

This act increased the federal powers imposed on the citizens in order to help their efforts towards investigating terrorists. These powers included telephone taps, internet taps, voice mail, grand jury information, immigration, money laundering, and crime. While these powers made it easier for the government to track down possible suspects of terrorism, it interfered with the people’s right to privacy. All the provisions under the Patriot Act can be used on the citizens with the approval of a court order. Furthermore, it interfered with the Fourth Amendment.

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615 Words | 3 Pages

Introduction Signed into law on 26 October 2001, the US Patriot Act was meant to strengthen security controls and provide Americans with an opportunity to act in the defense of their freedom. Caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks, this rule was intended to help Americans protect themselves from future similar strikes. However, since its enactment 16 years ago, this legislation has provided a veil with which impunity and civil rights violators can hide behind as they perpetrate crime in the name of national security. The act augmented safety and intelligence agencies' powers to acquire confidential information.

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953 Words | 4 Pages

The moment that the Twin Towers fell in New York, America became destined for change. In the wake of these attacks, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 was quickly passed through congress, and signed by then-president, George W. Bush. The act itself gives the FBI and other government agencies the ability to do and use certain methods, many of which are already used by other law enforcement organizations, to help prevent future terrorist attacks. Since then, this piece of legislation has been the center of much debate and controversy. But, there is ample reason to believe that the Patriot Act is needed and effective.

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146 Words | 1 Pages

In conclusion, the USA Patriot Act has long enabled law enforcement to remain above the rules and regulations of the United States legislature. It has resulted in distrust of the American people towards their enforcing bureaucracy. The citizens of the United States have lost their civil rights and have been treated as criminals in penalty of an unknown crime. For too long, police have been able to abuse their power. The Patriot Act has destroyed the public opinion of law enforcement due to technological advances and information collection.

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1138 Words | 5 Pages

Many American citizens are willing to give up a certain degree of their rights, including their own privacy, to try and keep our country safe from terrorism. No matter the reason, however, it is never justifiable to interfere on our Constitutional rights. Former President Bush eavesdropping on innocent citizens, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Freedom Act, and Japanese internment camps are all primary examples of our constitutional rights as Americans being overlooked. “The United States trampling on the Constitutional rights of its citizens to protect the nation is never justifiable.” After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1942, the United States were on their toes.

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748 Words | 3 Pages

Now in today’s standards, you only have freedom of semi-privacy that the Patriot Act believes is non-threatening. By them monitoring your texts, emails, history along with things you look for in search engines you never truly free to say anything or look up anything you want. Also what followed after this act were the random abductions of people. They take the “random,” person and ship them to another country to loophole their laws of not permitting torturing someone in this country. Instead they hire other countries to do their dirty work.

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1518 Words | 7 Pages

In response, the United States implemented the USA Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by providing appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act), significantly impacting homeland security within the country. The act introduced surveillance measures, such as monitoring communication networks like telephones and texts, to gather data and identify suspicious activity. Additionally, it allowed for the scrutiny of business records and financial transactions, aiding authorities in investigating potential terrorist acts and funding sources. According to statistics from the Pew Research Center, 42% of the public viewed the Patriot Act as a necessary tool to combat terrorism, while 34% believed it went too far and posed a threat to civil liberties. These differing perspectives reflect an ongoing debate regarding the act's impact on national security and civil liberties.

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942 Words | 4 Pages

More was Lost than Lives The day of the September 11 attacks was a terrible day that will be forever remembered. The attacks however did not only cost Americans their lives at the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and on those planes; the attacks also took Americans’ freedoms. Following the attacks the unconstitutional Patriot act was passed, the inconvenient and ineffective Transportation and Security Agency was formed, and the NSA’s mass surveillance program was increased. While all of these actions were done in order to protect Americans from terrorism they have only succeeded in denying Americans the very rights afforded to them in the United States Constitution.

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1711 Words | 7 Pages

The Patriot Act (the full name is the USA Patriot Act, or "Uniting and Strengthening America Act by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001") was signed on October 26 by the former U.S. President George W. Bush in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. The main purposes are to improve the level of domestic security and to strengthen the powers of law-enforcement agencies in terms of identifying and eliminating terrorists. The US government and its supporters believe that it is one of the most useful tools to investigate and arrest terrorists within and outside the borders of the country. However, critics argue about Acts “overpower” which treats the civilians in non-democratic way and

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726 Words | 3 Pages

An illustration of this would be the passage of the Patriot Act in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The Patriot Act granted law enforcement agencies expanded authority to search and monitor anyone suspected of involvement in terrorist activities without obtaining a warrant from a judge. This was considered an infringement on civil freedoms since it allowed the government to conduct surveillance on its citizens without first providing them with a fair

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140 Words | 1 Pages

The patriot act has in my opion violated the 4th amendment. It has its advantages as far as terrorizim but to normal citzens this is a complete violation of our privacy. bThe late Benjermin Franklin warned us about trading our liberty for sucureity. This act has taken away a lot of our liberties it gives the government way too much power to invade our privacy. They now have unprecedented power to monitor the phone calls, e-mails, without a warrant.

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1271 Words | 6 Pages

The USA PATRIOT Act violated many American civil rights and carried out many unnecessary searches of innocent Americans. It sacrifices civil liberties for government power. The USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) was passed shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001. On September 11, 2001, a group of nineteen terrorists hijacked four passenger flights, under their control, they targeted a variety of US monuments.

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821 Words | 4 Pages

“At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United States have been thwarted since 9/11” (Reality). The majority of people know about the tragedy that happened on September 11th, 2001, but not that many people know about what came to be after the event; the Patriot Act. This act is the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001” (Miller). The Patriot Act got put in place by the President and almost got a unanimous vote to pass it nearly ten days after. It was later used to take down many of the 42 attack plots.

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1030 Words | 5 Pages

Civil liberties are rights guaranteed to citizens in the Constitution that the government cannot interfere with, however, in the name of national security, they do. The government sometimes finds it necessary for Americans to give up some of their basic rights to keep the nation protected, but many people find this unnecessary. A law-abiding citizen’s extremely personal information should not be essential to finding terroristic threats within this society. Under no circumstances should an American citizen’s civil liberties be violated in a time of war or crisis, because those are assured rights that are most valuable to their freedom during national conflicts.

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1471 Words | 6 Pages

The main issue in the Snowden controversy is the conflicting rights of private individuals and the US government with regard to the use of telecommunications and the internet. There are ethical issues surrounding this controversy and the most applicable ethical approach for this case is “Ethics by Rights Approach”. As a background, the reason why US government had declared Edward Snowden a traitor is his involvement in the leaking of about 1.7 million confidential US documents, 15,000 Australian intelligence files and 58,000 British intelligence files from the National Security Agency (or NSA) to the public. These confidential information were acquired by the NSA through the PRISM program by collaborating with big internet companies such

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