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Does the nsa violate the 4th amendment
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What impact has the Patriot Act had on civil liberties in America group essay
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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.
One group that argues this is the American Civil Liberties Union, which strongly disagrees with the Patriot Act. They have stated that investigations into the Patriot Act, “reveal thousands of violations of law,” (ACLU), while this is simply not true. One controversial piece of the Patriot Act are roving wiretaps. These allow government investigators to follow and put surveillance on certain people, rather than certain devices, so that they may save time and effort. According to Nathan Sales, a law professor at George Mason University, “Federal courts agree that Title III’s roving wiretaps authority is constitutional and… provides strong support for constitutionality,” (Sales).
The foundations of the Act were created long before 9/11. However, the 9/11 tragedies were the trigger point that led to the Act’s implementation. The patriot act is frequently seen as un-American because it violates basic freedoms and human rights. For instance, the Act violates privacy.
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.
The Patriot act when passed it was overlooked, rushed and it did hinder our rights and privacy, however at that time who was thinking about their right and privacy when such an act had just happened. I was in high school when the Patriot Act went into law and all I cared was to make sure that the people that planned the attack get what they deserved for killing so many Americans. Maybe, they waited for the time that the American people were vulnerable to pass the Patriot Act, because they knew it wasn’t going to get everyone’s attention. Now, that a lot of people know how the Patriot Act works and how it has been used, we the American people want it gone or to have a better supervision so that individuals with malicious intent wont misuse it
Not only does the act jeapordize these rights of citizens, but also fringes upon individual rights to privacy. At first, the government’s primary focus for the use of the act was only to protect the country from terrorists on American soil as well as future acts of terrorism that may ensue, but now, the government has used their unruly power to convict criminals who have virtually no relation to terrorism whatsoever which is clear example of governmental abuse of power. Another aspect of the Patriot Act which brings forth public fear is the fact that any individual can be kept an eye on and surveillanced. In order to obtain personal information of individuals, National Security Letters (NSL’s) are issued to federal agents without a judge’s approval. To make things worse, information acquired through NSL’s on completely innocent individuals can be kept and stored as opposed to being thrown out--a clear violation of right to privacy.
Civil liberties have been affected since the 9/11 events by the Patriot Act. According to N.A. (2003) “The Patriot Act decided to trade away certain civil liberties in exchange for what it hoped would be more security”. As said, the act meanwhile is concerned on providing effective security measures for people in the country, has encroached on freedoms. Like any restrictive law, it has been controversial. For example “many immigrants who had lived in the United States for decades have been rounded up and deported for minor visa violations, not for any connection to terrorism” stated N.A. (2003).
I am in favor of the patriot ACT. I know many people think, it is kind of violation of the privacy, but the patriot ACT make the U.S. a better place to live. There are countries, which try to do some damage to the U.S., and they will do anything to accomplish it. The patriot ACT made it easier for the law enforcement whenever they needed to arrest someone, whether is a drug dealer, a terror organization or someone who tries to make some damages through technology. These acts can have huge impact on the people and the society, law enforcement should act faster than the enemies in order to get them before they get what they want.
The fourth amendment makes it hard for Law enforcement conducting investigations to get information that could be very useful. The apple company gets thousands and thousands of information requests that they are legally not allowed to share,and a large portion of the requests are from people whose devices have been lost or stolen. Additionally, lots of times Apple says no to the information requests, and even once Apple is approved to give personal material they still share a minimal amount of data, however Apple does collect a minimal amount of data. The patriot act allows certain exceptions having to do with terrorists to be made when finding information, and they are very helpful to law enforcement, but only in terroristic situations. Furthermore the amount of information that the Patriot act allows investigators to get for terror crimes just shows how much information we could be getting about horrific criminals that are not yet in jail.
The article "Patriot Act Protects Americans from Terrorism" explains the benefits of the act. One key area is it has removed obstacles to investigating terrorism and it has strengthened the criminal laws against terrorism. This is very important because if the governement didn't make these restrictions, there would be numerous terrorism attacks on the country. In the article "Fight the Patriot Act", it explains that the act violates the privacy of Americans because of the FBI and NSA collecting phone records of millions of people through the Patriot Act. The article is wrong because the cooperations are not violating privacy, they are simply working to prevent possible threats to Americans.
The whole point of the Fourth Amendment is not to completely stop the police, because the amendment can be waived if an officer has a warrant, or a person’s consent. The Fourth Amendment states that generally a search or seizure is illegal unless there is a warrant, or special circumstances. Technically stating that a citizen is protected by the Fourth Amendment, until a government employee gets a warrant, and then they can invade a citizen’s privacy. Also people state that the FISA Court’s warrants are constitutional, but the NSA’s surveillance is unconstitutional. Even though people do not like the NSA’s surveillance, the NSA is legal because the FISA Court that the people did not mind makes it legal.
“ No single provision of the Patriot Act has ever been found unconstitutional. This is a testament to the act’s limited applicability, procedural safeguards, and extensive oversight
It was two-thousand three when the test was established. An evolution of the patriot act, the test was created to keep people safe in the face of terrorists and murderers, communists and anarchists. The rules were simple, citizens would obey their government for three hundred sixty four twenty-four hour periods, and surveillance cameras with microphones were installed in homes and cars to monitor people for the first part of the test. Then on the three hundred sixty fifth day it was required pass the test- a four hour examination that was designed to identify those who would hard their countrymen- and most importantly, their government. If a person failed the examination, in either part, they were either imprisoned, or more commonly, terminated.
4. Abuse of the Patriot Act— Several provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the end of 2005 and, despite opposition from across the political spectrum and more than 400 community and state resolutions expressing concern about the Patriot Act, Congress reauthorized the law without reforming its most flawed provisions to bring these extraordinary powers back in line with the Constitution. Since then, the Justice Department 's Inspector General found that the FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of national security letters, a majority against U.S. persons, and many without any connection to terrorism at
The fourth amendment clearly states that the people of this country are safe from “unreasonable searches and seizures”, while the NSA, CIA and PATRIOT Act are all violators of said amendment. The NSA’s primary function in government is to gather information about possibly harmful or terrorist activities going on inside the country. They achieve their goals by completely violating our rights to private property and unreasonable searches. The NSA consistently is listening in on phone calls, reading text messages and e-mails, and monitoring other internet activity, regardless of the person. Furthermore, the NSA is violating a constitutional right of every citizen in America.
