The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

Although the Patriot Act presents virtually many positives, the overall aspect of its existence is detrimental to the citizens of the United States as a whole. Originally being passed in order to protect the country from acts of terrorism, the specificities of the Patriot Act were never underlined which has since led to a much more generalized definition of what legal actions can be pursued on the basis of the Act. Essentially, the Patriot Act should be abolished because it infringes on constitutional rights of citizens, it lacks effectiveness in its goal, and the manner in which it was passed makes you question whether or not it was fully thought through.

The Founding Fathers created the Constitution in order to protect the rights of citizens

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. The Fourth Amendment, which states that without warrants or probable cause, no searches can be executed, is essentially nullified by the Patriot Act. For example, sneak and peek searches in which law enforcement agencies can search residences and offices of Americans and not inform them of the search until after it

Ever since the Patriot Act came into effect, innocent Americans have been caught in the middle of a “danger zone” where they can be spied on and tracked at all times. The Patriot Act would be much more advantageous if the purpose was to catch regular criminal activity because that is virtually all it has done. To put into context how far the powers of the Patriot Act are being misused, in the span of three years (2003-2006), the FBI “issued 192,499 NSL’s of which only one led to a terror-related conviction, which would have occurred even without the Patriot Act” (Science of Security). Not only that, “as a result of 143,074 NSL’s issued between 2003 and 2005, the FBI made 53 reported criminal referrals to prosecutors of which 17 were for money laundering, 17 related to immigration, 19 involved in fraud, but zero were terror-related” (Justice). Lastly, “of the 3,970 sneak and peek searches in 2010, 76% were drug related and 24% were accredited to other crimes, while less than one percent were terror-related” (Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for Delayed-Notice Search Warrants and Extensions). These statistics not only make you question whether or not the Patriot Act is successfully completing its job, but it makes you wonder whether those suspected of regular crimes were rightfully convicted. Although the Patriot Act has played a