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The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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Critics of the PATRIOT Act claim that with too much power, comes corruption. The PATRIOT Act gave new powers to the United States Intelligence community in which is made up of 17 agencies. Some of the most notable are the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies. The Patriot Act enabled international and domestic surveillance of electronic communications; it also removed legal barriers that had blocked law enforcement, intelligence, and defense agencies from sharing information about potential terrorist threats and coordinating efforts to respond to them. Many critics of the PATRIOT Act raised concerns surrounding …show more content…

Many of these concerns were given credibility in 2013 when NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information showing that the National Security Agency was using the law to acquire the bulk collection of data related to millions of communications. “NSA cited Section 215 of the Patriot Act as justification for the program, which the agency said was aimed at helping to identify and track possible terrorism suspects. In addition, federal officials said that the special-purpose Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had approved the NSA's data-collection practices on multiple occasions. But in May 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled that the program violated the Patriot Act in an opinion on a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The PATRIOT Extension Act expired as scheduled at the start of June 2015 after the Senate was unable to agree on a proposed extension.” As Mr. Cusick stated, what Edward Snowden failed to disclose or fail to see was the whole picture. He was not privileged to see how some aspects of information fit with others. With or without this understanding, Snowden painted a grim picture of NSA’s practices regarding the privacy millions of citizens. By doing so, he severely damaged the nations intelligence gathering capability and put the lives of many at

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The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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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.

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Pros And Cons Of The US Patriot Act

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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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I also lay out important realities of the law, including how it is being used, and examine whether the intrusions it imposes on American citizens are reasonable. I also discuss the backlash against the law. I conclude with a discussion on the likely future of the law and implications of the law for the criminal justice discipline. The main purpose of the paper is to thoroughly summarize and critically analyze the USA PATRIOT Act, for the benefit of those working in the discipline of criminal justice – who have, as of the current day largely ignored the law. The USA PATRIOT Act stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

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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

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1131 Words | 5 Pages

The USA Patriot Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The USA Patriot Act was passed by Congress as a reaction to the fear based oppressor assaults of September 11, 2001. The Act permits government authorities more prominent expert in following and blocking interchanges, both for motivations behind law authorization and remote insight gathering. It gives the Secretary of the Treasury administrative forces to battle debasement of US budgetary foundations for outside tax evasion purposes; it all the more effectively attempts to close our outskirts to remote fear mongers and to confine and evacuate those inside our fringes; it builds up new violations,

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After September 11th, the government introduced the Patriot Act that changed the way the government surveillance Americans. The point of the Patriot Act is was to track activity of terrorist. As an American citizen, I agree that the Patriot Act is necessary to protect American citizens from terrorism, but it also can turn everyday Americans to a suspect because of speculations. Information sharing is a pro because it enhances information sharing within the FBI, and with the intelligence community at large.  This can also be looked at as a con because  sharing can create large databases of people who are not threats.

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Over the years following 9/11, facts about the secret surveillance program started to surface. As an investigation started being conducted, it was found that the program was not just listening in on calls and emails from abroad by quite of bit of activity monitoring was taking place within the United States causing a lot of controversy in the fact that people did not like the idea that their private information was being invaded by the NSA on authority of the president. Furthermore, there was a rise in concern for the Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure violations of having individual’s emails taken and used against them without warrants. The Bush Administration worked with Congress immediately following the 9/11 attacks to pass and sign into law the USA Patriot Act that was “an overnight revision of the nation 's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government 's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court” (ACLU,

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Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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The USA Patriot Act allowed the government to watch people through the internet, their phone conversations, and via satellites. The reason for this act was to make sure the government had a form of surveillance so there wouldn’t be another terrorist attack. President Bush was very excited to have this act passed because he thought that it would help intelligence operations and anti-criminal operations the chance to trade information to catch any possible terrorists. Nick Anderson, a cartoonist for Washington Post, believed that the government was throwing out the Constitutional ways to make this act a new law. Mary Jo White, a former U.S. Attorney from the southern district of New York, believed that this act was a good one to have but thought that if the right to privacy was taken away it would never be given back.

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Patriot Act Pros And Cons

641 Words | 3 Pages

In 2001 after the tragedy of 9/11 President George W. Bush passed the PATRIOT Act. The act is supposed to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks, but what it's actually doing is defying most principles this country was founded upon. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act enables the FBI and the NSA to listen to the phone records of millions of Americans. Not only is the government invading the privacy of millions, but the way it's being done is illegal. The government is invading on the personal lives of people who have never been suspected of being a terrorist.

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The Patriot Act allows investigators to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking. George W. Bush decided to create and push the Patriot Act as a way of protection for the people just 45 days after the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. Bush placed this act in hopes that he would be able to prevent any types of terrorist or unsafe act from happening again. Today, people are quick to disagree with this idea due to the idea that they are being watched constantly. Although it is understandable, knowing that privacy is not considered when it comes to our personal lives, the government is just monitoring us to keep us protected.

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1141 Words | 5 Pages

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168 Words | 1 Pages

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1471 Words | 6 Pages

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