the paper… in progress…

The Unpatriotic Acts

It protects us, it’s necessary, it holds us up at the airport, it listens to your phone calls, and it knows what our bank account is doing, it’s National Security! National Security is here for the American people’s own good, so then why has it infringed on so many inalienable rights? It may not have taken away the right to life, but certainly it has interfered with our liberty and even pursuit of happiness. Though, that would depend on your definition of “life,” in the literal sense the right to life has not been taken away, but in the other sense of the word, surely people would argue that their right to life has been infringed upon. Nonetheless, one can be certain that their right to liberty has been drastically minimized since September 11, 2001. That’s okay though, many people would say as long as we are safe, National Security is a top priority in this country and personal freedom has taken the back seat to that ever since the President decided to ride the wave of patriotism convincing people that these are necessary sacrifices. Personal freedom, some hunters would say is the right to bear arms, feminists would say the right to be pro-choice, yet others would say it’s freedom of speech. I would agree, but furthermore I believe it is the right to privacy. America is not George Orwell’s 1984, however every day with every new law our government is starting to look a lot like big brother. I believe that the citizens of the United States are in grave danger of losing their personal liberties for the price of National Security.

Are all of the measures being used to limit personal freedoms actually improving National Security? The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, USA PATRIOT Act, has taken steps to dissolve our freedoms, even from those of us who are not terrorists. It has taken the initiative to enact laws that defy the bill of rights, laws that as John Whitehead says, give the government the ability to “search your e-mail, check your library books, do ‘Sneak and Peek’ searches of your home, turn your neighbor into a spy through the TIPS [Terrorist Information and Prevention System] program” (O’Meara, 2002). The Patriot Act is in direct violation of our rights as citizens, it affects all Americans: governors, janitors, citizens. Here are some of the rights the government has bestowed upon itself to help combat terrorism and infringe upon your freedoms through the USA PATRIOT Act:

§         This law allows for indefinite detention of noncitizens who are not terrorists on minor visa violations.

§         It minimizes judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by law-enforcement authorities in antiterrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism.

§         The act expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches – even in criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism.

§         It gives the attorney general and the secretary of state the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations.

§         The new law grants the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, financial, mental-health and educational records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order.

§         The act allows searches of highly personal financial records without notice and without judicial review based on a very low standard that does not require the showing of probable cause of a crime or even relevance to an ongoing terrorism investigation.

§         It creates a broad new definition of “domestic terrorism” that could allow a police sweep of people who engage in acts of public protest and subject them to wiretapping and enhanced penalties.

§         And this law allows the sharing of sensitive information in criminal cases with intelligence agencies, including the CIA, National Security Agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Secret Service. (O’Meara, 2002)

 

For people who don’t think that these new laws affect you, think again. Although laws are created for one reason, in this instance to catch terrorists, they end up being used for a whole slew of other reasons. The laws are supposed to protect you, and one would think that government officials would be the last ones hurt by the USA PATRIOT ACT, that is not the case, however. Eliot Spitzer found out the hard way, New York’s Governor was the star of a Suspicious Activity Report for his money transfers leading the FBI to catch him with prostitutes (Hosenball, 2008). Now, this might be a good thing in the spectrum of morality, however the Patriot Act was created to fend off possible terrorists not to be the omnipresent hand of God. Spitzer was not aiding or abetting Al-Qaeda, he was participating in illegal activity, but activity that nonetheless had anything to do with the reasons for the creation of the Patriot Act. One can chalk that up to another benefit of the law, we got another criminal off of the street. However, generally when laws are passed the people creating and voting for them probably intend not to be punished by them. Nevertheless, they do and the negatively impact U.S. citizens too. The amount of Suspicious Activity Reports skyrocketed from 204,915 in 2001 to 1.23 million in 2007 (Hosenball, 2008). If that many terrorists and people assisting them exist in the U.S. then there surely would have been a few more attacks on our soil. So who are they watching?

Even scarier than the fact that every little thing you do is monitored, is the fact that the FBI is left to police itself (American Civil Liberties Union, 2008). While they issue National Security Letters subpoenaing information about your credit, financial records, and electronic communications nobody is monitoring them. Furthermore, recipients of the Letters are issued gag orders, so they cannot disclose that they have received them (American Civil Liberties Union, 2008). How is the FBI going to be held accountable for the hundreds of NSL’s they issue, if everybody who receives them can’t divulge it? This is just another instance of our government keeping hidden their corruption. National Security letters are in and of themselves legal, however the people entrusted with power over issuing NSL’s are defying the constitution.

When examining the issue of National Security vs. personal freedoms, one has to look at the most recent events leading to the loss of liberties. In 2008, those would be the attacks on the World Trade center, the anthrax scare, and the U.S. response of a “War on Terror.” The former two are the reason for the latter of course, but because of this war, necessary for our protection, more and more freedoms have disappeared from our finger tips. Former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, stated that the attacks “will cause us to reexamine some of our laws pertaining to criminal surveillance, wiretapping, immigration, and so on” (Andrews, 2001). James Abourezk, former democratic senator from South Dakota, said that George W. Bush “has forced various forms of tyranny” over U.S. citizens through “the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and spying on American citizens.” Those certainly sound like acts of a tyrant, and if use the wave of patriotism that swept our country after a national attack as an excuse, why then 6 ½ years later are we still allowing it? Scarier even is that, “almost no one in congress read the PATRIOT Act” before voting for it, with the exception of democratic representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio (Abourezk, 2008). One can only hope after our congressmen made such a grave mistake they would remedy it upon learning of the liberties they signed away. However, in the years since the Patriot Act other legislation has passed in the guise of necessity for National Security. Civil libertarians were right when they said that “politicians have pulled a bait and switch by using the war on terrorism to implement intrusive – and unconstitutional – security measures” (O’Meara, 2002). The USA PATRIOT Act, like NSL’s are intended to protect us from terrorists and possible suspects. However, “the problem, critics say, is that under these new powers every American citizen is a possible suspect of terrorism” (O’Meara, 2002).

The Supreme Court is supposed to uphold the constitution, but former justice Sandra Day O’Connor, saw no problem with the loss of rights. She stated, “We’re likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country” (Andrews, 2001). She was saying this not as a warning to citizens or to the President but as a matter-of-fact necessity in order to properly fight the war on terror. With no supreme court to stand in his way, and no congress to stop him, President Bush has all of the benefits of being a tyrant without the title. O’Connor was right, even Osama bin Laden warned us, “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people – and the West in general – into an unbearable hell and a choking life” (O’Meara, 2002). Osama can’t see the future, but he can see what is right in front of him, unlike the citizens of the United States. It was so predictable that our rights would be taken away, O’Connor knew it, but nobody had a problem with it. Bush rode the wave of patriotism as far as he could, and Americans let him, because they wouldn’t want to be unpatriotic and on the terrorists’ side.