DOES THE PATRIOT ACT ABRIDGE ESSENTIAL FREEDOM?

Does the Patriot Act abridge essential freedom?



Does the Patriot Act abridge essential freedom?

Introduction

10 years ago, asking people on the streets about the most changing political occasion that had influences on the rest of the world a majority would have answered the end of World War II in 1945, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or the dimension of the Vietnam War. Obviously, none of the mentioned events were taken place on American territory. So much the worse it has been for the American nation when on Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorists attacked America in the centre of their heart by maneuvering airplanes into the American Pentagon in Washingtion D.C. and the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing them to collapse.

Now, asking people the same question they would definatly include the happenings on Sept. 11th in their answer and may eclipse other thitherto worldchanging events that have happened before that significant date.

Many people and historians also talked about that nearly a new calculation of times was introduced: “before and after Sept. 11th”. Before Sept. 11th in 2001, laws like FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act) were inherend parts in the U.S. legislation. Since 1968 or 1978 these Acts had been introduced in order to maintain homeland security and preserve life and liberty for the American people by a decisive authority level of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Immediately after Sept. 11th, more precisely 45 days after, the American government under President George W. Bush had signed the USA PATRIOT Act into law. The Act made key changes to acts like FISA and BSA and thus expanding the authority of law enforcement agencies in order to protect innocent American citizens from deadly future plans of terrorists(Rivard, 2002, p43).

Regarding to that tremendous change in the American legislation, this paper will deal about the content of the USA PATRIOT Act, its history and background and its long stony way to reauthorization in March 2006. It will focus on the two antithetical arguments of advocates and opponents and present their individual arguments and claims regarding the most controversial Sections. Regarding to that, emphasis will be placed on Section 213, known as the “sneak and peak” provision and Section 215, the “Libraries Provision” as representatives for the fractional deep disagreement about the Act(Dempsey, 2002, p23).

OVERVIEW

The USA PATRIOT Act is an extensive act that was signed into law on October 26, 2001 by President George W. Bush. (The White House) The first priority of that heavily contested Act is to prevent future terrorist attacks and to preserve life and liberty of the American nation. (Department of Justice)

Background of USA PATRIOT Act

Reading about and dealing with the USA PATRIOT Act, you may not aviod stumbling across the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). FISA was created as a result of the Watergate scandal. (American Civil Liberties Union) It governs the way in which ...