Civil Liberties Today, is an article from The New York Times and is dedicated to displaying the numerous security measures that were implemented after the attacks on September 11, 2001. The article brings up the alarm many Americans today have regarding their own personal privacy. It also references the numerous threats the new laws have put on the basic civil liberties of all people. The text goes in depth on these laws and reminds us that they were implemented for one purpose only: to lower the risk of terrorism in the United States.
Adam Liptak is a graduate of Yale Law School, and practiced law for over 14 years before joining The New York Times’ news staff. He has been writing on topics such as, the United States Supreme Court and legal developments since he started the job in 2002. He was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize, for explanatory reporting. In addition, he has taught numerous courses on the Supreme Court and the First Amendment at law schools, including Yale and the University of Chicago.
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The in depth discussion of each law and what it does will be very beneficial, helping to explain and give background information to the audience. As America battles terrorism today, it strives for protection and safety. However, the U.S. is built off of freedom and that is exactly what many fear is being taken away. This article will prove helpful in showing that implementing these extra precautions protects the citizens of today and allows the U.S. to avoid as much conflict as
The Patriot Act was hastily passed just a month later October and it severely limited the privacy of Americans and gave unprecedented power to the government and private agencies to track innocent Americans, turning regular citizens into suspects.5 In addition, the great technological evolution and emerged of social media that occurred round the same time, and shortly thereafter, created the perfect storm for the emergence of the largely unregulated surveillance society that we live in today.6 The result is digitization of people’s personal and professional lives so that every single digital trace that people leave can be identified, stored, and aggregated to constitute a composite sketch of ourselves and its only getting worse. In 2008, passed the FISA Amendments Act, which expands the government’s authority to monitor Americans’ international communications, in addition to domestic communications.7 In short, after 9/11 the U.S is left with a national surveillance state, in which “the proliferation of government technology and bureaucracies that are able to acquire vast and detailed amounts of digital information about individuals with minimal or no judicial supervision and often in complete secrecy,” giving the government and corporations with access to the data that the government compiles the ability to single
An American’s civil liberties are among some of the most important rights awarded to a citizen. After 9/11 some of those liberties were taken away by the expansion of executive power, the National Security
There are moments when civil liberties should be curtailed in democratic countries like the US and Canada, in order to maintain national security. While this is true, there are also moments that an individual’s civil liberty should be maintained whereas it is not. Consequently, governments should make clear boundaries as to which occasions civil liberties should be restricted. For instance, both the Patriotic Act and the Anti-terrorist Act allowed rover wiretapping which are needed to deal with terrorists who have a sophisticated knowledge of how technology works.
One might ask the importance of civil liberties after so many years. The answer is that we are all touched by these liberties every day. Even though civil liberties were embedded into the Bill of Rights in the late 1800’s, we today, as Americans, still have the right to be protected against any abusive power used by the government (Bianco & Canon, 2015, p. 106). Although Americans are protected fully today, it took over a century for all civil liberties to be implemented. With several civil liberties in place, which is most important? Which liberty protects us as Americans, most significantly? I believe all of our civil liberties are equally as beneficial and lead to the safety of every citizen in the United
A. Thesis: The Patriot Act is violating American’s right to privacy. Mainly, the right to hold a private phone conversation.
A paradox has always exists between the issue of civil liberties and national security. Democracy creates civil liberties that allow the freedom of association, expression, as well as movement, but there are some people use such liberal democracy to plan and execute violence, to destabilize State structures. It illustrates the delicate balance existing between reducing civil liberties to enhance security in a state. States have detained suspects for years and have also conducted extensive privacy incursions as strategies to combat terror, however it risks violation of civil liberties. This essay discusses the extent to which a state should be allowed to restrict civil liberties for the enhancement of national security and not abandon democratic values. It looks at aspects of the legal response to terrorism in the United States after the 9/11 attack.
The USA Patriot Act of 2001 is a controversial public policy, which greatly undermines the civil liberties and constitutional freedom of the American people. This essay will moved from an overview of the USA Patriot Act to a review of the critical literature regarding the importance of the Act to the safety of Americans and shows how the Act violates the civil rights and liberties of citizens and noncitizens alike. After presenting sufficient evidence that the Patriot Act violates many of the basic principles that have been articulated in the U.S. Constitution, particularly within the Bill of Rights, I will, propose recommendations that if implemented scrupulously could help to restore American confidence in government's determination to
I think the reason for the movement now is about the science that we have available to us and also I think an issue of civil liberties. I think in today’s American society a lot more people are looking for credible facts and science on marijuana and they are mostly receiving good reports especially when it comes to its medicinal use. People are seeing how this could actually be of help and don’t get me wrong , they know that it does not cure everything and that there are some flaws, but for the most part it can be used to help those who really do need; for example cancer patients. In terms of civil liberties, I think a lot of millennials are realising that the laws against marijuana are completely ridiculous and it should be something that
After the devastating attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, this country scrambled to take action to provide future protection. New techniques had to be developed to protect the nation from the menace of terrorism. Along with the new techniques came the decision to enact laws that some believed crossed the threshold of violating civil liberties this county and those living in it were guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. “On October 26, 2001, the Public Law 107-56, Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, also known as the USA Patriot Act, was signed into effect” (Stern, 2004, p. 1112). While speaking to Congress,
Civil liberties are essential to the American people. The Civil liberties of the Constitution refers to The Bill of Rights. And the Bill of Rights, guarantee all Americans basic freedom rights that has been interpreted and made clear through the judicial system over many years. All Americans civil liberties are protected in the Bill Of Rights and under no uncertainty can those rights be revoke at any time. The United States Constitution is a crucial document that tells the people what the federal government can do. For this reason, the Bill of Rights, which are the first ten amendments signed into the Constitution on December 15, 1791 ( along with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments which became part of the guaranteed rights after the
The United States government has always played an important role in safeguarding Americans' civil liberties since its inception, with the methods always being, according to the government, in the best interest of the American people, aways in the best interest, but not always constitutional. In the entire span of the United States history, the commitment of the protection of Americans civil liberties have frequently been tested and strained. National security has always been an important part of the livelihood of American citizens, it has been ingrained as not only a law but as a right as well.
In the United States we follow the rules of what is called the “Constitution”. The constitution protects the rights of citizens living in the U.S. Does it really protect ALL rights? No, sadly it does not. The Constitution was created on September 17, 1787, by white men to benefit white men. Our current political climate in the United States infringes civil liberties and takes us back to the 1940s.
The discussion of civil liberties in a place of worship seems like an unusual place to have it discussed. More importantly, it helps to rings an unfamiliar topic in the house of God, which brings the attention of people closer. My church visit previously had the pastor stress the idea of maintaining civil liberties for all beings, and to have recognition for the struggle for equality for each and every race.
Technology has become very effective for a thriving generation, but it also possesses a handful of flaws that counter the benefits. Technologies help people post and deliver a message in a matter of seconds in order to get a message spread quickly. It also gives individuals the power to be the person they want to be by only showing one side of themselves. But sometimes information that had intentions of remaining protected gets out. That information is now open for all human eyes to see. This information, quite frankly, becomes everybody’s information and can be bought and sold without the individual being aware of it at all. However, this is no accident. Americans in the post 9/11 era have grown accustomed to being monitored. Government entities such as the NSA and laws such as the Patriot Act have received power to do so in order to protect security of Americans. However, the founding fathers wrote the fourth amendment to protect against violations of individual’s privacy without reason. In a rapidly growing technological world, civil liberties are increasingly being violated by privacy wiretapping from government entities such as the NSA, Patriot Act and the reduction of the Fourth Amendment.
The attacks on American soil that solemn day of September 11, 2001, ignited a quarrel that the grade of singular privacy, need not be given away in the hunt of grander security. The security measures in place were planned to protect our democracy and its liberties yet, they are merely eroding the very existence with the start of a socialistic paradigm. Benjamin Franklin (1759), warned more than two centuries ago: “they that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Implementing security measures comes at a cost both economically and socially. Government bureaucrats can and will utilize information for personal political objectives. The Supreme Court is the final arbitrator