September 11, 2001. Four airliners were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda militants. Three of the planes hit their target. One plane hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The other two were flown into the World Trade Center. Over 3,000 people died as a result of these attacks. It was a terrible, horrific event. And what makes it worse is the fact that these American deaths were in vain. Because the terrorists won. This not because of the body count. This is because they were able to terrorize America and effectively turn it into a something entirely un-American. As a proud American, I find it very troubling the road that we are headed down, I feel as though I have been cheated out of an America where freedom is at the forefront of every policy decision.
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Where to begin with this clusterfuck of a law? I know! Let’s begin with the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
B. What does the USA PATRIOT Act do exactly? As summarized by Huddy and Feldman, it is “the authorization of wiretapping of a suspect’s phone calls and e-mails, government access to a suspect’s medical, library, and financial records, and the detention without legal representation of citizens under suspicion.” Sounds like some McCarthyism to me. But, that only seems to impede upon due process.
C. After the recent NSA leaks, we have a better picture of what we have lost with this legislation and others like it. As Randy Barnett states in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, “the problem with the data collection orders issues to Verizon and other telecommunications companies become obvious. These orders require the company to produce “on an ongoing daily basis ... all call detail records.” Because they are not “particular” [a clause in the 4th Amendment made in protest to the British Empire], such orders are the modern incarnation of the general warrants issued by the
Where to begin with this clusterfuck of a law? I know! Let’s begin with the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which states “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
B. What does the USA PATRIOT Act do exactly? As summarized by Huddy and Feldman, it is “the authorization of wiretapping of a suspect’s phone calls and e-mails, government access to a suspect’s medical, library, and financial records, and the detention without legal representation of citizens under suspicion.” Sounds like some McCarthyism to me. But, that only seems to impede upon due process.
C. After the recent NSA leaks, we have a better picture of what we have lost with this legislation and others like it. As Randy Barnett states in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, “the problem with the data collection orders issues to Verizon and other telecommunications companies become obvious. These orders require the company to produce “on an ongoing daily basis ... all call detail records.” Because they are not “particular” [a clause in the 4th Amendment made in protest to the British Empire], such orders are the modern incarnation of the general warrants issued by the