Out of all constitutional issues, one would think that the Patriot Act was the most serious for the country’s well being because the act allowed the government to spy on citizens, violating the Fourth Amendment. The United States was at one of the tensest times, which was the attack that occurred on 9/11, and the Congress was bullied by the Bush administration to pass the act. Not only did the act violate the Fourth Amendment, it also contravened with the First Amendment by not telling others why the government wanted to search the property and authorizing the FBI to investigate citizens in part for exercising their right to freely speak. Because of these violations of the Amendments, the Patriot Act was one of the most consequential acts in
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The Senate claimed that this act was too forced or rushed to be passed, and they had no to little chance of reading it before voting on whether it should be passed. The House of Representatives also threw this act out, but the Bush administration insinuated that the opposers of the act would be blamed for other attacks like 9/11. In fact, the act had nothing to do with terrorism so there was no reason to pass this. Instead, the Patriot Act focused on government’s power to record searches, hold secret searches on private properties, have intelligence searches for a collection of foreign intelligence information, and spying to collect information about the origin and destination of communications. The act also allowed the FBI and the government to make doctors, universities, and Internet to hand over information about specific people. With this, the government can go through any source of information and violate people’s privacy. For these reasons, the Patriot Act violated the Fourth and First Amendments by the government not showing a warrant of why they are searching the private properties and not notifying others about the information of those search warrants, where no secrecy is even necessary. This act was one of the most serious issues for the country because it violated people’s privacy and breached the First and Fourth
The Senate claimed that this act was too forced or rushed to be passed, and they had no to little chance of reading it before voting on whether it should be passed. The House of Representatives also threw this act out, but the Bush administration insinuated that the opposers of the act would be blamed for other attacks like 9/11. In fact, the act had nothing to do with terrorism so there was no reason to pass this. Instead, the Patriot Act focused on government’s power to record searches, hold secret searches on private properties, have intelligence searches for a collection of foreign intelligence information, and spying to collect information about the origin and destination of communications. The act also allowed the FBI and the government to make doctors, universities, and Internet to hand over information about specific people. With this, the government can go through any source of information and violate people’s privacy. For these reasons, the Patriot Act violated the Fourth and First Amendments by the government not showing a warrant of why they are searching the private properties and not notifying others about the information of those search warrants, where no secrecy is even necessary. This act was one of the most serious issues for the country because it violated people’s privacy and breached the First and Fourth