The Patriot Act: The Dangers Of The Patriot Act

Superior Essays
Domestic Wiretapping and Surveillance without a court order.

Civilized human beings tend to discuss personal private information with each other everyday. Whether they want the information to be known or not by other people is out of their control. People conduct phone calls and texts messages with each other day in and day out. People assume that these are private one-on-one conversations with each other, but little do they know that there is a third party monitoring their conversations. After 9/11 occurred, the Bush Administration designed a law called the “Patriot Act.” The purpose of the Patriot Act is to surveil cellphones, tablets and anything that has a connection to the internet without you knowing. It is unconstitutional
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According to the American Civil Liberties Union “The Patriot Act increases the Government 's power to obtain information from wiretapping and surveillance.”(www.ACLU.org) The Patriot Act was developed to keep the citizens of America more safe from terrorist attacks. There is also a disadvantage of this Act because this an infringement of the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. The American Civil Liberties Union also states that “ Section 215 of the patriot Act violates the first amendment as well.”(www.ACLU.org) The first Amendment gives the people the right of freedom of speech. This is associated with wiretapping because wiretapping records telecom communications such as text messages and phone calls. The ACLU briefly states that “ Section 215 allows the Federal Bureau Investigation to force cellular phone companies in handing over cellular data records without any warrant present.”(www.ACLU.org). This is highly unlawful because the Fourth Amendment protects you from unlawful searches and seizures. Therefore this law is counteracting our Constitution, which even the government has to …show more content…
Edward snowden is a computer professional that is famously known for leaking information on the U.S. National Security Agency in 2013. Snowden said in an interview that “ The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything that is uses telecommunications.”(www.cfr.org). This infrastructure collects data all around the United States. This is private information that is being collected without our consent or a warrant being present. The Obama Administration defended the surveillance program saying “ it 's legal, limited and effective with preventing terrorist acts” (www.cfr.org). The surveillance program is effective with preventing terrorist attacks, but this violates the Fourth Amendment right because they are collecting data from everywhere and everyone around the country. According to the News Team staff of cfr.org people are starting to revolt against these outraeous and unlawful actions. Judge Richard J. Leon said “ surely such a program infringes that degree of privacy, that our founding fathers enshrined in the Fourth Amendment” (www.cfr.org). After, the exposure of the NSA in the mid-2013 American citizens have started to protest against these unlawful actions and development movements to protect their right of

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