The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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In 2001 with the passing of the “not so” Patriot Act, new powers were granted to the executive branch that allowed them to suspend due process of any suspect and enact wartime methods of extracting data due to national security or simply deny these civilians their legal rights.(Hunt, 2014) The Patriot Act, was established as an anti-terrorist tool, but quickly added to the nationalist tool box in militant response to civil opposition. The utilization of this militant tool to impede civilians committing peaceful protests, civil disobedience or even speaking against their nation would result in an oppression of their civil liberties to freedom speech and freedom of assembly.(Williams, 2003)
Secondly, with the passing of the Patriot Act, the use of secret military tribunals is a serious danger to the public’s civil liberties. These trails do not abide by many of the same regulations and rights that our civilian courts maintain. These military courts do not provide a choice of lawyer, they accept various types of evidence that would not be credible in a civilian court, they accept various methods of extracting data that are not legal to perform on civilians, including but not limited to denial of their
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Homes, businesses, mosques and Muslim schools have been vandalized, children tormented, and students harassed on college campuses. Outside of the regular hate crimes perpetrated by the people of the American public, the US government started racially profiling potential terrorists based on “Arab” features. (Hunt, 2014) This not only was a direct violation of the civil rights of the American people, but useless in identifying potential terrorists. (Hunt, 2014; Williams,

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