Good Example Of Research Paper On The USA Patriot Act: An In Depth Analysis Of Repercussions

The USA-Patriot Act - An In Depth Analysis of Repercussions

The PATRIOT Act was represented a drastic alteration of the Bill of Rights. The law initiated legislative alterations to a number greater than 15 various U.S. laws in an effort to augment national security. The law making alterations were initiated in the legislature swiftly as a counter to the 9/11 terrorist threats and they were implemented in the absence of considerable discussions. The legislation was ratified into law on October 26, 2001 a mere 45 days post the heinous event. The law does contain a limited number of particular discounts to the problems of civil libertarians offering an equilibrium with respect to liberties and national protection, specifically a sunset provision conveying that a number of provisions of the law by default terminate on December 31, 2005, if not expressly reinstated by the legislature. Nevertheless, the law continues to have sections that impede the privacy of citizens specifically considering the feeble supervision by the courts that has been included within the law. The law allows the administration, theoretically, to fortify national protection by enlarging its monitoring and detection authority, specifically in fields like telecommunications.
The happenings of 9/11 have led the U.S. administration - and specifically, majority of the international arena - to re-examine how to allocate the requirement for protection with respect to their countrymen's need for confidentiality. Since this is not the primary instance that this has taken place within the country, it may be trite to examine the previous developments to better forecast the future.
The PATRIOT Act in the holistic sense is a legislation enacted by the 107th Congress fresh after the 9/11 incident. This introduces several changes in a number of segments of the U.S. Code. For instance, one remarkable change comes in the shape of §106 which enables the President to easily take up and dispose the assets and belongings of foreign entrants he deems were accountable for aggression towards the United States. (Lilly, 2003)
Section 210 of the PATRIOT Act, which significantly broadens the kind of data at the disposal of federal detectives. It enables the law enforcement officials to examine telephone and international call logs to ascertain the subscriber's kind and duration of service, the origin of money paid for such services which also includes financial transaction details and relevant numbers, and the protocol location for internet. While this would on the face of it seem to be a considerably minuscule invasion of privacy of a person, this information opens avenues to additional, more intuitive, roads of detection. (Lilly, 2003)
At the same time, should the suspected person gain knowledge of this proof, there is no need under the law to intimate him regarding the procedure which the police followed to gain the relevant information. Though drastic electronic retrieval of classified data and its acceptability as proof in a terrorist-connected judicial proceeding is in most likelihood not going to happen, it at the same time puts the suspected individual in a condition where his intimacy is gravely affected. Section 215 of the law also deserves to be examined in this regard. This provision empowers the FBI to ask for the furnishing of concrete objects for terrorism detections. In a manner similar to the previous provisions of the law, and a repeating undercurrent throughout the law, section 215 is highly ambiguous in the context of determining the kind and extend of amenability to FBI acquisition. Generally any object could be amenable to the microscope of detection work, including sensitive data scripted on paper or stored on electronic media since they qualify as concrete objects. (Whitehead & Aden, 2002)
The law stresses far more on the sophisticated features of anti-terrorism, for instance the breaking of link of money misappropriation and other ways of sponsoring terrorist activities. Over and above this, the law appears to have more teeth at the global scenario characterized by advanced technology that the likes of al-Qaida work around, while the laws in other nations did not have to stress on such problems just because they were not there throughout the decade in the 1970s. This is found in the PATRIOT Act by sections in relation to electronic logs, email and telephone database and the work of the companies in charge of providing the service. Over and above this, within the country, al-Qaida, in contradistinction to IRA and FLQ in their individual spheres of work, does not float in a wave of aid and support. Therefore, the PATRIOT Act stresses to a large extent on detection techniques devised to locate “sleeper” agents and bunkers that are incorporated within the nation. (Whitehead & Aden, 2002)
An analysis of the numerous provisions of PATRIOT Act will display some of the majority of diverse problematic Sections in the law. Before the enactment of the law, domestic detections by police officers and investigations that were classified as a component of intelligence gathering works required to be operated in isolation. This distinction was authorized due to the various legal benchmarks that were held against the two types of detection. The happenings of 9/11, which contained numerous people who had been monitored before under the umbrella of foreign intelligence and stayed in the country without any tracking from national officials, made it feasible to contend that greater collaboration between detection and intelligence bodies was required to avoid terrorist threats in near future. (Ryan, 2003)
Section 203 of the law allows such collaboration by enabling “foreign intelligence information” collected by the concerned bodies to be disseminated to law enforcement authorities for utilization in criminal detections. The law explains “foreign intelligence information” in elaborate terms as data regarding the capabilities, motives, or actions of foreign administrations or components, foreign bodies, or foreign individuals or global terrorism. This explanation also contains data regarding a U.S. citizen regarding a foreign authority or geography and which pertains to the national security or the protection of the country or the operations of the foreign affairs of the nation. (Ryan, 2003)
Considering the lesser benchmark of evidence required for extracting warrants for the purpose of gathering of intelligence data of requisite nature, this gives rise to doubts that such warrants are possibly being utilized more often for groping in the dark in which law enforcement officers possess no specific impression that a person has done or will perform an illegitimate action, but opt to monitor him hoping that they will be locating some proof of marginally illegitimate actions. Section 203 however offers some sort of shield against misuse of power by mandating the U.S. Attorney General to lay down the process for the revealing of “foreign intelligence information” which pin points a U.S. resident when such data comes from grand juries or tapping of telephone lines. (Soma, 2005)
In the same way section 203 relaxes impositions on the dissemination of data between different administrative and intelligence bodies, section 206 of the law relaxes its grip on the collection of this data. Even though Title III of the "Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968" mandates authorities to establish before the court that they possess "probable cause" which leads to the conviction that criminal actions are taking place. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) mandates electronic monitoring pursuant to extracting a court authorization and can be premised upon no more possible reason than that the aim is a foreign authority or a representative of a foreign authority. Obviously, FISA provides considerably lesser security than what is needed under the national wiretap law. Section 206 alters the power of FISA in connection to intelligence collection on U.S. territory by enabling the gathering of this data in the absence of "due process" condition that restricts domestic detective work. This provision additionally brings the wiretap administration under FISA abreast with the modern benchmark by removing the need that legislation enforcement extract a distinct authorization for supervising each mobile instrument utilized by the core concern of the detection. This power is generally explained as a “roaming wiretap,” which records the individual concerned instead of a specific telecommunication device. (Soma, 2005)
The most intuitive distinction between the customary wiretap agency and the current FISA-premised agency is that traditionally it was needed that law enforcement representatives conclude whether the theme of tapping was really utilizing the machine to be recorded. Section 206 does not include such a mandate, which indicates that it may be feasible for the administrative body carrying out the detection work in pursuance of this power to ask for being allowed to record all payphones within a certain sphere if possible terrorists continued to visit that area. (Rossler, 2003)
Thus, in spite of the invasive nature of the enforcing provisions and the rabid attack on civil liberties of American citizens, the law offers delicate checks and balances to restore parity within the mayhem of international terrorism. However, regardless of the noble intentions to augment national security, the law must strive to achieve the correct balance in safeguarding civil rights and liberties, on which hinges the public sentiment and popularity. The government must also work efficiently to ensure that enforcement and intelligence are on the same radar when it comes to sharing of information and laying the foundations of a cooperative framework. If these issues are addressed at the very outset, the law will be able to operate on the solid foundations of legitimacy and effectively serve its intended purpose. (Whitehead & Aden, 2002)
One of the most distressing characteristics of the PATRIOT Act is that it was materialized as a counter to a national security problem, rather than an emerging law making action. A number of the provisions of the law had been refuted earlier by the legislature in the period before the 9/11 threats were launched. In spite of this, the suggestions that were put in place in the wake of the attacks went directly through the legislature without any deliberation, scrutiny or proceedings, as many people in the country were scared that additional terror attacks were about to happen. Attempts were advanced in the Senate as well as the House to nullify some of the most stringent components of the law, but the Senate and House top brass, in conjunction with the executive officers who were asked to come to the closed-door discussion, ripped apart the majority of such alterations. The proposed legislation was enacted with only a one dissenting motion in the discussion of Senate, and by a solitary vote of 337 to 79 in the discussion which took place at the House. Therefore, the legislation was ratified into law only 42 days after the terror event took place.
In short, terrorism, irrespective of how one terms it, is a stigma on all that is good about the individual spirit. Even the people who perceive the terrorist as a revolutionary would re-analyze their measures not required in an utopian globe. The planned killing of others, specifically the innocuous, whether by planned, customary military action, or by disorganized terrorists, is unacceptable in the same manner.
Though, the answers accepted by countries asking for and having conviction in themselves better than the enemy must pervade beyond the ploy adopted by their enemy if they are to retain their politically significant ego and the morally crucial respectability required for all genuinely representative administrations to work. Thus, terrorism, to an extent greater than the ramifications of war, is a tougher nut to crack. A lot like combating the mafia and drug lords, it is hard to combat an elusive and hidden danger in the absence of taking recourse to the same ploy of their foes.

References

Soma, J.T. et. al. (2005). Balance of Privacy vs. Security: A Historical Perspective of the USA Patriot Act. Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal, 285, 312.
Ryan, C.R. (2003). The USA Patriot Act Helps Law Enforcement Meet the Anti-Terrorism Challenge, Delaware Lawyer, 6, 9.
Rossler, T. (2003). A NEW MISSION AND NEW CHALLENGES: LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE AFTER THE USA PATRIOT ACT. Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies, 1, 4, 6, 7 & 8.
Whitehead, J.W. & Aden, S.H. (2002). Forfeiting Enduring Freedom for Homeland Security. American University Law Review, 1081, 1084.
Lilly, J.R. (2003). Note, National Security at What Price?: A Look Into Civil Liberty Concerns in the Information Age Under the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and a Proposed Constitutional Test for Future Legislation. Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 447, 449-450.