The Patriot Act and the Security Versus Privacy Debate

The US Congress passed the Patriot Act just a few weeks after 9/11 terrorist attacks.The goal of the legislation was to address some of the problems that had resulted in theattacks occurring. The Act significantly increased the powers of the government to gainaccess to records of activities of Americans. It was argued that the government’s […]

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The US Congress passed the Patriot Act just a few weeks after 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The goal of the legislation was to address some of the problems that had resulted in the
attacks occurring. The Act significantly increased the powers of the government to gain
access to records of activities of Americans. It was argued that the government’s access to
such records was key to preventing another terrorist attack in the US. While potentially
improving national security, the Act represented one of the biggest violations of civil liberties
of Americans in recent times.

Stakeholders of the Patriot Act

The Patriot Act has two main stakeholders. These are American citizens and security
agencies. The citizens are affected by the Act because it gives the government a lot of powers
to monitor their activities through checking their communication, financial, traveling and
other records (Romanvskaya, 2017). Even though some of the most intrusive programs under
the Act have either been struck down by the courts or have expired, the Act still has many
sections that allow the government to rifle through personal records of Americans
(Romanskaya, 2017). Thus, due to the Act, Americans have lost a significant amount of
privacy that they enjoyed prior to 9/11 attacks. Granted, some sections of the Act need
regular reauthorization by Congress. For such sections, there is possibility that at some point
they will be done away altogether or they will be replaced by Acts that have stronger
protections for privacy rights of Americans, such as the 2015 passing of Freedom Act which
amended some of the more intrusive sections of the Patriot Act (Romanvskaya, 2017).
However, since many parts of the Act are permanent, it is likely that Americans will continue
living in an environment of reduced privacy protection rights.

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Apart from American citizens, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies are also
a major stakeholder in the Act. These agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA, consider the
Patriot Act to be helpful in identifying terrorist threats before they occur (Romanvskaya,
2017). They argue that part of the reason why 9/11 occurred was inability of the agencies to
monitor records of the terrorists because of legal constraints to such kind of monitoring.

Challenges Involved in Crafting the Policy

The Patriot Act was passed a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks occurred. The timing
was strategic. Even though the Act was presented as being a response to the attacks, law
enforcement agencies had previously tried having many of the provisions in the Act become
law with no success (Romanovskaya, 2017). Congress had repeatedly refused to pass any
legislation that would constitute a threat to the civil liberties of Americans. The shocking
nature of the 9/11 attacks certainly played a big role in Congress reversing itself on the
matter. Such was the completeness of the reversal that the Act was passed almost
unanimously and without much debate and without much consideration on its impact on the
civil liberties of Americans.

Conclusion

The Patriot Act remains controversial close to nineteen years after it was passed. Its
supporters, especially in the law enforcement and intelligence community argue that it has
helped to keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks such as the ones that occurred on 9/11.
However, its opponents view the Act is constituting a massive erosion of Americans’ civil
liberties and a threat to privacy rights. Thus, the Patriot Act is a classic example of public
policies which benefit one group (law enforcement and intelligence agencies) while causing
problems to another group (American citizens).

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References

Romanovskaya, O. V. (2017). The Patriot act: restrictions on the right to privacy in the US in
order to counter terrorism.  Electronic scientific journal «Science. Society. State, 5(2),
10-16.

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