Patriot Act Pro and Con free essay sample

Let’s look at a few cons of the Patriot Act. Under the Patriot Act, law enforcement officials may have broad access to any record — academic, library, financial and medical — without probable cause of a crime. The Patriot Act prohibits the holder of such information, like university librarians, from disclosing that they have produced such records, under the threat of imprisonment. A University of Illinois survey of U. S. public libraries found that at least 545 libraries have been asked for records by law enforcement in the year after Sept. 1, 2001. According to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions officers, about 200 colleges and universities have turned over student information to the FBI, INS and other law enforcement agencies. The Patriot Act further permits the FBI to employ campus police on a part-time basis to monitor political and religious activities on campus and to investigate student, faculty and staff background and activi ties. We will write a custom essay sample on Patriot Act Pro and Con or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page For example, within the Georgetown community the Department of Public Safety has the right to find out what kinds of political and religious convictions students express in classes and around campus. In addition, the Patriot Act broadly expands the definition of terrorism, so that student groups that engage in certain types of civil disobedience could be labeled as terrorists. Patriot Act Encourages National Insecurity†¦ concern about potential abuses of data collection provisions could dampen citizen enthusiasm for carrying out electronic transactions with the government. The Act provides law enforcement officials with greater authority to monitor Internet activity such as electronic mail (e-mail) and Web site visits. While law enforcement officials laud their new authorities as enabling them to better track terrorist and other criminal activity, privacy rights advocates worry that, in an attempt to track down and punish the terrorists who threaten American democracy, one of the fundamental tenets of that democracy privacy may itself be threatened. They are in a legal limbo where they have no access to the courts, and are not treated as POWs under the Geneva Convention. The Guantanamo detainees have been held incommunicado, and some are being tortured. The U. S. Government is grossly hypocritical on torture of prisoners. In the case of POWs captured and held at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, an anonymous official said ‘We don’t kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them. The USA Patriot Act was rushed into law in the post-9/11 hysteria and with many congressional offices closed to the Anthrax scare. Many of the senators and representatives voting for it admitted they had not read the entire bill, but voted for it anyway†¦ Using many of the questionable surveillance and monitoring techniques that brought both questions and criticism to his administration, President George W. Bush has launched a war against reporters who write stories unfavorable to his actions and is planning to prosecute journalists to make examples of them in his War on Terrorism. Bush recently directed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to use whatever means at your disposal to wiretap, follow, harass and investigate journalists who have published stories about the administrations illegal use of warrant-less wiretaps, use of faulty intelligence and anything else he deems detrimental to the War on Terror.