So has anyone heard about the USA Patriot Act? Well if you haven’t, let me enlighten you. First it is a law that was passed almost unanimously in the Senate and overwhelmingly in the House. It was signed into law October 26th 2001. The Act pretty much lets The Department of Homeland Security have the authority to do whatever it needs to make sure terrorist “actions” are not being made. They want to maintain National Security. The common “backronym” is Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.
So how does that effect us? Well the thing that most surprised and concerned me was that The Department of Homeland Security has the authority to monitor sudent and proffesor library borrowing records, internet records, e-mails, international travel, and phone calls. That way the can see if any suspicious play is going on. Now this upset me a little when I heard about this. What exactly do they think is “suspicious” or a “potential lead”? That makes me worry because now you might be met by federal agents at your house for checking out a book on communism, terrorism, or Al Qaeda. What if you are doing a report on one of those for a research paper? Should we worry that we might be suspects or on some type of watch list? When should the line be drawn?
I personally think that this is way out of boundries for the government to be stepping into our personal lives. Why should we have to tiptoe around certain topics to make sure we please some man in a suit? Whats next, are we going to have to get an approval for what we talk about on the phone, or in public? When did the govenrment obtain the power to override our freedom of expression and speech? Doesn’t that violate our consitutional rights? I think that this is interfearing way too much with our privacy. It makes you wonder who and when someone is actually watching us in our every action..
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The right to privacy is important and something that we, as residents of this country should never be denied. The question I’m finding myself asking is, why do we value privacy? We want to be able to do some things without others knowing about it, right? This is valid. There are circumstances, however, that I believe should take precedence. Circumstances such as the for the preservation of human life. I think mankind has a collective responsibility to protect one another from harm. In situations where you find a threat to innocent lives, I think that people should do what is in there means to accommodate the situation. I’m sick and tired of people who have the reaction to sacrificing their privacy on the phone or the internet as an inconvenience, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to help save lives. These people need to wake up and realize their selfish agendas. “I wanna be able to check out a book on Al Qaida without being trailed!”. Waah.. cry me a freakin’ river. There’s people dying out there, and all you want to think about is how the government might know that your email said, or what you talked about on the phone, or what internet site you looked up today? Back to the article, the author is quoted, “That makes me worry because now you might be met by federal agents at your house for checking out a book on communism, terrorism, or Al Qaeda. What if you are doing a report on one of those for a research paper?” What do you have to worry about? Answer: nothing, unless of course you’re doing things that are illegal. Scenario: a federal agent shows up at your door, because you checked out a book on one of those subjects (which would never happen, but I’ll entertain the notion). You’ll explain to him that you’re doing a research paper, and he’ll go away. See? Not so bad. Or was that so much of an inconvenience that you would just rather avoid that situation at the possible expense of human life? The sarcasm should be knocking at your forehead like a drum by now. The author’s lack of insight is amazing as this excerpt shows: “Why should we have to tiptoe around certain topics to make sure we please some man in a suit? Whats next, are we going to have to get an approval for what we talk about on the phone, or in public? When did the govenrment obtain the power to override our freedom of expression and speech? Doesn’t that violate our consitutional rights?” You don’t have to tiptoe around anything. That is, of course, you’re breaking the law, then you might have to. Some are saying, “Well it’s my right to break the law if I want to”, and to those people I simply say, “Shut up”. Why on earth do you think we’ll have to get approval for what we talk about? That doesn’t even have anything to do with what the Patriot Act is about. Random surveillance doesn’t infringe on freedom of speech. We can still say whatever the hell we want to.
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