The Abuse Of Government Power In Result Of The Patriot Act Of 2005

Although congress has signed many controversial bills throughout the last half century, the most contentious may be the Patriot Act of 2005. This bill came into action in response to the 9/11 attacks on the United States. This bill was created to surveil anyone suspected of terrorism or associated with terror organizations. However, in the years since it has been enacted, many American’s feel that the government is using it to mass surveil its own people. The Patriot Act gives blanket power to the Executive branch of the United Sates to surveil anyone of its choosing, including its own citizens, without the knowledge of the defendant. The act set up a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, which is a court that is hidden from the public eye, allowing the major justice departments to seek covert warrants to spy on U.S. citizens. The idea of a court is to have public fair justice but, when we look at a secret court and spying without knowledge or probable cause, we see a blatant infringement on the fourth amendment.

In order to understand why the Patriot Act was enacted, we must look back at the times that the Patriot Act was written. The times after September 11, 2001 were very austere. Americans were scared and upset but also, united. Sadly, it seems the country is always united under the banner of war more than at times of peace. Congress was caught off guard by the attacks, and our intelligence community felt defeated. During times of strife, congress may use emotion instead of logic when creating orders. This began impulse voting in congress, leading to the passing of the Patriot Act. As aforementioned, the Patriot Act gave the government a lot of power over its citizens that they otherwise would not have. This bill also led to politicians in congress to pass the burden of foreign policy power solely to the president of the United States. It allowed the president to direct agencies to spy on U.S citizens, if suspected of terrorism or crimes against the state. This is a direct violation of your fourth amendment, protecting you from unreasonable search and seizure of possessions or private items. As the amendment explains, the government must collect a warrant from a judge based on evidence collected through police work. At this point the judge will issue a warrant and judgement under oath. By going through the correct channels of government in order to obtain a search warrant, we are using a system which allows the burden of judgement to fall on the judge who would ultimately be held accountable for any warrant issued. The way the Patriot Act can bypass this old standing precedent is by having a secret court headed by the Justice and appointed by the President. This court issues the major intelligence agencies such as FBI, CIA and NSA unchecked warrants to spy on social media and computer files without the suspect knowing nor state and local police. Clearly, spying on our own people has shown to be problematic. Many accuse the government of abusing their power given to them under the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act has been in the forefront of mainstream politics for the last decade. Two of the most obvious depictions of this abuse of power are that of the Edward Snowden Case and the Trump 2016 Russian Collusion. The first example is that of Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agent (CIA), who exposed the NSA collecting and storing an abundance of sensitive, private files kept by American citizens. This led the NSA to a massive man hunt for Snowden. He was wanted for treason- punishable by death according to the Constitution. When Snowden released the information, he was not given whistleblower rights. Instead he was indicted on treason and espionage. On national television, President Obama declared that Snowden was a spy and was going to be brought to justice when captured. The public was skeptical of the executive powers, and at the same time, the NSA’s cover was blown. Many pushed for total reform or outright destruction of the Patriot Act when learning how much information the NSA had collected on its own citizens.

Another representation of the abuse of government power in result of the Patriot Act is the investigations that resulted in ideas that President Trump’s election was a result of the Russian collusion. The most recent case that is still fresh on everyone’s mind is the Russian Collusion special counsel against President Trump and the FISA abuse, which the Inspector General reported on. This was intelligence agencies using the FISA court to create a back door into spying or espionage against a presidential candidate through wire taps and surveillance. The report found seventeen inaccuracies with the FISA warrant issued against Carter Page, a Trump campaign manager. This brought back to the spotlight the amount of controversy the FISA court and Patriot Act have caused in our country. We must remember that the officials that work for intelligence agencies are unelected bureaucrats, unlike representatives from the House, Senate and President which all are currently elected by the people. These individuals have tons of power but manage to stay out of the spotlight and dodge media scrutiny that other federal representatives must endure. When they alter warrants and get them passed by a secret court, it is against everything the Americans and the Constitution stand for. The very idea of America and Western culture is that people are entitled to their privacy and private property. Clearly, the Patriot Act is in violation of this when spying on people through computer hacking and data mining, while also surveilling the public without any probable cause or crime. When private information is leaked, it is used as a tool to destroy a person’s reputation. Even if the information gathered caused no conviction, the amount of secrecy and deception causes the media to assume. This leads to claims that have no factual bases, which spread even without accountability from the media outlets. However, many have argued that the Patriot Act is necessary to protect its citizens from potential terrorist attacks both domestically and abroad. However, it can be argued that once a fundamental right is taken away, it is seemingly impossible to get back. This can be seen throughout history, and the Patriot Act is no exception.

In conclusion, the fourth amendment says that each person has a right to be secure in their properties and rules against unreasonable search and seizure. This limits the police’s power to search people, as well as their homes and property. It is easy to see how The Patriot Act has caused an uproar amongst the American people. The United States is a country of liberties and has always been opposed to government surveillance. The Bill of Rights clearly states multiple amendments that the Patriot Act violates, leading me to conclude that the Patriot Act is nothing other than unconstitutional.