Privacy Rights in the United States

Under the Patriot Act, American government agencies have the ability to monitor American citizens in unprecedented ways that no Federal government entity has ever been allowed to do so because of the US Constitution.

These actions are to counter terrorism and keep Americans safe. Not only is this an invasion of privacy, it directly violates various parts of the Constitution and thus many rights.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 caused a nationwide hysteria that prompted the government to enforce stricter protection policies. This lead to the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, or US Patriot Act. The purpose of the Act is to prevent and punish terrorist acts in the United States by giving new powers to the Justice Department.

Sandwich High School English teacher Laura Carlyle stated, “The Patriot Act came in as a reaction to a desperate situation. The British did it with ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ back in WWII. There are a lot of elements that people saw as necessary under the Patriot Act. They were very frightened, and it was the response to the legislation which was also frightened. We have to revisit it because certainly it allows people, unidentified people, without notice, without probable cause, to simply eavesdrop on the American public. I think it certainly needs to be looked at again.”

In Trevor Timm’s article “Ten Years After the Patriot Act, a Look at Three of the Most Dangerous Provisions Affecting Ordinary Americans”, he reports:

As the New York Times reported, the government may now be using Section 215 orders to obtain “private information about people who have no link to a terrorism or espionage case.” The Justice Department has refused to disclose how they are interpreting the provision, but we do have some indication of how they are using Section 215. While not going into detail,Senator Mark Udall indicated the FBI believes it to allows them “unfettered” access to innocent Americans’ private data, like “a cellphone company’s phone records” in bulk form. The government’s use of these secret orders is sharply increasing -- from 21 orders in 2009 to 96 orders in 2010, an increase of over 400% -- and according to a brand new report from the Washington Post, 80% of those requests are for Internet records (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

Timm’s explanation offers some detailed examples of how the Patriot Act has affected the American public.

SHS History teacher Don Franke explained, “Fighting terrorism involves a wide range of tools, and those tools involve the fact that we modernized how we communicate with each other. So you do have to have a system where you can investigate things like emails and social media that might be private.”

Although there are opposing viewpoints, the American population must educate themselves on the topic of privacy rights. A new bill called the USA Freedom Act is being debated in Congress and later voted on, that would address the Constitutional issues found in the Patriot Act.

However, a similar bill was proposed last year and failed.

The rights of the American people, as given in the Constitution, must be taken into consideration when deciding the new changes to the act.