Argumentative Essay: The Patriot Act

nation accepted it with open arms for its promising results. What many did not know at this point and will only find out years later was that The Patriot Act will violate their Fourth Amendment rights down the road and that all American citizens and not just those suspected of committing a crime will be a target of this surveillance program.

The Patriot Act gave law enforcement several authorities they did not have before to perform their job with less hassles (such as officers had to obtain multiple warrants in multiple jurisdictions, The Act provides that warrants can be obtained in any district in which terrorism-related activities occurred, regardless of where they will be executed). None of these authorities granted at the time caused
National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said surveillance programs have helped thwart more than 50 “potential terrorist events” around the world. Alexander said at least 10 of the attacks were set to take place in the United States, suggesting that most of the terrorism disrupted by the program had been set to occur abroad. And in defense of the program he added “NSA also disclosed that counterterrorism officials targeted fewer than 300 phone numbers or other “identifiers” last year in the massive call-tracking database secretly assembled by the U.S. government.”. FBI Director Sean Joyce said the Web traffic program (NSA data collection) had contributed to arrests averting a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange that resulted in criminal charges in 2008 (Gerstein, 2013). Since the government was able to foil 50 plots around the world using the data they collected since 2001, is it worth being spied on? Some may argue that yes since life itself is more important than privacy but that brings me back to my question. Was Ben Franklin incorrect when he stated that “He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.”? Some may argue that technology and society has changed and its time we protect ourselves against extremist by giving up some of our liberties. Bruce Schneier in his bestselling book Data and Goliath explains how we are fed a false narrative of how our surveillance state is able to stop terrorist attacks before they happen. In fact, Schneier argues, the idea that our government is able to parse all the invasive and personal data they collect on us is laughable. He added that The NSA repeatedly uses a connect-the-dots metaphor