Willingful Blindness: The Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, and HSBC's Money Laundering

Jennifer Le
Section A01
Reflection #6
Reading: "The US Patriot Act: A Sketch"

 More than a decade after 9/11 and the "War on Terror", the United States has finally slowly taken steps to ending this more-than-decades long war, first with the withdraw of military personnel from Iraq. However, this "War on Terror" has not been isolated overseas, but touched into our domestic affairs. The sudden attack on American soil has left a traumatizing mark on the American mind and created a culture of paranoia, resulting in the passage of the Patriot act. We've handed more power to law enforcement and the intelligence community, allowing the monitoring of phone records, emails, and personal finances. The most heinous byproduct of our fear of terrorism is the increase in persecution of anyone suspected of terrorist actions, without any legal representation. This has culminated in the tragically shared experienced of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a US-prison on Cuba that houses suspected terrorist. These prisoners are subjected to inhumane conditions, robbed of their legal rights, and despite being acquitted, still remain inside the prison walls. The video below shows only a glimpse into the horrible conditions the prisoners experience on a daily basis.

    However, there is a stark contrast in the treatment of the suspected, powerless Guantanamo detainees and the actually guilty, affluent, wealthy. Within the Patriot Act, there is extensive focus on money-launderng to terror networks. However, in 2012, the HSBC scandal broke when the British-based banking company was charged with money-laundering funds to drug cartels and terrorist on multiple occasions. Despite admitting their guilty actions, the bank was charged guilty and paid a $1.9 billion fine. Not a single employee of the bank was ever subjected to prison time. To get a better idea of the corruption in this case, let's hear the words of wisdom from Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

    This leads to the question- is there a bias within the Patriot Act that makes the lives of everyday Americans defenseless to the paranoia of terrorism, while ignoring the crimes of the affluent?