The PATRIOT Act

Kevin Wang

ASA 2 Section 2

Week 6

The PATRIOT Act

The PATRIOT Act was passed immediately after the 9/11 attacks. It was a response to the attacks and many congressmen passed it because their incumbents may view them as ‘against America’. Whether or not the PATRIOT Act is necessary is still controversial. It is easy to measure how many attacks got past the system and much harder to measure how many attacks were prevented. It is not fair to attack the PATRIOT Act as ineffective simply because it’s hard to measure ‘what could have happened’.

But at the same time, a different issue arises about the privacy of US citizens. The values and rights the Constitution promises includes many things, but the explicit statement of ‘privacy’ is not there. There are many parts of the Constitution that give rights involving privacy-related topics. I believe that           in this new age of information, older laws and documents about the rights of citizens need to be reevaluated. Things such as privacy when browsing the internet, messaging, and calling are new but necessary. An interesting hypothetical question came up: If the PATRIOT act and similar legislation turned out to have been stopping hundreds of terrorist attacks, would we still be against it? Or would it still be unjustifiable under human rights?