PATRIOTIC ACT
The government, through the house of representation, initiated patriotic act in 2001 after September eleven attack, the legislation has attracted both critics and support; supports in equal measures. The bill was meant to improve domestic security, empower the national intelligence security and the federation bureau of investigation to survey and detect criminal activities in the country. Furthermore, the bill was also meant for the access of criminal information without the order from the federal court as well as sharing of the confidential information regarding the illegal activities across the border.
The legislation of the bill enhanced the sharing of the information with ease. The national intelligence and the federal bureau of intelligence can access and share information with all the stakeholders of the data in the countries and the globe at large. As a result, the supporters of the bills have championed for the law due to the ease of accessing and sharing information (Miller 2017). However, the open sharing of information will indulge and violet the privacy of the citizen; because of the violation of the privacy, the critics are against the law.
The bill also ensured the use of as singe wiretap to control all the devices; consequently eliminating the use of several court authorization to obtain the suspected criminal electronic devices. Furthermore, the roving wiretaps are required to deal with the terrorist who has sophisticated tools (Enzine 2012). The type of surveillance the act stipulate have divided both supporters and the critics of the bill: the supporters say the legislation is a superb move while the critics argue the law will violet the privacy of citizen who comes into contact with the terrorist without prior knowledge they are criminals.
The patriotic act also stipulates that the intelligence agency have the power to access the business records of the suspected terrorist in foreign jurisdictions. Moreover, the intelligence agency can use the information acquired to detect the money laundering business in both the local and international arena. The bill has both merits and demerits: the law can be misused to demand the access and the reading of the business records that have nothing to do with the terrorism. However, the legislation is paramount to acquire vital information regarding the financiers of terrorism.
The supporters of the bill give the legislation supports since there are hindrances of the material support to criminals or terrorist. As a result, the experts or consultants cannot issue any advice or offer any assistance to the terrorist (Enzine 2012). Moreover, the terrorists’ activities are, therefore, controlled and curtailed. However, the critics argue that innocent individuals may be caught up in the process of curbing the terrorist: differentiating the terrorists and the ordinary citizen has proven to be a tall order.
Conversely, the patriotic act allows the agency for intelligence to sneak and peek search warrants without prior notice to the owner of the property. However, the individual supporting the bill argue that search allows the jeopardization of the investigation not to be limited. The critics have been leveled against the “sneak and peak” warrant search section of the act because of civilian liberty being interfered with by the federal bureau of investigation (Van 2012). As a result, the victim of the research may suffer heart disease or humiliation even though he or she may not be a criminal.
The scholar scholars have pointed out that the legislation p have issues which are a liability to the country as a whole because they use a lot of resources to obtain information. First, the surveillance across the border has proven to be costly because the number of resources required to control our borders is huge (Miller 2017). A good example is the building of the wall across Mexico borders to prevent illegal immigrant who may be criminals. Secondly, the secrecy surrounding the laws has caused the liberty movement to protest the laws .furthermore, some power given to the intelligence can be misused to harass ordinary citizen; cause loss of property.
The government set aside the fund for counter-terrorism provision to enable the control of domestic terrorism. The patriotic act has, consequently, increased the expenses for the security of the United States through the security of our country cannot be ignored. For instance, putting the surveillance system is expensive and requires enhanced technological and enormous financial resources.
In spite of the three problems regarding the act that scholars argue about there are two that are not detrimental to the country’s economy. One is the sharing of information across foreign intelligence agencies because few resources are used to get such information. Consequently, the cost of getting vital terrorist details in a foreign country is not burdening the state(Smith 2010). Lastly, the authorization of using one wiretap to access all the information regarding the terrorists’ electronic devises is fundamentally essential and has cut the cost of using several court order to access and get the data from the suspected criminals.
In summary, the government has encountered challenges have during the implementation of the act: the liberty movement opposing some controversial clauses such as the access to search houses without prior notice to the owner. In spite of the challenges, the passing of legislation has sailed through even though some provisions have been an amendment to cater for the concerns raised by the liberty movement and public demands: the national intelligence unity have to obtain the court order to warrant home and property search. Successfully, legislation implementation has been a success.
REFRENCES
Ezine, A., (2012). How Patriotic Is the Patriot Act.
Miller, D. A., (2017). The Patriot Act. Detroit, Mich: Lucent Books.
Smith, C. S., (2010). The Patriot Act: Issues and controversies.
Van, D. C., (2011). The patriotic anthology. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc.