The USA Patriot Act is policy that has both positive and negative impacts. The Department of Defense states that “The act improves our counter-terrorism efforts in several significant ways: Allows law enforcement to use surveillance against more crimes of terror and without a court order, facilitated information sharing and cooperation among government agencies so that they can better “connect the dots”, increased penalties for those who commit terrorist crimes, and allows law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant anywhere a terrorist-related activity occurred. The Republican party favors renewing the USA Patriot Act as it is. Democrats are demanding changes that will put a stop to the National Security Agency’s massive collection of metadata from individuals that may not have any ties to terrorism against the U.S. And Liberals agree that the USA Patriot Act is in serious need of change. They point out that more than six amendments in The Bill of Rights are being violated by The USA Patriot Act. The Republicans are united in their favor of the Patriot Act and believe that it is necessary to secure the homeland. The Democrats agree that specific sections of the Patriot Act should be reviewed and restricted. The Liberals agree that surveillance of any kind should always require the consent of the individual. They would like a new version of the Patriot Act that protects privacy, property, and the rights of American Citizens. For the Liberal party, the USA Patriot Act has no checks and balances and therefore may abuse civil rights of Americans. The party’s stance that resembles my own would be the Democrats. As an American, I am in favor of policy that helps to protect the homeland and Americans, but not the total and complete violation of our privacy. It is well known that the NSA collects metadata on millions and millions of people both here and abroad. It has been proven that most intelligence collected has nothing to do with the fight against terrorism. The Republicans stance is the furthest from my
ideals in that the Patriot Act is not a perfect piece of legislation and needs to be restructured to protect the American citizens and civil rights, while fighting this war on terrorism.
References USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act: A citizen’s guide to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act Retrieved from https://emuell2/.wordpress.com/political-parties / The USA Patriot Act: Preserving Life and Liberty. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm