Week Two Assignment
Kacy Lane Klingle
POL303: The American Constitution
Lawrence Olson
February 29, 2016

The topic I am going to cover in this paper is Privacy Rights. The one thing I will cover is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism or the USA Patriot Act. This Act has caused numerous concerns over the years of the federal government over stepping their bounds on their tactics of intelligence gathering after the terrorist attacks on September eleventh two thousand and eleven. This paper will discuss some advantages of the patriot act such as sharing intelligence between the federal, state, and local governments. As well it will cover harsher penalties for hackers. The paper will also cover some of the disadvantages of the Patriot Act. Such as screening peoples phone calls and E-mails possibly infringing on a persons’ Fourth Amendment rights. The first thing this paper is going to discuss is how the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism or the USA Patriot Act. The Patriot Act helps throughout the multiple levels of the government, from federal to the local government. One way is within this act it allows the multiple levels of the government to share information between organizations. “The Act removed the major legal barriers that prevented the law enforcement, intelligence, and national defense communities from talking and coordinating their work to protect the American people and our national security. The government's prevention efforts should not be restricted by boxes on an organizational chart. Now police officers, FBI agents, federal prosecutors and intelligence officials can protect our communities by "connecting the dots" to uncover terrorist plots before they are completed.” (Preserving Life & Liberty, n.d.) Also the Act updated the law to reflect the technologies and threats of today’s day and age. This change made the law technology-neutral; it placed electronic trespassers on the same footing as physical trespassers.” (Preserving Life & Liberty, n.d.) Now that we have discussed some of the Pros of the Patriot Act now we will discuss some of the cons of the Act. A lot of people are concerned about the fact of the government snooping into their personal phone calls and E-mails. With the passing of this act and not having a probable cause to listen to the phone calls and looking at the E-mails one can say this is violating once civil liberties and possibly the constitution. With this being a possible Fourth Amendment violation. The amendment form the constitution states the following “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (U.S. Constitutional Amendments, 2016) If the government is allowed to listen to phone calls and look at E-mails would this not be a violation of our Fourth Amendment rights? To me as a military member I can see both sides of this argument over does it violate rights or not. As looking at it constitutionally I would have to say it is most likely in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Just read the first couple of lines of the amendment. If one is to be in their own home talking on their phone or writing an E-mail according to the amendment you are safe to be able to talk about what you will. Government agencies should have probable cause and require a warrant to be able to look at an E-mail of listen to some ones phone calls. Is there any clear guidance that states when a person is cleared and will not be looked at any more? This in my opinion is kind of like the Stolen Valor Act of two thousand five. With this act the government had no way of identifying if someone had the awards that they had said they have earned. The Act was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under the First Amendment as free speech. I believe if they would reorganize and have more information on if one was being looked into the public might be a little bit more receptive of the idea of the ACT. This paper was written to discuss Privacy Rights with the focus on the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism or the USA Patriot Act. Some of the things covered in the paper were positives of the act such as, Sharing information between all of the government agencies from federal to local. Also harsher penalties for hackers under the act. Also it went into some of the negatives of the act. Such as violating some ones Fourth Amendment rights sighting the Fourth Amendment itself as proof. Finally I gave my opinion on what the most important aspect was with the regards of the act.

Preserving Life & Liberty. (n.d.). Retrieved from Department of Justice : https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm
U.S. Constitutional Amendments. (2016). Retrieved from Findlaw: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html