The USA Patriot Act and Issues of Privacy - Case Study Example

The USA PATRIOT Act and issues of Privacy: The twentieth century has been a transformational period for human societies. As the process of industrialization advanced during this period, more people moved away from rural to urban settings. As a result major cities became overpopulated and towns expanded into cities. The meaning of public space got expanded and redefined during this process. And when millions of people share limited geographical space, individual privacy becomes a problem. The problem is essentially twofold: firstly, it is challenging for government agencies to protect the privacy rights of its citizens and secondly, the city dwellers are faced with threats to their privacy by criminals and fraudsters. It is in this backdrop that we must study the issue of privacy in the United States today. As the most advanced nation in the world, the urban spaces in the United States are the nerve centers for global commerce and politics. A loss of privacy in the form of loss of confidential information can have far-reaching negative consequences for individuals/corporations/governments involved. In the last two decades, the issue of privacy has taken a new dimension, with the advent of electronic communication. The growth of the Internet has posed new challenges to administrators of privacy and so far these challenges are not properly met. There is plenty of commercial activity that takes place in the Internet, thereby raising the stakes of proper security measures. An FBI report indicates that phishing scams are occurring more frequently on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. Viruses, decoy messages and hacked personal accounts are employed to acquire private data of a user, which is later abused for various purposes. For example, “Messages, which generally masquerade as warnings related to service agreements or other notifications, contain malicious code that covertly installs software on victims PCs, letting thieves steal account names and passwords. The thieves then use the accounts to distribute messages to friends of the victim, requesting large sums of money and spreading the malicious code even further”. (Schiller, 2009) In the light of discovering such scams in the world of social networking, the FBI has notified Internet users to strengthen their privacy settings and also take precautionary measures such as “disabling options such as photo sharing when possible, and carefully scrutinizing links before deciding to click on them, regardless of their apparent source” (Schiller, 2009). Already, in the few years that social networking sites have taken root, more than three thousand cases of account hacking have occurred. But the security risks posed by social networks are not so great as to warrant governmental intrusion as under the PATRIOT Act. For example, in a survey conducted recently on young people, most “expressed a fair amount of confidence about their knowledge of and control of their personal privacy on Facebook; most expressed trust with the privacy controls Facebook affords user” (Shade, 2008). The participants are well aware of the risks involved and the requisite precautionary measures to be taken. In other words, the youth of today who dominate the online social networking scene are careful about protecting their privacy. There are some minor concerns though on “how other users (friends or peers) treat their personal information (such as tagging photos without their knowledge or permission) are often an irritant and matter of concern. Further, increasing tensions over parental access to Facebook (either through parental attempts to monitor their childs personal profile or parents becoming Facebook users themselves) and how youth will negotiate personal revelations that future university admissions officers, potential employers, etc., could have access to, are yet another challenge. (Shade, 2008)” But none of the above concerns should bring the realm of the Internet under the purview of the PATRIOT Act. The logic employed by the drafters of counter-terrorist legislation such as the PATRIOT Act is that the Internet has also been a conduit for anti-social activities like planning for terrorist attacks. There is evidence that some of the terror networks in the Middle East and Asia have used the Internet to plan terror attacks. This puts pressure on governments to sometimes act intrusively and breach privacy laws in order to provide security to its citizens. Hence the governing authorities are faced with a dilemma: they are required to respect privacy rights of its citizens while also expected to provide them security from terror attacks. Often times, it is difficult to provide both and the government ends up compromising on the privacy rights, for it perceives the terror threat to be much graver. This is typically what happened with the drafting and passing of the USA PATRIOT act in 2001. Hence, while the PATRIOT Act offered more security, it compromised on the privacy rights of American citizens, making it highly controversial. But behind the official rhetoric, the truth remains that the Bush Administration acted opportunistically in the wake of September 11, 2001, to impose restrictions and take away civil liberties of American citizens. At the time of its proposal, the public opinion was not unfavorable to the legislation, as the general public was gripped in an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. But seen retrospectively and when studied in detail, the PATRIOT Act translates into one grand reactionary scheme to take away hard-won civilian rights. Under the guise of improving national security, the USA PATRIOT Act has added new powers to the executive branch of government, while decreasing judicial oversight. Of all the measured incorporated by it, the ones pertaining to privacy and due process of law are the most controversial. For example, “The Act severely curtails the right to privacy at several turns, including broadening the grounds for increased surveillance and wiretap authority, sneak-and-peek searches, tracking Internet usage, and accessing private records. As a result of the USA PATRIOT Act, more than 1,200 immigrants in the United States were taken into custody and detained for an extended period without being charged with committing a terrorist act.” (Abdolian & Takooshian, 2003) What is worse, the Obama Administration has not only continued with surveillance programs initiated by George Bush, but has tried to make it immune from legal challenges. For example, “The Obama Administration goes two steps further than Bush did, and claims that the US PATRIOT Act also renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. Essentially, the Obama Administration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.” (Jones, 2009) One of the strongest arguments for retracting the PATRIOT Act is that it has proven ineffective in reducing terror threat both within and without the United States. In the nine years since its enactment, the country and the world are no closer to preventing terrorist acts as they were previously. The terror strikes in London, Madrid and Bali will serve as testaments to this observation. The worsening situation in Iraq and Afghanistan will further validate this argument. An empirical study of the last nine years shows that the provisions for electronic monitoring of citizens and unnecessary intrusion into their private lines have done very little to reduce the threat of terror. If anything, some of the draconian provisions under the PATRIOT Act have only increased disgruntlement among citizens by intruding on their privacy. Further, it has alienated innocent foreign tourists. (Jones, 2009) In order for the Obama Administration to not repeat mistakes made before, a study of the United States history is essential. During the Second World War, a similar situation arose when Japan was at war with the United States. At that time, many Japanese Americans were rounded up and detained in make-shift jails, on grounds that they could be Japanese spies, and that their loyalties are questionable. This authoritarian measure met with such widespread condemnation that even the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill vehemently and passionately expressed his displeasure. He stated that detaining civilians without legitimate arrest warrants was a grave breach of basic human rights. Applying the analogy to the present situation, the harassment felt by Muslim Americans (especially those from the Middle East) in the guise of random interviews, frisks, surveillance and outright detainment without warrant also comprises a breach of basic human rights. “From a constitutional perspective, the certification and mandatory detention of suspected immigrants in the USA PATRIOT Act should give pause. In particular, there is good reason to believe that the provisions do not comport with the procedural due process required by the Fifth Amendment. Without an opportunity to hear the charges against him and to contest them in a true adversarial proceeding, a wholly innocent person may well find himself deprived of liberty on unfounded allegations of terrorism. Accusations of terrorism do not justify procedural injustice. Furthermore, widespread reports of individuals wrongfully detained by the Justice Department since September 11 suggest the frequency of mistaken suspicion and government error in the terrorism probe. Truncated procedures only increase the risk of such deprivations.” (Abdolian & Takooshian, 2003) It is unfair to suspect an entire ethnic group for the unscrupulous actions of a few. Even admitting that a few radical Islamists are plotting terror strikes on the Internet, it is still unfair that all American citizens should sacrifice their cherished rights to privacy and confidentiality. Hence there is a strong case for abandoning the PATRIOT Act and reviving the principles of freedom and fairness upon which the country is founded. Moreover, President Obama should discontinue with the electronic monitoring program in particular and the broader PATRIOT Act in general because the executive powers provided in them are in contradiction to the letter and spirit of the constitution. Further, “the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 goes far beyond the Antiterrorism Act of 1996, enacted in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, which legal critics at that time termed one of the worst assaults on the Constitution in decades. Despite the mounting criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro-liberty lobbies, the federal momentum continues to move away from individual rights, with public discussions of a Terrorism Information and Prevention System ("TIPS") Program to encourage people to report each others suspicious activities to the government, and even use torture to extract useful information from some detainees”. (Abdolian & Takooshian, 2003) Once President Obama took his oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the constitution”, he is implicitly obliged to “obey the Constitution and respect the freedoms that the Constitution guarantees to all Americans. Among the provisions of the Constitution that every government official, from the president on down, is bound to obey is the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. Citizens.” (Sanders, 2010) By acting against the constitution, President Obama has betrayed the trust placed on his shoulders by American voters. During the election campaign of 2008, Barack Obama ran on such catch-words as hope and change. Now that the general public has seen the emptiness of those words, they will be cautious next time. Indeed, if he decides to re-run for Presidency two years down the line, he needs to prove that he follows democratic mandates. (Sinnar, 2003) References: Tim Jones, April 7th, 2009, In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJs New Arguments Are Worse Than Bushs, retrieved from Frontline (2007-01-09). "Spying on the Home Front" - Interview with Mark Klein". Public Broadcasting System, retrieved from on 2007-08-15. Abdolian, Lisa Finnegan, and Harold Takooshian. "The USA PATRIOT Act: Civil Liberties, the Media, and Public Opinion." Fordham Urban Law Journal 30.4 (2003): 1429+. Nesson, Charles. "Threats to Privacy." Social Research 68.1 (2001): 105-113. Questia. Web. 24 July 2010. Schiller, Kurt. "Phishing Scams Edge into Social Networks." Information Today Nov. 2009: 46. Skeeter Sanders, April 5, 2010, Why Is Obama Continuing Bushs Unconstitutional Surveillance?, retrieved from Shade, Leslie Regan. "Internet Social Networking in Young Womens Everyday Lives: Some Insights from Focus Groups 1." Our Schools, Our Selves Summer 2008: 65+. Patriotic or Unconstitutional? the Mandatory Detention of Aliens under the USA Patriot Act. Contributors: Shirin Sinnar - author. Journal Title: Stanford Law Review. Volume: 55. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 2003. Page Number: 1419+. COPYRIGHT 2003 Stanford Law School. Read More