Securities Vs. Liberties

Security is defined, by wordnet, "the state of being free from danger or injury." Liberty is the ability to govern one's own actions; your personal freedoms. Most Americans would say that the Constitution's Bill of Rights is our list of liberties. Among our amendments which are widely known are the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, press, petition. The fourth Amendment states that "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." To my knowledge there has been little debate over the meaning of this Amendment, as it is probably one of the clearest. You have the right to privacy on your person and in your house. Without probable cause the government cannot search you or your things.

It was stated during the first video that it is (or is supposed to be) impossible to to gain acess to internal US Communications without judicial approval, but the USA Patriot act ('This Act may be cited as the `Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001' ) changed everything.

Title V: REMOVING OBSTACLES TO INVESTIGATING TERRORISM states that the government would have "Miscellaneous national security authorities." (Sec. 505.)

TITLE VII:INCREASED INFORMATION SHARING FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION allowed for the"Expansion of regional information sharing system to facilitate Federal-State-local law enforcement response related to terrorist attacks." (Sec. 711.)

TITLE IX: IMPROVED INTELLIGENCE grants "Temporary authority to defer submittal to Congress of reports on intelligence and intelligence-related matters." ( Sec. 904.)

These are just three of the more ludacris liberties that were sacrificed when this act was passed. As far as I can tell, there was panic, and in that panic we signed over our rights. However, people are settled from 9-11-01 having not seen any aftershock. Now they have decided they made a rash decision. They want their rights back; but look at this document. It is so vauge, so noncomittal, and so completely senseless and yet it has all the proper signatures to make it law.

But then, it goes against the constitution, doesn't it? The Constitution has the Supremecy Clause, so we must follow it. Had the constitution been amended as such, we would be in quite the predicament. But as I stated, we have a supreme law of the land, and it is not the USA PATRIOT Act.

While President Bush may have said, on record, that the only information to be monitered was that which was suspected to be directly related to a terrorist, he granted himself the authority to use "data mining" which collects vast amounts of personal information from everyone- not just suspects. He used digital trails of everyone in Las Vegas, matching them with known terrorists for leads. This was an unconstitutional use of his power, because while he was looking for terrorists he used information from many unknowing people from private sources to track them.

In the debate of Securities vs. Liberties, America chose long ago what mattered most to them which is why Article IV of the Constitution still remains unamended after hundreds of years.