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The Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act

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September 11, 2001 is a date that lives in infamy. The terrorist attacks on that day shook the nation and led to many important events in the following decade, such as the invasion of Afghanistan, the liberation of Iraq from the hands of Saddam Hussein, and an overhaul of our national security. Americans felt unsafe as a result of 2000-plus civilians who perished that day, and demanded something be done to root out the terrorists and foil the plots before any more damage could be done. This led to the creation of the PATRIOT Act, a bill of great controversy 14 years after its inception. Whether the bill itself had a positive or negative impact on the country is still a topic of great debate to this day. The PATRIOT Act enabled the government to conduct roving wiretaps, search business records for immigrants marked as a suspect for terrorism, and removed many legal …show more content…
Many provisions were allowed to expire, but the act itself lives on to this day as a means of counter-terror. People may argue that the PATRIOT Act is an unnecessary measure that takes the privacy of the American population away. While it may be an effective measure against terrorism, clearly many things should be addressed about this act. The criteria for spying on people needs an overhaul, as it is too vague and allows the government to survey large amounts of the population. As recently as June 2015, polls showed that 61% of Americans supported renewal of the PATRIOT act and collection of information from phones. Despite the support for the bill, 65% of Americans said that limits on bulk data collection were inadequate. This shows that citizens are uncomfortable with the level of surveillance currently, and want more restrictions or guidelines for surveilling terror

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