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The USA PATRIOT Act, often referred as just the Patriot Act, is an act of Congress
signed by President Bush shortly after the September eleventh terrorist attacks. According to
Wikipedia the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by
Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. Basically the law
enables the government to search anyone’s personal records such as their telephone, email,
medical and financial records in hope to catch and preventing a major terrorist attack from
happening such as the ones on 9/11, by using extensive surveillance.
When the extremely controversial act was passed, I totally agreed with it one hundred
percent. In my opinion it would be a great way to help prevent possible terror attacks by catching
them before they happen. I think it would also catch several other crimes before they happen. My
philosophy on the matter is that as long as you don’t have anything to hide, why wouldn’t you be
in favor of this act? You should have nothing to worry about.
My high school government teacher gave my class this favorable example when she was
teaching us about the Patriot Act: She told us to think of a situation where a terrorist has made
his way into the United States is awaiting his phone call for directions on what to do with a
bomb. He is told to find a mentally retarded person ( my teacher had a strange way of getting
points across) and pay them 100 dollars in cash if they will place the bag in a classroom or
heavily populated mall. With the patriot act, our government security could capture and prevent
such an event from happening.
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My opinions on this act changed, however, when not too long ago I saw the movie
“Enemy of the State”. While the movie is a very extreme example, it shows us the dangers of the
government being able to use and abuse their power to “protect” us. The movie, in a nutshell, is
about a lawyer, Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith and I’m going to refer to him as Will Smith
because I think Robert Clayton Dean is a ridiculously horrible name for a main character) who
bumps into a very panicked friend from college in a store. His friend is a birdwatcher, and a he
unknowingly filmed a Senator murdering another senator on the birdwatchers area of study. Thus
the birdwatcher has unknowingly obtained a video of the murder. When he sits in his office to
review the video, he sees the murder; however it is too late, as the senator (the murderer) has sent
his goons to kill the birdwatcher. The birdwatcher then flees his apartment and leads the goons
on a brief chase as he runs through a store along the way in hopes to throw them off. So when he
bumps into Will Smith’s character in the store he doesn’t say much before he continues
frantically on his way, but he does slip the video into Will Smith’s bag without him knowing. He
then runs outside and is then hit by a bus and killed. After the goons check the man’s dead body
for the video and discover he no longer has it, they obtain the stores security video and see the
man put the video in Smith’s bag. Thus endangering his life and making one hell of a movie, in
my opinion.
The movie then goes on to show how the murderer and his group of government officials
use their political powers and do several things to ruin Smith’s life, who doesn’t even know
about the video in his bag. They have his credit cards canceled; they break into and vandalize his
home; they frame him to make it look like he is cheating on his wife with his ex-girlfriend from
college, which results in him being fired from his job. They then murder his ex-girlfriend and
make it look like he was the murderer; and they eventually try to kill him. Eventually Will
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Smith’s character finds the video and realizes what is happening, and it turns into any other Will
Smith movie. He whoops the bad guy’s butt, sets everything straight, and lives happily ever
after.
While the chances of something this extreme happening are slim, it really caught my
attention, and made me think more about the Patriot Act. At the beginning of the movie Smith
states his opinion on the government “watching us”. And his opinion was the same as mine, “as
long as you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about.” However by the end
of the movie both my and Smith’s character’s opinion had changed, as the story shows us one
way the power of being “ Big Brother” could be abused and used to the necessity and
convenience of each individual political power.
America is known as the land of freedom. One could make a very good argument that the
U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T act is violation of the constitution, by restricting free speech. My
government teacher in high school also gave us this example when she was telling us about the
controversial act: Basically if they ( they being the government) overheard someone talking
about wishing they could kill the president they would arrest the person, when in theory that is
one of the reasons we instituted free speech. And that is so our people would not be punished for
having an open mind on the government.
Another con from this act that my teacher pointed out to me is that the people who work
for the government are only human, and being that , eventually you are going to get some people
who decide to use their power for their own personal needs and pleasure. Such abuse could lead
to spying on someone that they are attracted too, total evasion of privacy, and listening in on
conversations that were never meant for their ears.
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After looking into this act in more detail, I have decided that the opportunity at hand to
catch terrorism and potentially save lives is too great to pass up on and I agree that some form of
the government having a “big brother” role may be necessary to prevent terrorism, however, I
think it is imperative to have a major system of checks and balances in place to watch over those
in charge of watching and listening in on people, as well as some sort of warrant or something
similar to be required to “watch” someone. A famous quote from the move “Spiderman” is “with
great power comes great responsibility” and I think this line fits this situation better than
anything else. The power we have to catch and prevent these disasters is too great to not pay
attention to, and I am fine with it as long as we are responsible with our power.