National Security and the Constitution Essay Example
National Security and the Constitution Essay Example

National Security and the Constitution Essay Example

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  • Pages: 2 (440 words)
  • Published: January 19, 2022
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On September 11, 2001, brutal attacks took place in the United States where about 3000 Americans lost their lives in hours. In the wake of the attacks the congress had to pass a law that widens the definitions of terrorism, makes sentences for convicted terrorists tough and make it easier for intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain and share information that some are related to investigations of terror and others not. The law that was passed was called the USA PATRIOT. The bill was signed into law only 45 days after the attacks on the country. The law was voted in overwhelmingly and in a bi-partisan way, but many members of the Congress later admitted that they did not read the pages before casting their votes. The Act that was voted was not the bill that the committee had passed, and the American Civ

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il Liberties Union (ACLU) endorsed it (Cole & Dempsey, 2006). Besides, no conference report was included when the presentation of the bill to the Congress took place that means that compromised product that was negotiated by the conference committee had not been submitted to every chamber of the Congress for consideration to take place.

The aspects that were given out by President George W. Bush to counter terrorism have drawn a lot of criticism from the civil libertarians and many other people from the United States and abroad. The number of issues that were taken by the administration to counter terrorism presents threats that are genuine to the individual rights of all American citizens together with citizens from foreign countries that are got in the counterterrorism net. The genuine threats provided t

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the persons in the counterterrorism net strengthen the individual’s constitutional rights (Cole & Dempsey, 2006).

The setbacks to constitutional rights of the individual in the period of war against terrorism pose threats that are less dangerous to the American liberty than the threats that arose when major conflicts of the past took place. The United States has not provided a declaration for wholesale suspension of political dissent that is outlawed and rights of habeas corpus. The United States also placed nonwhite residents in the detention centers, provided orders to security services to carry out campaigns of surveillance against war critics or provide a blacklist of academics and entertainers who had a differed meaning in policies of the federal government (Cole & Dempsey, 2006).  The countervailing forces have tampered a lot of administration policies that will have an important impact to shape counterterrorism regime in the future.

References

  1. Cole, D., & Dempsey, J. X. (2006). Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. New York: New Press.
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