Every American citizen who values their privacy and basic constitutional protections should have concerns with the way that the government’s prosecution of the War on Terror infringes on civil liberties. Even though we are currently waging a war against radical Islamic terrorists, that does not give the federal government free reign to ignore the law, and many legal experts agree that certain provisions of the Patriot Act and other government responses to the September 11 attacks violate the Constitution in the name of security.
Federal agents can now intercept the communications and search the records of law-abiding Americans without a court order, aliens may be placed under detention without due process, and citizens have little expectation for financial privacy anymore. President Obama himself decried these unconstitutional policies during his campaign, but has grown mysteriously silent on the issue once in power. Although some may feel that these provisions are necessary to combat terrorism, there seems to be no foreseeable end to the War on Terror, and thus these policies may become accepted as permanent. In that scenario, the civil liberties of Americans will be encroached upon further and further until the protections guaranteed to us by the Constitution are rendered meaningless.
To avoid this Orwellian turn of events, the Patriot Act and all other laws that authorize the circumvention of obtaining warrants should be immediately repealed. If federal agents are concerned about the activities or communications of a specific suspect, they should obtain warrants from judges and comply with the 4th Amendment. If these protections are ignored, that sets a terrible precedent for the standard of privacy and civil liberties in this country. Security is important, but the rule of law and American legal system provide a method for us to prosecute those who wish to do harm to this country without decimating long-established legal traditions. In the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”