The statue of liberty has for a long time been a symbol of national independence, a fable of freedom and prosperity that American’s have been admired while at the same time been hated for the freedom that most countries desire. The song that most American’s have been chanting has been revolving around how much effort they need to put in protecting and fighting for their freedom, a common voice that has yielded fruit as demonstrated by the first amendment. In the road to freedom, a lot has been achieved, but all the achievements are on the verge of being lost considering the law’s and regulations that the political elites are enforcing day by day. Since the 9/11 unfortunate disaster, the government has stopped at nothing to guarantee the security of the country as it has gone to the extent of undermining the basic principles regarding freedom of privacy, movement, association, speech and life among others, which it swore to uphold. Even though a lot of progress has been made in ensuring that freedom is upheld, today’s era poses unrivalled threats to the freedom outlined by the framers implying that U.S. still has a long way to in securing the rights of its citizens.
History has shown that no idea is more important to Americans than the feeling of themselves as individuals and as a country than freedom, which is deeply entrenched in the language of everyday life and in history. To Americans, freedom came at a steep cost considering the number of lives lost during world wars, African American movements for equality, antislavery crusade, the civil war, and the cold war among others. Today, a lot has been achieved in America in the name of freedom and any terrorist attack among other forms of attack on U.S. soil is viewed as an “attack on the county’s freedom” as announced by former U.S. President George Bush during the 9/11 attack. After the civil war, most white American’s earned the right to vote while at the same time, blacks were segregated and not allowed to vote in a number of states. For instance, a law was passed in 1821 in New York state that removed the qualifications to own property for the white, but the qualification of black people were raised to the extent that they were stripped the property the already owned. In the 20th century, the quest for enjoying freedom accompanied by favourable social conditions was echoed for among most citizens as the nation sought the means to secure opportunity for free men. With the aid of Roosevelt philosophy who relentlessly associated freedom with economic security, and recognised deep-rooted economic inequality as its biggest foe helped the American’s to realise economic freedom. With the increased adoration of freedom as a vital representation of American life in a struggle for worldwide dominance, human rights groups found the opportunity needed to raise the voice regarding freedom for blacks with the example of freedom walkers (Bellow 263). Likewise, American’s came out stronger and united in the fight for racism as white schools were abolished among other lines limiting the black that had blacks that had been drawn. However, the current population has awaken to the fact that the freedom that was so much adored in the country may elude them given strict regulations and laws passed by the government in the name of national security.
The right to privacy is upheld by the 4th Amendment to the Constitution as U.S. citizens have the right to be safe in the houses and against any irrational searches and confiscations, but it appears that the era of privacy is fading away. The right to privacy was meant to be an indispensable right, yet the same American’s who vowed that they will defend it to death are willingly giving it away daily to play Mafia wars, in search of becoming celebs or to link up with high school classmates (Four Freedoms Besieged 4). The issue of big data has even put the privacy of American’s at stake as companies are trading the huge chunk of information they have collected for profits. For instance, Facebook traded its customers’ movie rental archives while Google extracted Americans’ private information through WiFi during the creation of Street View. In all these scenarios among many others, the government was expected to intervene by coming up with regulations that will safeguard the privacy of its citizens, but it failed miserably as it also undertook to pry on its own citizens through the NSA surveillance programme (The Pro and Cons of the NSA's Domestic Surveillance Program 22). The NSA mass surveillance that is conducted both internationally and domestically is a great violation of the privacy of American citizens as it has penetrated a large number of communications technologies that are in use today. NSA received the warrant from the former president, George, giving it the liberty to tap into telephone calls and e-mails among other forms of communications without obtaining a requirement from the foreign intelligence surveillance court as stipulated in the 4th amendment, which is a clear violation of privacy rights.
Economic freedom that was so much advocated for by Roosevelt is fast disappearing as citizens continue to lose their ability to alleviate themselves from poverty, earn a decent living or be employed in a profession of their choice. Today, the banks have continued to cause periodic economic instability hence, allowing employers to demand wage reductions while paying continuous increasing salaries and bonuses to chief executive officers (Grandin 15). The voice that power unions had is no longer there as people sit and watch as the drive to offer ever-increasing tax cuts to the affluent Americans continue with the clear repercussion of reduced government jobs that has dried-up employment opportunities in many lines of work. The main social mobility that has for a long time been treasured is education, and the leeway is fast closing considering that the cost of higher education has steadily been shifting from the taxpayer to the student and family since mid-1980s. At a time when the average household income rose by one hundred and forty-seven percent, higher education tuition and fees increased to four hundred and thirty-nine percent, which shows a tripling cost of schooling in real dollar terms. Those who have been greatly affected are low-income households considering that the cost of funding education at a public university has risen to fifty-five percent of average income from thirty-nine percent in 2000. According to the New American Foundation, finding jobs is becoming hard as evidenced by the fallen portion of average-income jobs in the country from fifty-two percent to forty-two percent since 1980, while the portion of low-income employments has risen from thirty percent to forty-one percent. The basic right to work in a place of choice and lead a decent life full of economic freedom that most Americans’ have been made to believe is fast fading away.
Freedom of expression is also eluding most Americans which include the right to speech, the right of association and the right to assembly and petition that are protected by the 1st Amendment hence, contradicting the supreme court writings that freedom is the atmosphere, the essential condition of almost every other form of freedom. However, freedom of association that is supposed to be enjoyed by every American has often been put to test especially in times of war and revolution as people have been jailed or fined while exercising their 1st Amendment rights (Wolf 631). Instances that have been cited as hindering freedom of speech have taken place in the past with the instance of the NDAA Act that allowed the federal government to indeterminately detain its citizens accused of assisting or taking part in terrorism. Additionally, American citizens have also been denied the right of association on the basis of sexuality as the LGBT are continuously being segregated in various aspects of life especially the transgender who are often regarded as mentally ill.
In conclusion, the United States has been viewed as the haven of freedom for a long time due to their fight for equality that has seen the constitution amendments being implemented to uphold freedom of speech among others. However, times are changing and the freedom that was much adored by Americans’ is fast fading away as seen by the increase violation of freedom of association, the right to privacy and economic freedom among many others. Therefore, Americans still have a long way to go in ensuring that they remain the land of freedom especially in the wake of terrorism that has seen the government read the same Constitution from to different scripts.
Works Cited
"The Pro and Cons of the NSA's Domestic Surveillance Program." Congressional Digest 94.10 (2015): 12-31. Print.
Wolf, Naomi. Give me liberty: A handbook for American Revolutionaries. Simon and Schuster, 2008. Print.
Bellow, Adam, ed. New Threats to Freedom. Templeton Foundation Press, 2012. Print.
"Four Freedoms Besieged." Nation 25 Jan. 2016: Print.
Grandin, Greg. "Slavery & Freedom: Reading Melville in Post-9/11 America." Nation 298.4 (2014): 12-17. Print.
