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On the unfortunate morning that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks took, place people around the globe have forced the population to reassess security measures. Once thought to be one of the safest countries in the world, the United States revealed itself to have several breaches when the towers fell. The new, restrictive guidelines to help keep citizens safe began slowly. The airport began keeping a firmer, more watchful eye on boarding passengers, as well as their luggage while the government began to take more notice of the nation’s borders. Slowly people began to feel safe once again, but these restrictions did not seem to be satisfying enough. Forty-five days after the terrorist attacks took place, officials signed the Patriot Act into law, giving the government seemingly unnecessary access to the lives of American citizens. The act, signed in an effort to protect citizens from harm or future attacks, has had unforeseen repercussions. There have been societal implications relating to our daily behaviors. The Patriot Act has also influenced the actions of law enforcement and security services toward individuals of certain race and religion. Many other implications concerning globalization, individual rights, public safety, and its influence on terrorism in akin with private security have also been impacted by the act. It is difficult to understand, with all of these unforeseen implications, whether or not the Patriot Act was a necessary tool against the war on terror or just another block to be removed from our basic privacies and rights as citizens.
The societal implications of the Patriot Act are vast, and typically unknown by the majority. Most people are not aware of what the Patriot Act is or what it fully entails. Officials signed the act into law as a direct response to the September 11 attacks in an effort to keep us safe. Government officials say that the Patriot Act grants them the freedoms they need to watch over the country, and its citizens, in order to protect us. In order to do that, they must apparently encroach on many of our basic rights to privacy. The freedoms granted by the Patriot Act allow many things. For instance, the U.S. Secretary of Treasury has the power to combat foreign money laundering used to fund terrorist organizations. U.S. officials are able to detain and remove terrorists from restricted borders, as well as within the country, in order to discourage activity or entrance into the United States. The ability to intercept lawful or unlawful communications concerning terrorism is also available (Etzioni, 2004). The government uses these and several other freedoms to watch over the country and keep us protected. The aforementioned are necessary measures that keep us safe.
However, there are clauses stated within the Patriot Act that do not seem to be specifically for combatting terrorism; many leave Americans wondering if they are for combatting terrorism at all, or if they were added just to spy. For example, the Patriot Act permits the government to use wiretaps in the home of a person or persons without their permission or without notification. What is more is the Patriot Act does not specify that a reason is required for the government to wiretap any home. Officials can wiretap any home they choose, without warning or reason. The Patriot Act also allows officials to search homes with no warning (Chang, 2001). These basic rights to privacy do not matter to the Patriot Act, which grants the government unfettered access to our lives, as well as our most intimate conversations. The act has stripped citizens of them, ironically in the name of safety and freedom. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments also mean nothing to the act. The Patriot Act allows the suspected terrorists to be detained for undetermined amounts of time without access to a lawyers, formal charges, or due process (2001). Many declare that this is what suspected terrorists deserve but America’s society was founded on several basic creeds, one of which being that we are all innocent until proven guilty. The Patriot Act silences this creed, making it impossible to prove anybody guilty without the proper legal process.
While the Patriot Act was officiated in place to keep us safe, there are many concerns related to race, ethnicity, gender, age, and religion in relation law enforcement and security services. The purpose of the Patriot Act was primarily to make the nation safer, and to limit terrorist activity if not wipe it out altogether. Essentially, the purpose of the act seemed legitimate. Despite the threat to civil liberties, many individuals were happy with the act’s intentions until more unforeseen implications began to arise in the form of discrimination. During the September 11 attacks, the attackers were members of Al Qaeda, a primarily Middle Eastern group led by Osama Bin Laden. The majority now assumes, law enforcement included, that the next horrific terrorist attack will come at the hands of a middle-aged Middle Easter man (Solomon, 2007).
Discrimination and racial profiling have always been a problem in the United States. Once condoned by the government, it took the Civil Rights movement and the help of countless individuals to begin turned the tide. With the principles of the Patriot Act, it is back with a vengeance, changing the fundamental bedrock of the Constitution. Racial profiling targets people of color for investigation at a disproportional rate, and due to the September 11 attacks, individuals from the Middle East are being targeted. It is effectively further alienating a community from the United States law enforcement, delaying unity between the cultures, and causing our government and police force to lose credibility among the citizens they are supposed to be protecting (Etzioni, 2004). Many of the Middle Eastern population targeted are now United States citizens, with as much right to protection as any other citizen, of any other color. They are also deserving of fair, just treatment from law enforcement. However, thanks to the racial profiling and discrimination that the Patriot Act actually promotes, it is only further driving a wedge between the communities, causing more chaos in the process.
The Patriot Act, meant to serve as a tool for justice and protection, encourages law enforcement to take on a type of vigilante attitude. Suspected terrorists are held for undetermined amounts of time without access to lawyers and without knowing their charges. Anybody can be wiretapped, whether suspected or not, but studied have shown that immigrants from Middle Eastern regions are 50% more likely to be wiretapped and surveyed than individuals who were born here (Chang, 2001). This practice is simply unjustifiable. Muslim, Arab, and South Asian individuals have been the most affected since the attacks and the indoctrination of the Patriot Act. Individuals in these communities are denied the presumption of innocence, regardless of circumstance, and do not receive the same protection that others are granted by law; these not so subtle differences are now officiated as FBI guidelines, making it hard to believe that the Patriot Act did not have “ethnic cleansing” somewhere in its pages. The government has even encouraged raids on minority communities or workplaces. Local law enforcement, in cooperation with federal agencies will stage unjust raids on alienated communities of immigrants, already fearful of United States policies, in an effort to find “suspected” terrorist cells. These raids seem like nothing more than a pathetic cover for veiled racism (Solomon, 2007). More devastating is this brash action taken by law enforcement has encouraged the public to take action as well; hate crimes against minorities have been on a steady rise since 2007, suggesting that the public are following the example set by lawmakers and security officials.
Racial profiling is perhaps most obvious during security measures that are taken at the airport. We have all heard the jokes about Arabs or Muslims called out of line before they even reach the front, simply based on the spelling of their name, the way they are dressed, or the color of their skin. Unfortunately, there is truth to these jokes; Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians are more likely and anybody else to be “randomly” searched when attempting to fly. The stigmatization that all Middle Easterners are terrorists is ignorant and a byproduct of the racial profiling that the Patriot Act’s freedoms encourage (Etzioni, 2004). This racial profiling has created an uncomfortable and sometimes unsafe environment for individuals of Middle Eastern race, not only in airports, but also in our society. Individuals who carry this stigma with them treat Middle Eastern individuals differently. Sometimes they treat them badly. The concept, “innocent until proven guilty” cannot be adopted by the citizens if it is no longer in practice by the government; Therefore, many people just assume if they see a Muslim, Arab, or South Asian person that it is okay to assume that they are a terrorist, or part of a terrorist cell. The jokes, while thought to diffuse tension and bring people together, may only cause a deeper rift between races. Jokes about Middle Easterners carrying bombs on planes, automatically getting “randomly” searched before flights, or anything of that sort only furthers society’s growing profile that these people are the enemy.
Much like the encroachment on our civil liberties has been the threat to our privacy since the Patriot Act was officiated. Globalization has had an impact on technology, surveillance, and the patriot Act’s implications. It managed to change aspects of civil life worldwide by promoting multinational alliances and making trade easier. However, globalization also increased profitability on the black market and made it easier to be a transnational criminal, increasing public safety. Criminals were able to jump from one country to another, forcing law enforcement to face the challenge of not only catching criminals on a global scale, but also tracking them. In modern times, crime scenes are rarely a fixed location and more often a cyber-location. Criminals have become better at using technology to their advantage in order to conduct criminal activities such as drug and human trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism. These changes in global crime forced many statutes to be added to the Patriot Act, allowing law enforcement the ability to launch cyber surveillance over criminals in an effort to curb activity. (Bloss, 2007).
The Patriot Act allowed law enforcement not only to have more power when attempting surveillance, but also to have access to private information. The laws were to gather foreign intelligence. However, even with these revisions, the government evidently did not believe that law enforcement officials would be able to dig deep enough to get what the needed information. In order to give law enforcement a broader birth for information access, the Patriot Act redefined “domestic terrorism,” “terrorist organization,” and “foreign intelligence information (Etzioni, 2004).” Because of these shifts in definition, domestic and international terrorism were impacted indefinitely. They no longer mean what they used to mean. Domestic terrorism, once defined as an act of terror, is now an action that breaks criminal laws, could result in a death, and is committed with the intent to commit terrorism (Etzioni, 2004). Within these guidelines, almost any dangerous domestic crime can be argued as a terrorist attack. Peaceful protestors can be arrested for terrorism under these guidelines (Chang, 2001).
What began as changes in the interest of the public’s safety quickly devolved into a battle between safety and individual rights. The broadening of the previous definitions did allow law enforcement officials to breach previously secure, electronic information. With this power and freedom, they were able to gain foreign intelligence and stop terrorist activity in several instances. If the cyber prowling had stopped there, it would have been all right. However, law enforcement began wiretapping random citizens, collecting documents via online files that were previously protected, and even checking individual’s library history. While many of these measures needed to be taken in an effort to ensure public safety, it is relatively safe to say that randomly checking the library records of individuals was not going to ensure that a terrorist cell was shut down. The balance of individual rights and public safety was never regained once random wiretappings and the search of individual homes with no regard or warning for the owner began. Without probably cause, law enforcement entered in a state arguably just above anarchy.
In sum, there are many implications that came from the Patriot Act. In the beginning, the Patriot Act was instigated in order to help law enforcement make citizens safer and guard the country more efficiently. However, all it has done is given law enforcement power that they have abused. Basic rights to privacy are threatened, or defaced entirely, on a daily basis. Racial profiling by law enforcement as created a stigma among the public that has gone so far as to cause hate crimes. The definition of domestic violence has changed so much under the Patriot Act that even peaceful protestors can be arrested for acts of terrorism. While there are many necessary laws embedded in the Patriot Act that may help keep us safe, we must get our basic rights to privacy and freedom back on track before we can fully enjoy them.
References
Bloss, W. (2007). Escalating U.S. Police Surveillance after 9/11: An Examination of Causes and Effects. Surveillance and Society, 208-228.
Chang, N. (2001). The USA Patriot Act: What's So Patriotic About Trampling The Bill Of Rights. Guild Prac. .
Etzioni, A. (2004). How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?: Freedom Versus Security in the Age of Terrorism. New York: Routledge.
Solomon, J. (2007, June 14). FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data. The Washington Post, pp. 13-14.
