English
Given the nature of the use of firearms by people in the country, a four-year extension of three provisions of the Patriot Act was initiated on May 26, 2011. These extensions were created for meaningful protection of civil liberties; Section 206, Section 215, and Section 6001. Under Section 206 of the Patriot Act, and which deals with the ‘roving John Doe wiretap,’ the act allows or permits the government to conduct background evaluation and assessment of an owner of a gun without any formal permission. This act is controversial as it allows the government to trudge into the privacy of a person who holds a gun and secretly collect information on them even though they may have nothing to do with terrorism. It is an act violating an American’s freedom of speech and right. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the government can obtain an authorization from relevant legal departments to investigate or check a gun owner’s background, even if that infringes upon a person’s privacy. In such cases, the government has to give enough evidence to show that the concerned person(s)’s background check is necessary to prevent any untoward incident happening because of the gun. Here again, personal records can be searched without one’s consent, and these records could include that person(s)’s finances, phones, medical records, books read and visited websites. Again, Section 215 does curb one’s freedom of speech and right as it gives the government or law enforcers the privilege to use it as a tool to conduct personal background investigation against them. Given this power, people will be forced to curb their natural instincts if they spoke against the government or participated in protests against them. Section 6001 of the Patriot Act is called the ‘Lone Wolf’ provision, as it permits or allows for ‘snooping’ into the background of non-US citizens for intelligence gathering. This act permits the law enforcers to obtain all forms of communication and credit records of anyone suspected of unlawful behavior. The problem with this act is that anyone could be deemed suspicious and used to target certain groups of people based on their religion beliefs. The Lone Wolf provision is an unnecessary amendment created to cover-up the failure of the FBI. Ever since 9/11, the FBI has been targeting certain groups of people because of their religious beliefs and practices, and incidents where people of a certain religious group being picked up on suspicious grounds because of their names are not uncommon. The law agencies need to stop terrifying the American citizens and instead, start doing their job which is to protect them by using the power invested in them, instead of making new laws every time they fail in their duty. The American government needs to stop disempowering the American Constitution and allow its citizens to exercise their freedom of speech and right without fear. For American citizens, it’s about time they stopped being victimized in the name of national security. National security is important, but not at the expense of a citizen’s freedom. The American constitution allows freedom of speech and right for its citizens and it would be illogical to surrender it in the name of security concerns. Every American has the right to protect him/herself, and carrying a gun for self protection is a fundamental right. Now, with the government wanting its citizens to surrender their arms, and with the extension of the Patriot Acts under Section 206, 215, 6001, the law agencies have a free hand in checking our gun records. The government has the permission to supersede laws. If this isn’t a tyrannical government provision, what is?
