The patriot act : DEBATE
Forums › General Discussion › The patriot act : DEBATE-
The act, a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, dramatically reduced daily freedoms of the American public and restrictions in law enforcement agencies' gathering of intelligence within the United States; expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act’s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.
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On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama signed a four-year extension of three key provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act:[2]roving wiretaps, searches of business records (the "library records provision"), and conducting surveillance of "lone wolves" — individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities not linked to terrorist groups.
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Being british I am somewhat a side liner on this but can someone tell me how it has actually had an effect on your daily life?
I'm not looking for what 'could' happen as a result of the act or theories based around the act. Since it's been introduced, what has had an immediate effect on your life?
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I have not had it effect my everyday life as I am US military and our freedom of speech and privacy become signed away once we join the military so I am use to it. But I have heard some very large debates about this topic on how it has stopped X amount of terrorist attacks but at the same time it has violated X amount of innocent peoples privacy without them knowing
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Well I say more power to the government in trying keep us (Americans) safe from domestic and international terrorist groups. Having to wait longer in airport lines is just a small thing that's willing to be sacrificed to help prevent another 9/11 on American soils...and other minuscule freedoms as well to insure our safety. One thing I do have discredit my government for is the lack of control and protection along the U.S. - Mexican border...they should tighten security there as well as any other entry point into the United States that possible terrorists can get through (even along the Canadian border)...not just airports and ship ports.
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THEY:
What branch? -
My personal opinion is the patriot act is great, if it violates your freedoms then you can get rid of the act and just loose your freedoms all together when terrorists are able to run rampert through our country. Another issue in my opinion is that the middle east terrorism cells have taken to much attention off of the drug cartels coming up from central America. Anyone?
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The patriot act sacrificed freedom for protection.
"A people that will sacrifice freedom for protection deserves neither"
Ben Franklin. -
Mackmech(addKM) wrote:
So you're saying there is never a need to protect your freedoms so you don't lose them?The patriot act sacrificed freedom for protection.
"A people that will sacrifice freedom for protection deserves neither"
Ben Franklin. -
I completely agree with you on both. We need the patriot act because it's sai that tons of terrorist planned attacks on us were uncovere because of it. Also, I think we should start veering our attention to our southern boarder get Mexico's head our of it's ass and do something about its corrupted government. I personally say that it needs some sort of military intervention to help with the drug cartel issues...or at least help train and arm the Mexican military to defend its nation from complete control by the cartels. Then after Mexico is hopefully fixed, slowly start moving further and further south until you reach the border of the Panama and Columbia (a boarder that small is a whole lot easier to control than one the size of Mexico and the US. If that doesn't work, than I say the government should spend money to build a giant concrete wall that extends xx amount of of feet below the ground and have guard stations along the wall like every 5 or so miles.
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That all sounds good but at the same time for America to devote that kind of time and money in the debt we're already in we would have to pull out of the middle east. So where is the happy medium? Keep the patriot act pull back and defend our own borders while using the patriot act as a purely defensive weapon?
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No. Turn ANY country that harbors terrorists or is sympathetic to their cause into a big ass parking lot with a Walmart and an Exxon station.
IMHO that is. -
Mackmech(addKM) wrote:
The US gave alot of weapons to the Taliban to fight the Russians, I was over there cleaning up caches of weapons that went researched the NSNs and serial number you could track them to the us government legally turning them over years ago to the Taliban. So therefore we helped the terrorist organizations. Who is to call them terrorists? At that time the Russians thought they were terrorists but the Americans did not think they were.No. Turn ANY country that harbors terrorists or is sympathetic to their cause into a big ass parking lot with a Walmart and an Exxon station.
IMHO that is. -
Alexei wrote:
Freedom over security. Once we open the door to our rights being taken away over anything the door will never be closed againWell I say more power to the government in trying keep us (Americans) safe from domestic and international terrorist groups. Having to wait longer in airport lines is just a small thing that's willing to be sacrificed to help prevent another 9/11 on American soils...and other minuscule freedoms as well to insure our safety. One thing I do have discredit my government for is the lack of control and protection along the U.S. - Mexican border...they should tighten security there as well as any other entry point into the United States that possible terrorists can get through (even along the Canadian border)...not just airports and ship ports.
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So you would rather have your freedom of speech then allow your military to have a forewarning about an attack that will jeopardize that freedom?
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But didn't we supply the Taliban with weapons to defend against the Soviet Union because during the Cold War, the US didn't want communism to spread like it did in China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba?
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So as long as we have a good reason we can supply terrorists with weapons?
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Freedom over security. Once we open the door to our rights being taken away over anything the door will never be closed again
I agree...... Good point B. -
No...I think all terrorist organizations should be cut off. But at the time, I'm sure we (America) had little idea that the Taliban was working with al-Qaeda and and they would eventually try to be a save-haven for al-Qaeda after they conducted their mission to attack us on 9/11
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ТHEY wrote:
That's not what freedom of speech is about anyways. It's about being able to speak against the government. It is not about leaking strategic infoSo you would rather have your freedom of speech then allow your military to have a forewarning about an attack that will jeopardize that freedom?
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So then what freedoms are you giving up for protection through the patriot act?
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ТHEY wrote:
Yes, I would like to be able to speak my mind. Say the terrorists did make an invasion of the US. This is our home turf. It would take them years to create the elaborate tunnel system mountain thing they have in Afghanistan. We could beat them in at least 3 years. And it's not like we're talking a whole nation is attacking us. People seem to think that terrorists number in the millions. At the very most I would estimate 1,000,000; but even that is a bit to large for my likes, and I think it would problably be less. Remember, this is just my estimate.So you would rather have your freedom of speech then allow your military to have a forewarning about an attack that will jeopardize that freedom?
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I would say the terrorist groups range from about 100,000 - 500,000…which isn't a lot since it's a combination of several terrorist groups. It may not be a lot, but then again we're talking about a small group of terrorist who want to obtain nuclear weapons and bio/chemical weapon, or weapons of mass disruption and use them to harm not only the United States, but our allies as well. We're the main target because we're the sole surviving superpower in the world today ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, and stick our noses in everyone else's business
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We're the target because we're the police of the world. Sadaam was switchIng to the petro-euro rather than the petro-dollar, and we invade on claims of, oh what was it, WMDs? Democracy? Terrorists?(I do know that terrorists are there though)
I mean the janitor in scrubs even said we should look for bin laden in pakistan - and get this - back in 2006!
I support my troops and my freedoms, but i don't support how the government uses them -
I wish I had the conviction to respond, elaborate, and correct all the posts... But I don't. So I'll just leave a few things here.
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