Patriot Act

Patriot Act
Name
Institution
Patriot Act
The Patriot Act was enacted after the September 11 terrorist attack that had adverse impacts on the USA. The act was declared as law during the President Bush administration, and it provided a supplementary extension of executive power. This counterterrorism policy was not only implemented to combat terrorism but also to protect the US citizens. All this was also done in an attempt to block terrorists from being financed (USA Patriot Act, 2016). As a result, the Act makes a lot of changes on current federal statutes, it widens the demarcation of terrorism, increases punitive penalties for terrorist, gives the government more power on wiretapping, increases unnecessary search warrants since it lowers the criteria of the plausible cause. Furthermore, it encourages information distribution among government law agencies. However, it infringes the rights of both citizens and non-citizens, and it accords the government more surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
As seen earlier, the Act was enacted to protect the USA from terrorists. Therefore, it allows the US citizen to experience a sense of security. However, the civil rights of the citizens are not being upheld. The government is meddling too much with people’s lives hence limiting citizens from experiencing freedom in full length; this can be viewed as a violation of constitutional rights (John, 2006). This violation arises from the fact that t…