The Patriot Act
Why is America suddenly realizing that Bush can do things he's not supposed to do? Most Americans only came to know about the Patriot Act within the past few weeks, even though the Act has been around since October of 2001. Here's what exactly the Patriot Act is, and what it enables our government to do.The Patriot Act is was an act passed rather urgently by the United States after 9/11. We were in shock, as was everyone, so for our so-called "security", we passed this act. Not such a bad act considering it's only there for our security, right?
That's what you'll think until you know what exactly it allows our government to do. With the Patriot Act, our government has been able to do a ridiculous amount of things. We no longer have any privacy at all, because the government is allowed to instate something called a roving wiretap. A roving wiretap is even worse than a wiretap, because when the government is allowed to instate a roving wiretap, they not only tap our phones and our Internet, but also the phones and Internet connections of those we communicate with. And the govenment needs no warrant for any of this. Supposedly, anything goes when it comes to our "security." All they have to do is flag you as a terrorist suspect, and voila, they can do whatever the hell they want. And not only do they wiretap us -- they can see what sorts of books we rent from the library, they can check our shopping records, they can get access to all sorts of our personal information -- they can do anything. They can even search our personal possessions. And worst of all, they can do all of this without our permission, and even WITHOUT TELLING US!
And you'd think that all of this would be ok just so long as it is catching terrorists and saving lives. Well in reality, this act has done practically nothing for the American people but violate their civil rights. And it's not like I'm paranoid about our civil rights either. I think the ACLU and Amnesty International* are both lying, left-wing, organizations. I just think that there's a fine line. And this fine line has been crossed. I mean, everything is just fine as long as it remains reasonable. And quite frankly, this isn't reasonable at all. All we can do is vote for those who oppose the act and hope that the Patriot Act doesn't get made permanent. If the whole thing expires, then we'll be in good shape.
*The ACLU, or American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International are both organizations that supposedly protect our civil liberties. However, you shouldn't really believe what they say. When you read the articles at either site, especially Amnesty International, you can tell that they have been written by an extremely biased source. Both of the organizations are extremely left-wing, and are really more like political organizations than ones that protect your civil liberties. These are the kind of organizations that get upset over the slightest things and file lawsuits against our government left and right.
