The government might be listening to our phone calls! This message started to spread across the nation when President Bush signed the Patriot Act six weeks after the devastating 9-11 attack. Intended to strengthen homeland security, the Patriot Act allowed the government to eavesdrop on people’s electronic communications and conduct secret searches on a person without notifying that person. Because of its controversial contents that conflicted with some of the values on the land of liberty, the Patriot Act faced harsh criticisms such as being unconstitutional, poorly deliberated and expensive. However, the Patriot Act proved to be a very necessary tool for the U.S. to fight against terrorism and ensure public safety, even at the expense of some of our privacy and rights.
 
For those who think that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional and poorly deliberated, I ask, how could a bad law be passed by wide majorities in both the House (357-66) and the Senate (98-1)? Why is the newly elected Democratic President also in support of its content in that he would like to renew many of its terms? To answer these questions, we need to take a closer look and further analyze the Act’s history based on current-day controversies and common misinterpretations regarding its contents.

In essence, the Patriot Act is a more modern version of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), which was signed in 1978 and allowed the search for foreign intelligence information by using electronic surveillance. Similar to the Patriot Act, FISA required a standard of proof for a warrant that is generally lower than that required for a normal criminal warrant, but no court has ever found FISA to be unconstitutional. Nevertheless, due to the rapid advancements in communication technology over the past 20 years, terrorists could now take advantage of telephone and the Internet to communicate across a large distance within a very short period of time. Evident in the 9-11 attack, surveillance merely outside the U.S. could not guarantee public safety because modern terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda could function in or out of the United States. Modified from FISA, the Patriot Act extended the scope of surveillance to include suspects that were within the U.S. and made sure that potential attacks were under control.
 
To monitor electronic communications of “persons of interest” in the U.S., government agencies listen in on phone calls and read emails. This sacrifice of privacy, however, has proven to be worthy ever since the Patriot Act’s administration. In 2002, the government stopped the Lackawanna Six plot and the Portland Seven plot, whose targets were in New York and Portland, thanks to the Patriot Act. More recently, a news article from the LA Times published on October 21, 2009 reported that three plots targeting “a federal building, a subway and a skyscraper” located in Dallas, New York, and Springfield, IL were obstructed within a few weeks of each other. These plots might have had catastrophic effects, but with the help from the Patriot Act, potential losses were eradicated.

For those who think that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional and poorly deliberated, I ask, how could a bad law be passed by wide majorities in both the House (357-66) and the Senate (98-1)? Why is the newly elected Democratic President also in support of its content in that he would like to renew many of its terms?

On the other hand, opponents of the Patriot Act, such as the author of a Commonplace essay entitled “Letting Go of 9/11,” argue that we should “get over” 9/11 and move on. In that article, Mathew Bolton pointed out that the number of casualties of the terrorist attack was incomparable to the number of people who died from heart disease or cancer, and it was very unnecessary to spend the government’s budget to fight terrorism. He argued that the budget would better be spent on medical research so that more lives could be saved. To him, my counter argument is that numbers could say very little about an issue. Think of it this way: in football, the team with more yardage is not always the one that wins. Likewise, the incident that causes the most number of deaths may not be the one that deserves the most emphasis. I’m not saying that the government should give up medical research, nor am I suggesting that those who lost their lives in terrorist attacks are more important. I just want to note that numbers don’t always reveal the whole story. Deaths because of diseases happen to every living species and on every niche of the world, but deaths because of terrorist attacks are preventable. Being sabotaged by terrorists could symbolize the weakness of national security, and the damage that these plots do is outrageous. It took the U.S. seven years and over $900 million to construct the World Trade Centers, but within thirty minutes, the skyscrapers collapsed under the hands of cold-blooded terrorists. Not only was the economy hindered because of the attack, but the public was also terribly shocked and feared that such a plot would happen to them or their loved ones. At that moment, it was the government’s responsibility to step up and implement a regulation that would fight against terrorism, even if that regulation was at the expense of citizen’s privacy and basic rights.

After the 9/11 attack, I could not help but occasionally think about the horrifying images of two planes crashing into two skyscrapers every time I boarded an airplane. Nonetheless, the Patriot Act assured me that that type of incident would likely never reoccur. Although it was met with criticisms and controversy, I believe the Patriot Act is an imperative legislation that effectively fights against terrorism. It was modified from a formerly unchallenged law and was widely supported by government representatives. There’s little doubt that the Patriot Act gave the government more power to monitor our lives, but what’s more important is that it gave the government a powerful toolbox to ensure public safety. The debate of privacy and security boils down to this: do you value your privacy more, or do you want your life not to be endangered?

The Ohio State University
February, 2010