The Senate Renews Patriot Act

W.L. -


For those who don't know what the Patriot Act entails: it means that our government, the U.S. government, has the right to authorize court-approved wire taps, to obtain court-approved seizure of records, and the right to permit surveillance against a so-called "lone wolf", a non-U.S. citizen suspected of being involved in a terrorist organization.

Here's the problem: when investigating firms request permissions to do things like this, they're on the basis of speculation. The key word is speculation. That means they're not really sure if anybody broke any laws, or if anybody really did anything wrong, yet they revoke the rights of whoever they're breaching anyways.

What happened to the first amendment? It's a question of ethics, and the renewing of the Patriot Act is really pushing it. People have lives, and to impair their ability to live because of some speculation is nothing short of unethical.

To put it into perspective, think of it this way: what if they wire tapped you? You'd be shocked. You'd feel violated. You'd be angry. Think about it, out of pure speculation, the government essentially goes ahead and says: "No more privacy for you." That's not fair, is it? No, it's not. And the problem is that this stuff actually happens to people every year.

Now of course, what about the people who actually are a threat to national security? Well they still are. There's no questioning that. But the fact of the matter is that doesn't warrant the right to take away our own privacy. It appears if we're to stuck on the idea of national security and safety, that we've completely ignored the foundation of morality and ethics.

This all bogs down to the idea of basic human rights. We all have a right to our own privacy. Nobody has the right to take that away from us under any circumstances. Nobody has a greater say, period. When the government says that they have the right to breach your own privacy, they've crossed the line. Formalizing it, and putting it into the law books doesn't make the case any different.