In this paper, I will be talking about the act of congress called the Patriot Act which is officially called USA PATRIOT (an abbreviation of “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”). The act was a reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks perpetrated by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, as well as the anthrax attacks that happened soon after. The main concern of the act was to increase security, and in that increase of security, federal organizations and agency like the NSA (National Security Agency) were now allowed to survey citizens without warrants.
Current Use
The way that the Patriot Act is used today by the NSA can be exemplified by an …show more content…
If someone was intelligent and lucky enough to be able to infiltrate the servers and computers of our government, they would essentially have access to the information of everyone in this country. What’s more is the fact that the government can step into your digital life means that there is already a “back door” open. What is even worse is that there is no message or notification that tells you that someone is watching.
Ethics
The Patriot Act is for unethical. Of course, at its core it serves a noble purpose, but if the means to the end of security is the complete obliteration of privacy whenever we use the technology in front of us, any notion of this being a noble goal is discarded. It is the ultimate issue of “security vs freedom” and freedom must prevail.
Future Use
As our technology gets better, so will the technology to survey the masses. Reading the Patriot Act gives out images relating to George Orwell’s 1984. While, in my opinion, it won’t go that far, the potential for our government to survey its citizens is great. Of course, it will be up to the politicians of the United States to see if surveillance is a thing worth keeping. If they do reach that conclusion, this technology will only get more powerful and more effective, to the point that it could be used for