National Security

National Security entails many elements other than just protecting our borders and fighting wars. National Security stepped more in to the forefront after World War II. President Truman enacted the National Security Act of 1947 which reconfigured branches of the military as well as brought to life the National Security Council and the CIA. After the Vietnam War in 1975, people wanted more of a focus on civil liberties and they questioned how much of their rights they were willing to give up for national security. After the attacks on September 11th, President Bush announced that we were in a war on terror and that terrorists and the countries that harbored them were a threat to the US. Soon after, the Patriot Act was pushed through Congress and signed by Bush. It was backed at the time but a animosity towards the new laws grew quickly. It was later discovered that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap without the necessary warrants. Also, many people of Arab or Muslim descent were imprisoned wrongfully and without due process or tortured because the government believed that they had some connection to terrorist organizations. In “Data Mining Technology Create New Privacy Concerns for American Citizens”, William Banks, a professor at Syracuse University and director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, states that through FISA and The Patriot Act, the government is creeping in on privacy. The government allowed FISA to collect all data at U.S. switches if they had reason to believe that the person that they were surveying was communicating with terrorists. Banks states that, “If we unleash surveillance at U.S. switches, our laws and policies have not yet devised a way to prevent them from gaining access to the everyday communications of Americans, the dominant consumers of those switches....” On the other side of the argument, there are people who say that the surrendering of some civil liberties is necessary for protection. In “Some Curtailment of Civil Liberties Is Necessary to Enhance National Security”, Richard Posner believes that we have made the right decision and that the loss of some civil liberties is necessary. He also believes that The Patriot Act was a knee jerk reaction but it will pan out. He relates examples such as Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and the wrongful internment of Japanese Americans in WWII
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Some Curtailment of Civil Liberties Is Necessary to Enhance National Security
Overview Article
Data Mining Technology Create New Privacy Concerns for American Citizens