The United States Government in the 21st Century

Recently, an extension of the USA Patriot Act with reforms of its abusive powers of unreasonable search and seizure against American citizens has passed house of representative. The House voted 315-97 to extend the USA Patriot Act with 20 not voting. Three sections of Patriot Act are still in force, which are now extended until Feb 28th, 2011. The provisions give the government the authority to access business records, to operate roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple hones and to conduct surveillance on a noncitizen suspects with nothing to do with foreign governments or terrorist groups. The USA Patriot Act still authorized the government strong power for the purpose of protecting the security of the states; as a result, it sacrifices the rights of Americans in terms of privacy as well as liberty.

The proponents of extending Patriot Act believe that the security of the state is still a serious problem for all Americans to face with today. Just as a recent as Christmas day, the attampted terrorist attack on Northwest Airline, Americans are reminded that they are still at a war with terrorists who intend to harm them and destroy their country. In this case, Patriot Act is able to make a difference and to reduce the potential of terrorism taking place. That's why Bush government came out with the USA Patriot Act for the greater security of the states right after 911 attack. As congresswoman Candice Miller states, who supports to extend the Patriot Act, " The provisions in the Patriot Act provides critical tools to our national security and law enforcement agents to better combat terrorism and protect out nation."

Therefore, the benefits that the USA Patriot Act brings to its people is obvious, and here, I am not saying that it is not necessary to have it. However, for doing a paper, I started my research on the topic of USA Patriot Act, as a result, the more information I learned about the Patriot Act, the stronger feeling of the unfairness I have for the common U.S. citizens. Frankly, as an international student, I have been admired the freedom that all Americans have since I learned the speech of " I have a dream" by Martin Luther in my middle school time. That's what confuses me to question that how could a democracy country harms its people's privacy and liberty to be called democratic? Thus, my following argument will list some aricles of the USA Patriot Act covers, which gives abusive power to government agents to cause the harm on U.S. citizens. Standing at a foreigner position, a noncitizen, I absolutely have no capability to vote, but I wish that the persons who have the voting rights would consider my suggestion, and think about the situations of the common people in the U.S. as well as those foreigners.

Firstly, here are a few of the liberties Americans have lost: in the section 213, it not only authorized the FBI to secretly break into your home and rummage through it, but even you wouldn't be informed that the government has committed this until 18 months has passed. Accordingly, a resent report shows that FBI breaks into people's homes without telling them, is most often used for drugs cases instead of terrorism cases. Section 218 gives a secret court the power to authorized secret searches, wiretaps of private conversations and examine any financial transaction of American if there is a mere suspicion of foreign intelligence. Section 215 and Section 505 authorized the governments to secretly examine your private information relating to foreign intelligence, international terrorism, including your financial, library, travel medical, etc. Therefore, these sections (a little part of the all) are related to the privacy and liberty Americans are losing now. Somehow, no one would like to be obtained by others like a prisoner, even though they are innocent and nothing needs to be hidden.

Moreover, it creates a burden for doing business with foreign companies. A familiar example could be the bookstore industry that anyone bought some certain books could be provided their names to the FBI only because those book might include some sensitive concept relating to "Terrorism", and then FBI will track on those people who bought those books. If so, I would rather not buy the books at all. On the other side, I would say it is not far for non-citizens to be checked as if they were terrorists. However, as the third provision passed states, the "agent of a foreign power" includes individual foreign terrorists who may not be directly affiliated with a foreign power of international terrorist organization. Thus, I would say it is not a hospitality way to warm the foreigners with checking all their stuffs when the U.S. government tells the whole world that they want their society to be diversity. In my own experience, it is really annoying to be asked to open my suitcases when entering the Customs because I have to repack all my stuffs. At the same time, another business industry could be affected is the airports, where a great deal of labor needs to be hired for doing checking jobs, so it slows down the efficiency and causes the loss of money.

Again, my opinion is that Patriot Act goes too far, because of the authorized governments abusive powers, to result in the burdens on business industry and privacy loss of the U.S. citizens. As a foreigner, I could feel how hard it could be for losing privacy, how about you, who are experiencing it right now? Therefore, we need a change, a change on the USA Patriot Act to be truly patriot, a change to keep Democracy United States truly democratic.