USA Patriot Act Boosts Government Powers While Cutting Back on Traditional Checks and Balances

Author(s):  
David McBride
Author(s):  
Marc Jung-Whan de Jong

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) of 2001 has increased the surveillance and investigative powers of law enforcement in the United States. While the Patriot Act serves to protect American society and interests abroad, critics suggest that it does not provide sufficient checks and balances to safeguard the civil liberties of U.S. citizens. This chapter assesses both of these claims: how the USA Patriot Act protects U.S. national security and through self-censorship over privacy concerns may affect sociopolitical and cultural diversity in cyberspace.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 66-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fraser
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Jonathan Riley

This chapter examines the normative dimensions of liberty by relating the descriptive concept to normative theories of civil and political liberty, as well as security, defended by key thinkers in historical and contemporary debates. Purely descriptive concepts of liberty must be distinguished from normative concepts. Thomas Hobbes offered a valid descriptive concept of liberty as doing as one wishes. For John Stuart Mill, civil liberty or security must always include a basic right to do whatever one wishes, in relation to a natural domain of ‘purely self-regarding’ conduct. This chapter first considers the link between liberty and rights before discussing negative and positive liberty, civil liberty and political liberty, and the interrelationships among justice, security, and liberty. It concludes with an analysis of the right to absolute self-regarding liberty. A case study concerning the USA Patriot Act of 2001 and the war on terror is presented.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Max von Holleben ◽  
Peter Michael Probst ◽  
Fabian Winters
Keyword(s):  

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