Essay Example on US Terror Attacks: Need for a New Strategy?

According to Romero (2018), despite a global drop in terror attacks from 17000 in 2014 to approximate 11000 in 2017, the United States has experienced a surge in terror-related attacks for the past 10 years up to 2017. The 911 terror attack on September 11, 2011, alone claimed a total of 2977 innocent lives out of the 3393 terror-related deaths that have been recorded since 1995 to 2016 (START,2017). The above statistics highlight the critical need for a new strategy to curb terrorism affecting the safety and security of the Americans. However, the programs and strategies being adopted as countermeasures to the terrorist menace are conflicting with, needless to say, important and fundamental civil liberties, which is a contentious issue for both the security agencies and the citizens. This paper seeks to analyse the anti-terrorism policies and the constitution's civil rights to determine which, between the two should be prioritized.

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However, before remarking on terrorism fight and protection of the Americans rights, it is imperative to look at the 1st,4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments rights in the constitution. Commonly referred to as the bill of rights, these Amendments of the constitution protects the people from the government intrusions. Basically, the 1st Amendment assures the people that their rights of religion and freedom of speech or press will never be compromised. Additionally, the Amendment further gives the citizens the power to petition the government to redress their grievances(ACLU, 2017). For the 4th Amendment, the law ensures that the government cannot search or seize one's property without a warrant from a judge hence allowing citizens to enjoy their privacy and freedom against arbitrary intrusions. The 5th Amendment, on the other hand, guarantees protection against arrest unless the police have a correct indictment. Additionally, in the case of apprehension, the 6th Amendment allows the accused to get a speedy trial, an attorney, a fair jury and a chance to see the complaint. For the 14th Amendment, while the primary aim was to ensure that the former slaves had access to constitution's civil rights, the clause guarantees the protection of citizenship rights and equal protection of all Americans (ACLU, 2017).

Given the above rights, the illegal collection of data regarding texts, emails and phone use courtesy of the Patriot Act is an outright breach of privacy for entire America's population. The Act allowed Programs such as PRISMM, Tempora and Dishfire to collect private data in bulk without even proof that people were engaging in terrorist activities (Bauman, 2014). Under the 4th Amendment, this illegal data collection, though with good intentions, is prohibited. While the terror statistics are worrisome and demand acute measures, tracking private communication of citizens strips them the very privacy concept which is guaranteed by the constitution. In an era of hacking and cybersecurity concerns, in case of a break in or leak of this personal information to a third party, it could do more harm than good by causing anxiety among the population. As such, alternative strategies that preserve the fundamental rights of Americans should be explored because trading off a primary right that dignifies each citizen for a problem that can be solved by other actions is disastrous.

With the Freedom Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance which superseded the USA Patriot Act to curb government surveillance capabilities, there is still no significant changes regarding the protection of people's privacy. While the Freedom Act protects people against NSA's ability to collect bulk phone call data without proving reasonable suspicion to FISA that an individual is involved in terrorist activities, between 1978 and 2013, FISA has approved 99.97 per cent of all the requests (Eichelberger, 2013). This statistic prompts doubt as to how the Act has protected people's privacy. Additionally, the entire process is closed, meaning that the FISA court hears evidence for surveillance application that is brought forward solely by the department of justice and even after making the ruling, its hearing information or opinions to the interested party.

One of the main aims of the Constitution is to establish a limited federal government that constitutes a limited judiciary. While the drafters of the constitution may not have envisioned the mass shootings and suicide bombers, they anticipated the current phenomena where a federal judge is likely to act as super-legislatures to legislation unconstitutional. This is how the FISA court is operating regarding surveillance without merit-based ruling on constitutionality. In the FISA court, it is only the federal government seeking a general surveillance warrant without a specific case hence no plaintiff suing a defendant and no defendant being sued by the government (Napolitano, 2013). Consequently, the entire process is flawed and the protection against the intrusion of privacy is just an illusion.

Conclusion

To sum this paper up, there is no doubt that recent years have brought serious security threats in the form of terrorism, therefore prompting stringent measures to keep the nation safe. However, a security threat that emanates from an insignificant fraction of the population cannot be enough reason to strip off the fundamental civil liberties that have preserved the dignity of Americans since the founding. The counter-terrorism policies, as seen, are seriously flawed and are incapable of protecting the 4th Amendment and primary rights enshrined in the constitution. Therefore, if the government has the will to protect the constitution and safeguard every American against terror activities, it has to iron out these Acts and promote transparency in its counter-terror actions.

References

ACLU. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.aclusandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Constitution-Day-Powerpoint-Talking-Points.pdf

Bauman, Z., Bigo, D., Esteves, P., Guild, E., Jabri, V., Lyon, D., & Walker, R. B. (2014). After Snowden: Rethinking the impact of surveillance. International political sociology, 8(2), 121-144.

Eichelberger, E. (2013). FISA Court Has Rejected .03 Percent Of All Government Surveillance Requests. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2013/06/fisa-court-nsa-spying-opinion-reject-request/

Napolitano, A. (2013). Is the FISA Court Constitutional? by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. Retrieved from https://www.creators.com/read/judge-napolitano/09/13/is-the-fisa-court-constitutional

Romero, L. (2018). Decades after 9/11, the American right is behind a terrorism surge. Retrieved from https://qz.com/1386318/9-11-anniversary-data-shows-us-terrorism-is-rising-on-the-right/

START. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths_FactSheet_Nov2017.pdf