Essay Sample on Three Pieces of Legislation

Introduction

As a nation, the USA has put much focus on the protection and provision of a safe place for its citizen from the past years. The country has placed a more proactive mechanism of protection of the citizen from external security threats through intelligence services and strong military power to intervene in the situations. The securing of the nation from foreign enemies was seen as early as 1947 when the Congress enacted the National Security Act to restructure the US military body and provided a comprehensive body to oversee the future security matter (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016). Henceforth, the US has passed other significant legislation such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the USA Patriotic Act of 2001 which all have guidelines when maintaining the national security matters of the nation. Specifically, conducting the investigation and anticipating threats from terrorist activities. All these legislative papers form a legal framework for national security structure, investigating, arresting and convicting suspects of terrorism within and outside boundaries of the US.

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First, in the National Security Act, the legislation reorganized the military structure where it formulated the Secretary of Defense to manage the national security matters. Also, it led to the formation of the National Security Council as well as delineation of armed forces into branches which were delegated to different particular duties of protecting the nation from external enemies (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016). The most significant provision of the act was the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency which up to date it coordinates with the security forces in conducting continuous surveillance on any threat from terrorists. The act had a tremendous role in linking all intelligence communities with the national security as such it mandated the director of the CIA to be the overall supervisor of every activity of the intelligence community. The signing of the Act into rule formed the background for stabilization of the national security, as such other acts have come up to support the provisions of the Act.

In 1978, the nation saw the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which stipulates the procedures of conducting both physical and electronic investigation of foreigners or foreign powers suspected to work with terrorists who pose a threat to the nation. The act provided additional strength to the intelligence community; the CIA formulated in the National Security Act was conduct warrantless investigation on foreigners even without their consent when its suspected that they are a threat to the security of the US citizens (Kraft & Marks, 2016). The provision of the law has been significant to the nation in the provision of foreign intelligence information that used to fill the intelligence gaps as such makes it easier to anticipate terrorist movements, weapon proliferation, malicious cyber action, and terrorists plan. Without the law, aliens would be a significant threat to national security matters.

Equally, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act articulated the formation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was mandated to listen and approve cases concerned with physical search, electronic investigations, and other related investigations on foreigners and foreign powers outside the bounders of the US (Kraft & Marks, 2016). However, there are special occasions when the intelligence community has to seek clarification from the court to conduct the investigation; only those presented with the department of justice.

Furthermore, the Patriotic Act assigned in 2001, provides for another legal paper that strengthens both the NSA and the FISA. It's a paper that provides the necessary tools for national security organs and the intelligence community to use to anticipate and fight terrorism (Duignan, 2018). More particularly, the legal document extends the FISA powers in the following mechanisms. It extends the capacity of the intelligence community to conduct a more rigorous investigation on foreign parties from electronic communications, face-to-face conversations, and telephone calls through the eavesdropping (Duignan, 2018). It allows the intelligence surveillance of suspects through trap and trace devices which record the message, place of origin and destination of the message.

Equivalently, the Patriotic Act amended the operation of the FISC, in that, the government had not to clarify its operations to the court its seek approval but explain the significance of targeted foreign surveillance information. The act provides for extensive records legalized with the court which the government is to acquire in a case in needs conduct intelligence terrorism activities (Duignan, 2018). Finally, the Act ratified the stipulations of the National Security Act by increasing the powers of the Secretariat in overseeing national security matters. The Secretary of Defense is to increase the number of border patrols, curbing money laundry and regulate activities of immigration departments to checks on foreigners issued with work permits in the nations. All these stipulations were meant to boost the national security concerns by monitoring the foreigners who are the main links to terrorism.

Conclusion

In conclusion, all three legal pieces relate to one another since they provide a ground for structuring the national security and intelligence services to curb security threats from external borders. Furthermore, they strengthen the stipulations of each paper concurrently, such that they provide additional information and seal the gaps in uncovered areas of other legal documents that can welcome terrorist activities in the nation. In the end, all three papers provide a strong foundation for the tight security and robust intelligence services that combat terrorism in the country.

References

Duignan, B. (2018). USA PATRIOT Act. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/USA-PATRIOT-Act

Kraft, M. B., & Marks, E. (2016). US Government Counterterrorism: A guide to who does what. CRC Press

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016). National Security Act | United States [1947]. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Security-Act