Directions: in Your Response You Should Do the Following

Question

Examlex · Accepted Answer

The Answer is Sample Strong Response:
After the September 11,2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon (as well as a failed third attack which ended with a plane crash in Pennsylvania),the U.S.Congress and President George W.Bush responded by enacting legislation which altered civil liberties for American citizens. The legislation,known as the Patriot Act,sought to prevent further acts of terrorism by giving the federal government broad powers to investigate Americans for terroristic activity. Although the general idea of the law was to prevent terrorism,many Americans saw it as a violation of civil liberties. Freedom of speech and privacy,some argued,were among the primary targets of the legislation,as the government sought to protect the nation from internal and external threats. Although this alarmed many Americans,the suspension and restriction of civil liberties was similar to earlier restrictions of civil liberties during and after previous wars,including the Civil War,World War I,and World War II. In this sense,we must modify the original idea that the War on Terror dramatically altered civil liberties. Rather,the War on Terror revived restrictions and suspensions of civil liberties which had existed for decades but had been dormant.
Restricting civil liberties was not a novel idea during the War on Terror. Civil liberties have been suspended at other crucial times. Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus during the Civil to combat spying;suspected southern spies were arrested and held indefinitely without trial as a means to win the war.Although Lincoln understood the need to limit government's power,and though he thought this a dangerous idea,he also understood the need for such dramatic legislation during wartime. With spies in Washington,D.C.,he could not risk threatening the safety of the government. During World War I,Congress enacted legislation restricting free speech in an effort to rally the nation to war. When Congress passed the Espionage and Sedition laws,it made it legal to censor or punish virtually anyone who spoke out or criticized the federal government. Socialist Eugene Debs was the most prominent protester to be convicted under these statutes. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of these laws in the Schenck decision (1919). During World War II,President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in internment camps to allay fears of an invasion of the west coast. Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps without trial or charges being brought against them,and held there for the duration of the war. Again,the Supreme Court upheld this in its Korematsu decision (1945),arguing that,in times war,national security trumps individual civil liberties. In each case,the legality of the actions of the government was questioned,but the Supreme Court generally upheld each of the decisions as constitutional.
Thus,when Congress and President Bush passed the Patriot Act in the period after the 9/11 attacks,Americans were concerned about the constitutionality of the law. The Patriot Act gave the federal government broad powers to investigate terrorism. The FBI could investigate correspondence,review bank accounts,and eavesdrop on telephone calls-all without warrants. Bush and Congress both defended the necessity of the Patriot Act as a means to combat international and domestic terrorism. Eventually the courts upheld the law,and it was even renewed by Congress a second time. In addition,the President created a cabinet-level position and office,the Department of Homeland Security. This division of the federal government was tasked with such items as domestic travel security,and,in conjunction with the federal Transportation Safety Administration,created somewhat invasive travel policies: airlines passengers,for instance,were subjected to increasingly less private screenings in the name of security.
The events of 9/11 did cause the federal government to enact legislation,policies,and even cabinet-level positions to protect Americans. Many of these were seen by Americans as an invasion of privacy and a threat to basic civil liberties. But this was not,as historians have argued,a dramatic alteration of civil liberties when seen in the entire scope of U.S.history. Rather,it was a continuation of past practice of limiting or suspending civil liberties during time of war to protect the nation as a whole.

Directions: in Your Response You Should Do the Following

Definitions: