Term Papers on The U.S. Patriot Act And The Erosion Of Civil Liberties

Term Paper Title	The U.S. Patriot Act And The Erosion Of Civil Liberties
# of Words	783
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.13

The U.S. Patriot Act and The Erosion of Civil Liberties
The predictions of prophetic novels like 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and A Brave New World are developing into a modern day reality. The Defense Advanced Research Project, for example, currently administers a program known as “Total Information Awareness” that aims to gather data from all available signal intelligence sources into one database, in the hopes of discovering patterns that will flag for possible deviant activity. This includes information about citizen’s financial and medical history, as well as personal communications and other transactions. Additionally, biometric technology is being developed for the identification and tracking of individuals by means of gait and face recognition. Video surveillance exists in an array of public places, spanning from schools, buildings, and stores, to boardwalks and outside shopping districts. Rarely, in contemporary society, are our actions easily concealed from the public sphere. The intrusion of government into the personal lives of its citizens appears intrinsically anti-American. These various monitoring advancements can function to make our society a safer place, but the costs to individual freedom may far outweigh the benefits.

Current terrorist events have illuminated the relative weakness of homeland protection and mocked American’s pre-September 11th illusions of security. In a fear-motivated response to the threat imposed by international terrorists living within our borders, congress has imposed a dangerous escalation of surveillance upon its citizenry. Through a variety of legislation, the frightening panopticon described by Michael Foucault is quickly being brought to life. Nowhere is this more evident, however, then with the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act.

The panopticon is the dream of fascists and power-hungry mongrels. Best conceptualized as a prison system, it is a social structure of massive governmentality that allows the possibility for the “jailer” to observe all of the “inmates” all of the time. As Foucault explains it, the prisoner “is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject of communication.” This is caused by the continuous scrutiny of individual behavior, which becomes so inundated into the consciousness of the actors that it “assures the automatic functioning of power.” Conscious of their regular visibility, government control becomes the internalized means of self-regulating behaviors. The panopticon represents the ultimate imbalance of power...

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