where are we heading?
...nvention. According to a 2002 report from the State Department which has frequently cited Egypt for torture of prisoners, it states that, “detainees were stripped and blindfolded; suspended from ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; subjected to electrical shocks; and doused with cold water [and] sexually assaulted” (Mayer 19). Some feel, and it is proven, that torture does not work. First of all, torturing is immoral. “There are two problems with torture…One, it doesn’t work. John McCain” (who was a naval aviator in 1967; he was shot down over Vietnam and held as a prisoner-of-war in Hanoi for about six years), “was tortured for six years, and never said a thing. Do you think that Islamic radicals believe in their cause less than John McCain believed in his? And here’s the second problem: You can’t be sure you’re torturing the right guy. If someone says, ‘I don’t know,’ and he really doesn’t know, then you’ve spent a lot of precious torture time for nothing” (Carroll 5). Torture is an inhumane, unacceptable, and intolerable act of violence. It should not be allowed, and there are laws outlawing it, but still, even the US government is putting it to use. Following the attacks on September 11th, President Bush entered a bill to the US Senate which was passed on October 26, 2001, making a new set of laws known as the USA Patriot Act. This act is a piece of legislation that allowed the government, president, and attorney general to have rights that they would not normally be able to carry out under the United States Constitution, a set of regulations that our country is based on. This act is cutting into, our civil liberties and is going against the US Constitution. “This law provides for indefinite imprisonment without trial of non-US citizens whom the Attorney General has determined to be a threat to national security. The government is not required to provide detainees with counsel, nor is it required to make any announcement or statement regarding the arrest” (Patriot Act). Bush is even beginning to invade the First Amendment of freedom of speech. When Bush travels around the United States, “free speech zones” are set up for protestors to share their views. In one case, Bill Neel, a resident in Pittsburgh, “refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, ‘as far as I’m concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush Administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind’” (Boyard 5). On another point, according to the Patriot Act, anyone who the Attorney General has determined to be a threat can be arrested without trial. After a police retaliation on a group of Anti-War protestors, Mike van Winkle, a conservative spokesman for the war on Iraq, told the Oakland Tribune, “You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that’s being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act” (Boyard 30). Basically, then, if one is protesting against the War on Terror, they are supporting terror, which classifies them as terrorists, making it so they can be deported, imprisoned without trial, or even outsourced to a country where torture is used in an interrogation. The Patriot Act can also be abused. Once the Act was passed, “The Department of Justice began training agents to use their new powers in ordinary criminal cases” (Edgar 2). The Patriot Act was passed as a way for the government to find more information on terrorism, but now they are spreading from that to regular cases. “In a recent poll, more than two-thirds respondents agreed that, whether or not civil liberties have been abused already, the government’s overbroad powers will be abused at some point” (Edgar 5). To keep America safe and free, some parts of the Patriot Act must be narrowed. The power can be corrupt and we will find ourselves living in a totalitarian state. Not only is the USA Patriot Act limiting our civil liberties, it is also greatly invading our privacy. A new source of security began being used in the 1980s. This is known as the video camera in our society. “We have gotten so used to the idea of a security camera peering at us out of every ATM and parking lot, every airport and school, every department store and public square, that we no longer question it” (Goodman 5). We are so used to people watching our every step that it has become part of our society to be watched. A case where men were taking pictures up women’s skirts was brought to the state Supreme Court and the men were acquitted because the judge ruled that, “the pictures were taken in public places where, the justices ruled, ‘people don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy’. It seems that the old expectation of privacy in public has become unreasonable” (Goodman 6-7). If we are not supposed to have privacy in public, before we know it there will be security cameras in our own homes, even in our bathrooms. Not only can we be watched, we can also be overheard. Now, “A wiretap is allowed to be granted against an individual, instead of a particular phone” (Patriot Act Section 206). The government only needs one warrant to listen to your phone...