Greetings! In my opinion, the single-most important policy to have
been passed as a result of the September 11th terrorism in 2001 would
be the Patriot Act which directly affects past policies of privacy
protection for Americans. Passed by Congress on October 25, 2001,
this act remains a subject of great contraversy for many US citizens.
Nancy Chang, Senior Litigation Attorney for the Center for
Constitutional Rights in New York City, offers an enlightening
commentary on the act at the Center's web site
(http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp) and her article
is titled "The USA PATRIOT Act: What's So Patriotic About Trampling on
the Bill of Rights?"
Ms. Chang states in her commentary "To an unprecedented degree, the
Act sacrifices our political freedoms in the name of national security
and upsets the democratic values that define our nation by
consolidating vast new powers in the executive branch of government."
She goes on to outline the various freedoms she believes are affected
by the act. I urge you to read her entire commentary.
Then, there is this from ABC News
(http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/usapatriot020701.html):
"Over the last three months, the Massachusetts cities of Cambridge,
Northampton and Amherst and the township of Leverett, as well as the
town of Carrboro, N.C., all passed resolutions that call the USA
Patriot Act a threat to the civil rights of the residents of their
communities."
Barry Steinhardt, associate director for the ACLU (American Civil
Liberties Union) responed to the question "What are some of the things
that Attorney General Ashcroft has done that worry you? " posed him by
Wired News, stated "Well, it's not exclusively Attorney General
Ashcroft, but certainly he has been at the forefront to apply the
ironically named USA Patriot Act. It's ironically named -- to call
something that attacks fundamental American values "patriotic."
"(The government has detained) more than 1,000 Arab-Americans,
sometimes without counsel. It appears there are secret hearings and
secret incarcerations -- 5,000 persons who are being subjected to
interrogation, a roundup. (It's) based on ethnic profiling..."
Another policy off-shoot of the September 11th terrorism is the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security. At the president's
web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/) you will find many
reports and articles concerning the DHS. Also, an analysis of the
Homeland Security Act may be found at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/analysis/index.html
Americans value their civil liberties and their privacy and the
Patriot Act and Homeland Security laws may inadvertently have a
negative impact on the very people the policies seek to protect. As
an American, I know what I value -safety and freedom- but I wondered
if there existed somewhere an actual "list" of American values. In
researching "what are American values" I located a few sites:
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
http://www.aclu.org/
The ACLU listed these issues on their web site:
Criminal Justice
Cyber-Liberties
Death Penalty
Disability Rights
Drug Policy
Free Speech
HIV/AIDS
Immigrants Rights
Int'l Civil Liberties
Lesbian & Gay Rights
National Security
Police Practices
Prisons
Privacy & Technology
Racial Equality
Religious Liberty
Reproductive Rights
Rights of the Poor
Students Rights
Voting Rights
Women's Rights
Workplace Rights
American Values
http://www.ouramericanvalues.org/
"We want the same things: streets without bullets, schools that
prepare our children for success, laws that protect our people, and a
government that serves its citizens. We can get there. But we need to
start now."
Key American Values
http://www.umsl.edu/~intelstu/Student_Handbook/Appendices/Key_American_Values/key_american_values.html
"The most important thing to understand about American is probably
their devotion to "individualism." They have been trained since very
early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals
who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own
destinies. They have not been trained to see themselves as members of
a close-knit, tightly interdependent family, religious group, tribe,
nation, or other collectivity."
"Closely associated with the value they place on individualism is the
importance Americans assign privacy. Americans assume people "need
some time to themselves" or "some time alone" to think about things or
recover their spent psychological energy. Americans have great
difficulty understanding foreigners who always want to be with another
person, who dislike being alone."
It is interesting that I found no "list of American values" and
perhaps that is because, as stated above, Americans do prize
individuality and different Americans value different things. But I
believe all Americans value safety and privacy among their personal
values.
It is also interesting for me to see this question as I have been
doing personal research on the matter -just today, actually- because
of an article I read this morning titled "When on the Road, You're
Probably Not Alone" By JERRY F. BOONE, c.2002 Newhouse News Service
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1b102402.html
The article started me to thinking about my definition "freedom of
privacy" and the value it holds for me.
I hope this information proves to be of assistance to your quest and
if you need further clarification before rating my answer, please
request it and I'll be happy to conduct additional searches on the
topic.
SEARCH TERMS:
Patriot Act
Department of Homeland Security
american values affected terrorism
what are american values
ACLU
list of american values
terrorism affects values |
