Kevin Ogden
Professor Demissie
ISCI300z
Preventing an Orwellian Society: The Implications of the USA Patriot Act
We live in a post-9/11 world. While our country is scared and in a state of panic, our
government has been making some questionable decisions in regards to our safety and
privacy. When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked documents on the US
government’s domestic spying it caused many of us to take a step back and reevaluate how
we should handle terrorism so that we don’t destroy our own individual freedoms in the
process. In a world where every call, purchase, and email can be tracked, we need to
evaluate how this happened, and if we’re willing to sacrifice our privacy for a little extra
safety – or if we’re even any safer at all.
The origins of the National Security Agency (NSA) date back an entire century to 1917,
back when it was founded as a military agency and helped intercept the famous
Zimmerman telegram during World War I. Its purpose adjusted over time, changing from a
military agency to a diplomatic intelligence agency, mostly dealing with foreign powers.
(Heiligenstein, 2014) For a long time, the agency had an understandable limit of its power
– it did its job and avoided interfering in lives of average US citizens. However, when the
9/11 disaster occurred the nation was thrown into a state of confusion and we collectively
decided that something must be done – and it must be done fast.
President George W. Bush declared the global ‘War on Terror’, what could be considered a
huge turning point in security policy for not just our nation but for the rest of the world as
well. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner wrote the USA Patriot Act and it was signed into
law on October 26th, 2001 – only 45 days after 9/11. (Heiligenstein, 2014) Even the title
sounds grand and patriotic. The intention of this act was to crack down on domestic
terrorism with increased US surveillance, using wiretapping and datamining to find
terrorists and prevent future attacks from happening. However, the actual results of this act
were not quite as expected. The barriers and limitations on the NSA’s power were
destroyed. They were officially allowed to track, wiretap, and spy on any US civilian
suspected of being involved in terrorist activity. This is where the line becomes hazy.
There was no real supervision in the determination of who could be suspected and who
was innocent. This began PRISM, a long-term and one of the world’s biggest acts of secret
