Click Here For BalancedPolitics.org - Civil Liberties in Wartime (Pros & Cons, Arguments For and Against)

BalancedPolitics.org - Civil Liberties in Wartime (Pros & Cons, Arguments For and Against): "The large scale of the 9/11 attacks exposed some obvious security flaws in our system. Terrorists slipped through immigration and airport checks and managed to live, train, and plan in the U.S. for several years. Fears were justifiably raised of several other groups of terrorists (called sleeper cells) waiting and planning for the order to commit their designated terrorist attack. Congress almost immediately passed the Patriot Act, which gave the government substantially more powers to track down these terrorists. Security has been tightened at airports, ports, borders, etc. and a Department of Homeland Security has been created to oversee the efforts.

As more government power has been added, many have charged that our privacy and civil rights are being slowly taken away. For example, people are being locked up without a trial or access to a lawyer. Another example is the integrated system, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), which is in the process of being created to track data on everyone in the country, including credit card purchases, library book checkouts, group affiliations, cell phone records, and gun ownership. Civil rights advocates say a dangerous form of government 'Big Brother' is being established that threatens to destroy the American way of life. Dubious wartime efforts throughout our history, such as Japanese internment, the Palmer raids, and Cold War McCarthyism, have been cited as justifiable reasons for these fears.

The question remains, how much should our civil rights and privacy be reduced to fight the war on terror? What is the proper balance? "