The US
Patriot Act was passed in response to the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks. The goal of this act is to broaden the powers of
law enforcement agencies and strengthen domestic security in order to
identify and stop terrorists. I think it would be morally acceptable
to break this law if a person was unreasonably searched under the
Patriot Act. There were several instances in which service providers
were issued a National Security Letter (NSL) by the FBI to gain
customer records. Since the Patriot Act was passed it lowered the
threshold for situations in which the FBI may issue the NSL. Before
this act they had to give "specific and articulable facts giving
reason to believe that the customer or entity whose records are
sought is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power." since
the Patriot Act has been passed NSLs can be issued to request
information that is "relevant to an authorized investigation to
protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence
activities." this had led to the abuse of the power given to the
FBI to issue NSLs to obtain information. Snowden's Moscow statement
"asserting that existing NSA programs constitute 'a serious
violation of the law', including the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to
the US Constitution." along with several people who were issued
the NSL and have fought the gag order, the government is collecting
and obtaining the records of it's citizens unconstitutionality and
therefore it's acceptable to break those laws.
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