To What Extent Should The Government Violate Civil Liberties

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Does the U.S. government have the right to violate citizens’ civil liberties in the name of national security? Civil liberties are a person’s rights and protections they have guaranteed by the government. There are numerous debates over whether or not the government should have the ability to violate civil liberties for national security. After the events of 9/11, the U.S. government sought to gain more ways to peer into the lives of citizens, trying to gain at least a portion of this ability with the Patriot Act. Governments should have the ability to violate civil liberties in the name of national security given that there is a clear and present threat to the nation’s security. The government should have the power to violate civil liberties for three reasons: the safety and welfare of citizens; the speed of government response; and the intensity of the danger.…show more content…
The purpose of a government is to keep their citizens safe and happy. In the process of doing this, a government needs all possible power to deal with threats to this goal, such as terrorists seeking to deal harm to the nation. By infringing on smaller rights, a government can protect the most important thing for the country - human lives. For example, the 9/11 attacks resulted in the deaths of thousands. After the attacks, many citizens determined that they would rather give up some of their civil liberties than have an attack happen again. People would much rather have everyone, including themselves, searched, before entering a plane to save human lives. Since we as people, and our government, have decided that human lives are more important than some of our civil liberties, we should allow the government to violate some of these
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