Civil Liberties & GWOT

1. Civil Liberties& GWOT Curriculum Frameworks: USG.5.5 Identify and explain the meaning and importance of civic dispositions or virtues that contribute to the preservation and improvement of civil society and Government. USG.1.5 Explain how the rule of law, embodied in a constitution, limits government to protect the rights of individuals. USG.1.9 Examine fundamental documents in the American political tradition to identify key ideas regarding limited government and individual rights.

2. Your Thoughts? • Sometimes personal rights must be given up in order to protect people from those who could be a danger to all of us. • It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to fighting terrorism. • The government should have the right to investigate to the fullest extent any suspicious person and their activities. • Civil Liberties have been granted in the Constitution's Bill of Rights and should be preserved, no matter what.

3. Background Following the 9/11 attacks on America, Congress overwhelmingly passed the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) as a means for protecting the country from future attacks by providing law enforcement officials with new tools to fight terrorism. Among them are the power to track Internet communications, wiretap phone and computer communications, obtain search warrants for e-mail and voicemail communications, and the ability to access personal records and information without any proof that an individual has committed a crime. These new powers have led to controversy because many feel the USA PATRIOT Act violates the basic civil liberties established by the U.S. Constitution, particularly those related to privacy and First and Fourth Amendment rights. As a result, many local and state governments have passed resolutions against the Act, and the ACLU has taken legal action against various provisions of the law. What has emerged is a debate and a power struggle between the right to personal civil liberties and the need for national security.

4. The Exercise • Class will be presented an hour long documentary produced by Discovery Education relating to the debate over the Patriot Act. • The students will be issued a documentary worksheet developed by the National Archives for completion. • Once the movie is done, the class will be broken into two groups. Each group will have the opportunity to discuss their worksheets and make comparisons. • The students within each group will have the opportunity to amend their worksheets if so desired. Each group will then have the opportunity to discuss their findings with each other with facilitation by the teacher.

5. The Exercise • The final stage of this lesson plan will require the students to do a research paper comparing and contrasting the Patriot Act to similarly inspired acts in American history. In addition to these comparisons, the students will be required to come to some sort of personal conclusions of their own. Specific instances in American history that will be available for comparison to the Patriot Act include the following: • 1. Alien Sedition Act of 1798. • 2. Suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War (1863) • 3. Espionage and Seditions Acts during WW1 • 4. Internment of Japanese during WW2 • 5. McCarthyism of 1950s.