Post 9/11 Legislation - Law Essay Example

With the damages that were impacted on not only the lives of citizens but the nation at large, the American government had to implement various Acts that could better help prevent future terrorist attacks. For instance, the Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Acts of 2004 are only a few among the multiple efforts enacted after the September 11th, 2001 attacks (Nayak,2006). The Patriot Act was formed with an intention to protect the reoccurrence of the criminal act as well as protect innocent US citizens. In implementing this Act, the Congress overwhelmingly developed bipartisan margins that arm the law enforcement procedure with new but vital tools that can detect as well as prevent terror attacks (Hoffman, 2002). However, this Act has both advantages and disadvantages that are seemingly subsequent. For example, the Patriot Act is advantageous in the sense that it strengthens all the US's measures of preventing terror attacks through detecting as well as prosecuting all financial money laundering institutions that finance terrorism. This role is through following up on all the appropriate elements of financial services organization and in return report the laundering acts (Schuster et al., 2001).

A further strength of this Act is how it empowers all the nation's measures to prevent corrupt foreign officials from gaining control over all financial system and thus facilitate the repatriation of all stolen items to the citizens. However, the limitation of this Act is that it wastes much of the government's vital resources. It is so since the Patriot Act does not only allocate much of the funds in tracking the US citizens within the State but also those that are overseas, an act that visibly implies that a lot is being wasted. A further limitation is that the Act gives much authority to the government in that the authority takes total control in investigating all individuals with suspicious characters (Waxman, 2009). Notably, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act ( IRTP) was established in 2004 to ensure that the intelligence organization has to report on all their preventive terrorism roles to the DNI (Bazan, 2004). The formation of this Act was to streamline further intelligence as well as all the efforts of the national security for the sake of preventing another attack (Lebovic, 2007). The strength of this Act is that through a budgetary authority, the intelligence community gets the chance to resolve all their differences and thus focus on preventing attacks. It is so given the fact that the turf battles existing between significant agencies lead to misunderstandings that hinder the development of effective crime prevention efforts. Furthermore, this Act makes it easier for intelligence organization to work under transparency given the act of reducing the number of officers that cause overlapping. However, following the misunderstandings visible between the IC and the ODNI, it implies that the Act is not much effective in its unifying role. The IC blames ODNI for slowing the entire process of intelligence organizations (Paust, 2003). A further limitation is that the Act did not follow the right procedure in forming the ODNI and the reason as to why other agencies find it hard to work with it despite the government having legalized its existence.

Conclusion

Following the multiple reformation and development of the national security legislative Acts, it is evident that America has matured has learned a lot from the 9/11 attacks that left many feeling insecure even in their homes. Despite the many problems that are visible within the intelligence as well as agencies of national security, the government has made sure to make adjustments in all possible ways in these agencies to deal any rising cases of modern threats. For instance, many US citizens note that the major reason why the 9/11 attacks were not stopped on time was lack of effective communication. In this case, experts have been employed in large numbers to ensure that the intelligence and other agencies can comfortably communicate to prevent future crimes.

References

Bazan, E. B. (2004, December). Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004:" Lone Wolf" Amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DC CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE.

Hoffman, B. (2002). Rethinking terrorism and counterterrorism since 9/11. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 25(5), 303-316.

Nayak, M. (2006). Orientalism and savingUS state identity after 9/11. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 8(1), 42-61.

Lebovic, J. H. (2007). Deterring international terrorism and rogue states: US national security policy after 9/11. Routledge.

Paust, J. J. (2003). War and Enemy Status After 9/11: Attacks on the Laws of War.

Schuster, M. A., Stein, B. D., Jaycox, L. H., Collins, R. L., Marshall, G. N., Elliott, M. N., ... & Berry, S. H. (2001). A national survey of stress reactions after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New England Journal of Medicine, 345(20), 1507-1512.

Waxman, M. C. (2009). Police and national security: American local law enforcement and counterterrorism after 9/11. J. Nat'l Sec. L. & Pol'y, 3, 377.