Core Assessment essay
The enhancement of the homeland security contributed to the enhancement of rights and policies conducted by law enforcement agencies. In such a situation, the concern for homeland security has had a dubious effect on the law enforcement and the US society. On the one hand, such measures aimed at the enhancement of the homeland security and, to a significant extent, they have already brought some positive effects. On the other hand, the measures introduced in terms of new policies and rights of law enforcement agencies have put under a threat rights and liberties of American citizens, including rights granted by the US Constitution, such as the right to privacy. Therefore, the change of policies and the enhancement of law enforcement agencies caused by the concern for homeland security are quite controversial and the implementation of new policies should be very careful to avoid the high risk of abuse of civil rights of the US citizens and widening gaps between law enforcement agencies and communities, whose interests law enforcement agencies are supposed to serve to.
The concern for homeland security has had a considerable impact on the law enforcement in the US and methods applied by law enforcement agencies nationwide. In terms of the enhancement of the homeland security, the US Congress introduced the Patriot Act of 2001. The Patriot Act of 2001 laid the foundation to considerable changes in the rights of law enforcement agencies. Legal changes introduced by the Patriot Act granted law enforcement agencies with larger surveillance, search and seizure and other critical rights, which were historically protected by the US Constitution (Van Bergen, 2004). Proponents of the Patriot Act (Wong, 2007) insisted that such legislative changes were essential to increase the homeland security and to prevent the risk of new terror attacks. Such justification of the Patriot Act contributed to the support of the Act by the majority of the population.
However, being introduced in response to terror attacks and to enhance the homeland security, the Patriot Act of 2001 has had negative side-effects on domestic policies and relations between law enforcement agencies and communities. The introduced legislative changes challenged the US Constitution, including the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments which granted the US citizens with the right to privacy and banned the illegal search and seizure.
As a result, the concern for homeland security has led the US to the re-evaluation of core concepts, such as the privacy right, the search and seizure procedures as defined by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution and others. More important, the concern for homeland security has led to the extension of rights of law enforcement agencies that currently put under a threat basic rights of the US citizens (Mailman, 2002). As law enforcement agencies have got larger opportunities to conduct surveillance, they can collect more sensitive information, including the private information concerning different individuals, even if they are not involved in any terrorist activity. Moreover, there is a risk that law enforcement agencies can collect private information on virtually any citizen, even if the citizen is not a suspect in terrorist activities.
At the same time, the implementation of exceptional measures and procedures by law enforcement agencies in response to terror attacks on 9/11 created the precedent, which grants law enforcement agencies and the US executive and legislative powers with the possibility to undertake exceptional steps and measures to prevent serious crimes in the future, even if these exceptional steps and measures violate constitutional rights and liberties of the US citizens.
Furthermore, the homeland security concern and respective legislative changes as well as changes in law enforcement policies nationwide resulted in the considerable change of relations between law enforcement agencies and local communities. Traditionally, law enforcement agencies served to interest of communities (Michaels, 2002). Their primary concern was the maintenance of the public order and prevention of crimes. At the same time, the community was always prior to law enforcement agencies in terms of community’s members rights to privacy, property and other rights granted by the US Constitution. Hence, law enforcement agencies could not conduct surveillance over community members, if they failed to undergo the complex legal procedure of obtaining the permission to conduct the surveillance. Today, this procedure has been simplified by the Patriot Act and rights of law enforcement agencies extended substantially. In such a situation, local community members turn out to be virtually defenseless and deprived of their basic rights in face of law enforcement agencies, which grow more and more powerful.
In fact, the enhancement of law enforcement agencies has widen the gap between local communities and law enforcement agencies. Traditionally, law enforcement agencies and communities interacted with each other, while communities viewed law enforcement agencies as public agencies that should be under the community’s control. However, as rights and opportunities of law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations and their operations have been extended, law enforcement agencies became more powerful, while the community control over their performance has decreased.
Moreover, law enforcement agencies have got larger opportunities to collect information on community members. Hence, the risk of misusing private information of community members has increased too because the community cannot fully control law enforcement agencies, while the latter can use private information of community members to keep them under control (Cole & Dempsey 2002). At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that information plays the crucial part in the contemporary society, while, in the future, the role of information will increase even more. If law enforcement agencies can easily access any information they need and conduct any surveillance and information collecting-related activities, then communities turn out to be under a threat. At any rate, the private information of citizens is vulnerable to the misuse by law enforcement agencies.
At the same time, the enhancement of law enforcement agencies and extension of their rights for the sake of the enhancement of the homeland security resulted in the rise of the power of law enforcement agencies, while the control over them from the part of community members is uncertain. At any rate, community members are not involved in the decision making process. More important, the public cannot monitor how law enforcement agencies use the information they collect concerning the US citizens. Communities cannot control what information law enforcement agencies collect. In other words, law enforcement agencies can survey virtually any one and any time.
In actuality, the easy access of law enforcement agencies to the private information of citizens has become the main challenge that affects the current relations between communities and law enforcement agencies raising unsurpassable barriers between them. The emerging barriers affect consistently relations between communities and law enforcement agencies. As the latter become more powerful and the former face the risk of the violation of their basic human rights granted by the US Constitution, community members start losing confidence in law enforcement agencies and their policies and activities. In such a situation, the effective interaction between communities and law enforcement agencies becomes virtually impossible, while such interaction is crucial for the effective prevention of crimes within communities and their successful and fast investigation, if crimes occur.
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the concern for homeland security has led to drastic changes in law enforcement policies in the US and relations between law enforcement agencies and communities. The Patriot Act of 2001 granted law enforcement agencies with larger rights and opportunities to enhance their performance. On the other hand, such changes put under a threat constitutional rights of the US citizens. In such a situation, the interaction between communities and law enforcement agencies deteriorates because community members lose confidence in law enforcement agencies.
