Counter-Terror Policies Infringe Citizen's Privacy Essay

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U.S. counter-terrorism policies negatively affected individual rights and liberties of law-Abiding U.S. citizens

US counterterrorism efforts have adversely affected human rights in ways that alarmists had warned. There is a significant degree of government interference for the purposes of security. The most criticized effects relating to civil rights are the operations of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) across the U.S. Some of the tactics employed have entrapped human rights as they provide detonators, explosives and other equipment. In such sting operations, individuals are always charged for attempting to acquire illegal firearms and explosives or smuggling. This enables the government to exercise tight control over its citizens by denying them the right to own any firearm. The practice exists on a thin line between protecting the rights of the innocent and protecting civilians (Howell & Lind, 2010).

After the September 11 attack, the federal embraced a range of actions to curtail political freedoms and civil liberties. At this time, the government explained that those actions were meant to help safeguard the country and its population from more attacks. The understanding is that the counterterrorism policies, including the torture during interrogations, mistreatment of prisoners and the rendition of arrested terrorist suspects backfired. The impacts of these intentional policy decisions include the massive deaths of detainees and multiple procedural challenges to prosecuting arrested terrorist suspects in the U.S. All these have served to degrade America's image as a leader in the advocacy of world human rights and discourage other governments from participating in the fight on terror. According to Amnesty International, all these destroyed the human rights of ordinary people (Howell & Lind, 2010). Consequently, it has made the world a more dangerous place.

Most of media coverage focuses on terror and interrogation techniques. One of the sophisticated statistical studies concludes that the terror attacks have led to more government killings and disappearances, as well as government's curbing freedom of speech. Domestic and transnational terrorist activities have prompted the government to deploy counter-terrorism practices to repress civil liberties.

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America's crackdowns on human rights offer both actual and potential terrorists with more grievances and hence, more motivational for terror. With such increased levels of repression, the U.S. risks heightened chances of terrorism attacks. From this perspective, counter-terrorism policies have incentivized the government to restrict human rights. As a result, these restrictions on human rights have backfired as they have reduced international counter-terrorism cooperation, hence, causing more terror besides creating a vicious cycle in the U.S. (Tsang, 2008). The American government needs the cooperation and support of the international community in efforts to counter terrorism. In order to acquire and sustain this cooperation, the current government requires global public opinion on its inside.

Evidently, the U.S. human rights restrictions and abuses adopted as ways of enhancing national security have attracted global outcries because the supposed counter-terrorism policies infringe people's privacy. The closest democratic allies of the U.S. (Australia and UK) are under pressure from their citizens to keep a distance from U.S. counterterrorism policies and practices. Limited changes have been made to counter-terrorism policies in response to such pressure. State cooperation in activities that engaged egregious human rights violations has reduced over time because those violations have become politically salient (Tsang, 2008). Intelligence officials in European nations viewed the harsh interrogation techniques as counterproductive because they worsened the process of forming human intelligence sources.

Terrorism affects the functioning of the society and basic human rights just as the measures embraced to counter the menace. Because terrorism seriously affects a range of fundamental human rights, states must adopt the appropriate counter-terrorism measures. Human rights protection and effective counter-terrorism measures mutually reinforce objectives that the government must satisfy while protecting its citizens.

One recommendation from the UN report and challenges to implementing the recommendation

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"Counter-Terror Policies Infringe Citizen's Privacy" (2014, June 06) Retrieved April 28, 2024, from
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