Your Safety and Security or Your Civil Liberties - Which is More Important?
By Lisa Prososki, an independent education consultant and former middle school and high school Social Studies, English, Reading, and Technology teacher

Subjects: Government, civics, social studies

Lesson Objectives

Students will:

• Understand the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and the controversies that led the ACLU to take legal action against the legislation.
• Formulate opinions based on reasons, facts, examples, and individual ideas.
• Share and debate opinions during class discussions.
• Create, conduct, and document the results of a survey related to the USA PATRIOT Act and the controversies surrounding the legislation. Students will develop survey questions, formulate a plan for conducting the survey, be provided with guidelines for calculating survey results, use software to document survey findings, and be provided with public forums to present survey results to their peers/community.
• Share the results of their surveys with others.

Estimated time of Completion: One to two class periods plus additional time for the extension activities

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.

Correlations to National Standards

Materials Needed

1. Background information: Online NewsHour transcript, "The USA PATRIOT Act" found at:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/homeland/patriotact.html

2. Background information: NewsHour Extra story, "USA Patriot Act Sparks Controversy" found at:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec03/patriotact_9-17.html

3. Background information: ACLU News article, "ACLU Files First-Ever Challenge to USA PATRIOT Act, Citing Radical Expansion of FBI Powers" found at: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13249&c=206

4. Background information: Online NewsHour transcript, "Considering the Patriot Act" with former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh and Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union, on the Patriot Act and the balance between security and freedom in America. Found at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec03/patriot_8-19.html

5. Computers with word processing and spreadsheet/graphing software such as Word and Excel to be used for creating surveys, tabulating results, and documenting results in the form of various types of graphs.

Procedures

1. Create student interest by writing the following statements on the board or overhead:

• 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.

2. Without previous discussion, reveal each statement to students and read it aloud. Ask students to respond on scratch paper by writing the words Agree or Disagree in connection with each statement. In addition, they should write a short explanation about why they agree or disagree.

3. When all four statements have been addressed, facilitate a class discussion about each of them. Encourage students to share their opinions and support them with reasons, facts, and examples that they are familiar with. Encourage students to challenge and debate one another's ideas.

4. Close discussion by explaining to students that these issues, among others, are a large part of the debate that surrounds the USA PATRIOT Act that was passed as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

5. Review the USA PATRIOT Act with students by providing them with background information about it. The following Web site provides excellent details about the act and its provisions.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/homeland/patriotact.html you could also have the students read an introduction to the topic, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec03/patriotact_9-17.html

6. Introduce students to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU in relation to the USA PATRIOT Act. Review the basics of the case that is before the courts including the ACLU's reasons for challenging the act. Information can be found at the ACLU Web site: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13249&c=206. Discuss the ACLU's case and reasons why people would react so strongly to the impact that the USA PATRIOT Act has on the average American's civil liberties.

7. Next, give students the opportunity to hear opposition to the ACLU's point of view by directing them to the Online NewsHour transcript featuring former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh on the Patriot Act and the balance between security and freedom in America. This link is found at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec03/patriot_8-19.html. Allow students to read/see/hear specific arguments supporting the USA PATRIOT Act from Viet Dinh and discuss the misconceptions or confusion surrounding certain provisions of the act such as the "Sneak and Peek" aspect of the legislation.

8. Go back to the four statements presented in Step 1. Ask students to re-examine their responses to the statements. Have any of their opinions changed? Why or why not? Continue the discussion by posing questions like:

• Which is more important, providing domestic security against terrorism or preserving the civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution? Why?
• How would you feel if you were directly affected by some of the new powers granted under the USA PATRIOT Act (i.e. wiretaps, access to personal records)?

9. Encourage students to find out how other students/citizens feel about the effects of the USA PATRIOT Act by having them create and conduct a survey related to it. Help students formulate their survey questions and discuss how surveys will be conducted. Provide students with procedures for calculating and documenting the results of their survey and a means to present their findings for public viewing. For example, students might develop 3-5 survey questions, conduct surveys orally or by using some sort of written checklist, record results on a check list of some sort, and then document results using pie graphs, line graphs, etc. Results could then be posted in the school newspaper or Web site or around the classroom until the unit of study is completed.

Extension Activities

1. Have students examine other times in history when the government has implemented policies that some would consider an invasion of privacy or threat to individual civil liberties. Some examples might include the Citizen's Committee to Investigate the FBI that was formed during the 1970s (documents showed the FBI had investigated leaders such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and others) or the COINTELPRO of the 1950s (designed to investigate and provide counterintelligence against groups such as the American Communist Party, civil rights groups/leaders, and anti-war groups), or the censoring of personal mail during the WWII Era. Have students use graphic organizers such as Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast the historical event and what is currently happening with the USA PATRIOT Act.

2. Provide students with the opportunity to share their opinions about the USA PATRIOT Act by having them complete a creative activity designed to get their point of view out to others. This could include creating a poster or bumper sticker, writing a letter to the editor or their Congressional representative, creating a political cartoon or collage, or writing a poem or song. Encourage students to share their work by presenting and or displaying it in the classroom.

Standards
This lesson addresses the following national content standards found at http://www.mcrel.org

McREL Compendium of K-12 Standards Addressed:

Civics

Standard 3: Understands the sources, purposes, and functions of law and the importance of the rule of law for the protection of individual rights and the common good.

Standard 15: Understands how the United States Constitution grants and distributes power and responsibilities to national and state government and how it seeks to prevent the abuse of power.

Standard 18: Understands the role and importance of law in the American constitutional system and issues regarding the judicial protection of individual rights.

Thinking and Reasoning

Standard 1: Understands and applies the basic principles of presenting an argument.

Language Arts (Listening and Speaking)

Standard 8: Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes.

Writing

Standard 4: Gathers and uses information for research purposes.

Mathematics

Standard 3: Uses basic and advanced procedures while performing the processes of computation.

Standard 6: Understands and applies basic and advanced concepts of statistics and data analysis.

About the Author Lisa Prososki is an independent education consultant who taught middle school and high school social studies, English, reading, and technology courses for twelve years. Prososki has worked with PBS TeacherSource and has authored and edited many lesson plans for various PBS programs over the past eight years. In addition to conducting workshops for teachers at various state and national meetings, Prososki works as an editor, creates a wide range of educational materials for corporate clients, and has authored one book.