24th Annual Bill of Rights
Art and Essay Contest, 2007-2008

TOPIC:  WARRANTLESS WIRETAPS:
              Does Government access to telephone calls and emails
              without a warrant violate the Constitution?

2nd Prize, Middle School
by C.L., an 8th-grade Pacific Grove Middle School student

The Line Between Protection and Invasion

A sequence of events following September 11th, 2001, led our government to put into motion the Patriot Act, which was initially designed to limit terrorist activities in and outside the U.S. This act allows the government to listen to phone calls and read e-mails without a warrant. Due to this power, the government and president are able to go around the system of checks and balances put in place by our constitution and thereby diminish some of our basic constitutional rights. These rights include liberty and equal protection for all people, maintaining separation of powers and protection from illegal search and seizure. We should not give up the rights upon which this country was founded, despite the president's declarations of "war on terrorism." If the president and government agencies are allowed to listen to our phone calls and read our emails now, what will the government be allowed to do in the future? Warrantless wiretapping is unreasonable search and seizure of our personal communications, bypasses the judiciary and democratic process that maintains the separation of powers and set up profiling and discrimination, thereby violating the constitutional right of liberty and equal protection.

The constitutional right of liberty and equal protection ensures Americans are afforded the same rights for all through the fourteenth amendment. When the government searches through e-mails and phone calls, they opt to select out certain words and phrases that may be mistaken for terrorist conversations. The government may also target specific individuals of certain ethnic backgrounds that are associated with terrorism, based on their own biases and assumptions, since monitoring of all people is not physically feasible. In trying to protect the greater good against the threats of terrorism, the individuals' personal rights and liberties are discarded. This is discrimination and to discriminate is not giving equal protection or liberty to all citizens.

The separation of powers is a system that ensures appropriate "due process" with a system of checks and balances. By omitting the step of obtaining a warrant, the judiciary branch of government is bypassed, giving extra and inappropriate power to law enforcement agencies. The Patriot Act was put into law by the executive branch of government without seeking the approval of the people, Legislative, or Judicial branch. The president is taking far too much power over the Legislative and Judicial branches, thus unbalancing the system. This sets up a system where actions of the government may be unreasonable or unconstitutional.

The fourth amendment states that nothing can be searched or taken from someone's property without a warrant. The process of getting a warrant requires probable cause and thereby protects us from unreasonable search and seizure. The content of a person's conversations and written messages (e-mail or otherwise) are the property of the individual person. The Patriot Act was not instituted as a democratic vote by the people and should not be used against us. Had the Patriot Act not been passed, warrantless wiretapping would be illegal.

The Patriot Act was meant to deter terrorists and terrorists' activities. As a provision of this act, warrantless searches and wiretapping are meant to be used against terrorism where time is of the essence; however, there is no question it impacs our civil rights. Many believe that it is worthwhile to relinquish some of their civil liberties in order to secure the safety if all Americans. But where do we draw the line between protection and invasion? Allowing the government to violate some of our rights may give it the opportunity to infringe upon other rights. The threat of terrorism cannot be ignored but we should not throw out the constitution in order to shield ourselves from terrorists.

As devastating as September 11th was, we should not allow the emotional response to terrorism to diminish our foundation for constitutional rights. Warrantless wiretapping is a direct violation of the fourth and fourteenth amendments, that is, unreasonable search and seizure as well as loss of liberty and equal protection without due process. In addition, having the president institute warrantless wiretapping is a breach of the separation of powers and further erodes our constitutional rights. Why do we even have rights if they are just going to be tossed aside? We must find other ways to deal with the war on terrorism while maintaining our constitutional rights and clearly define the line between protection and invasion.