U.S Constitution and Ethical

U.S Constitution and Ethical

The role of the criminal justice system in counteracting terrorist attacks is a challenging one. The primary aim of counter-terrorism approaches should be to preclude terrorist incidents from happening. In some circumstances, law enforcement agencies can prevent terrorism from happening while maintaining constitutional ethics. In this submission, we will use the following case scenario; there has been communication breakdown for 2 hours in Washington DC; two bombs blow up in the senate, leaving ten members injured.

The Patriot Act legislation of 2001 is an enactment passed to improve law enforcement’s abilities to detect and deter terrorism (McCarthy, 2002).In the case scenario, the terrorist attack will affect the law enforcement powers and due process within the courts based on the following regulations as laid down by the Patriot Act.

First, the law enforcement agencies will be granted an opportunity to apply surveillance systems against several other terrorist attacks, gathering more data when examining in a broader view of the terrorist attack. This way, it offers the agencies to find more information on terrorist activities related to the attack. This permission is also provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) to supervise surveillance requests on crime or terrorism activities in the country. Secondly, the agents could apply to a court to seek permission to employ similar tactics used by the terrorists in the above scenario. Such tactics could include thwarting scrutiny by rapidly changing location and communication to identify the attackers. Third, the Act allows federal agents to seek access to business records of any alleged terrorist for the Act. This action enables the federal agents to examine and find a key to solve various crimes related to the attack. .

Criminal justice systems have managed to solve prevailing challenges effectively with improvised illegal approaches that are keen on international human rights instruments as well as normative standards.  All these acts genuinely reflect the principles of legal actions and constitutional ethics.

Reference

McCarthy, M. T. (2002). USA patriot act.https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hjl39&div=21&id=&page=