The Patriot Act is completely unconstitutional and should be repealed immediately!

"Before I begin, I politely request that those who vote on this debate make their decision based on which debater won the argument rather than your own beliefs pertaining to the Patriot Act." I completely agree and would ask no differently from everyone voting. "The key phrase there is dangerous to human life. You give the examples of stopping a meeting or traffic, both examples clearly not being dangerous to human life and therefore are not labeled as terrorism under the Patriot Act by your definition. Also, if the Act so severely cut down on civil disobedience, then why is it that since 2001 when the Patriot Act was passed, there have been progressively more riots against President Bush's policies? If the Patriot act was as you have described, such events would not have taken place nor would they have increased in number, proving that the Act does not violate the constitutional right of freedom of assembly." I'll concede this argument, it was the weakest to begin with. "In my opponent's second argument he says that the Patriot Act violates due process of law. While the Yaser Hamdi case was clearly a mistake, but I think it is important to look at the amount of time he was held. If he was held for 3 years, the government wouldn't just have him sit there and have no investigation. Clearly an investigation taking place over a 3 year period would mean that there was something that made it possible for him to be guilty that needed to be looked into. He wouldn't have been held for that long and the investigation wouldn't have gone on that long if his innocence was as apparent as you say." The only "evidence" they had against him was that he was picked up in Afghanistan; however, that in no way justifies the trampling of the Writ of Habeas Corpus which he petitioned for many times and it took a case in front of the Supreme Court to release him. "My opponent discuss aliens were denied due process, but since they are not U.S. citizens they do not have the right to due process that a U.S. citizen does. You cannot attack the Patriot Act for denying them a right that they did not possess in the first place. I must respectfully say that my opponent's statement: "Due process of law ensures protection to every person in this country regardless of origin or citizenship status" is false; the rights granted by the constitution only pertain to citizens of the United States. We do not have a constitutional amendment granting rights to every person on the planet; it only pertains to citizens of this country." That is where you are wrong. According to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, "courts have consistently held that 'the Due Process Clause applies to all persons within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent,'" (source-http://www.bordc.org...). Due Process is a right of all people here, according to the courts. "In my opponent's final argument you discuss National Security letters. You do not address the process that comes before the extensive investigation your case outlines. It starts with INTERNATIONAL phone calls being monitored by machines (not people) searching for keywords. If enough key words are found that would suggest suspicious activity then and only then would a government agent look into it. My opponent even states: "The only requirement to issue a National Security Letter, in fact, is that the sought-after information is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" If the information being obtained was relevant to the investigation then the investigation would go more smoothly; allowing the innocent people to be released faster and the guilty to be caught faster, so you can turn this argument in my favor." In actuality there are a number of ways that you can be tracked and your right to privacy stripped from your being. One way is if you simply make a phone call to any person in any place in the middle east. Whereas the government used to use physical evidence or probably cause they use very vague language to be able to put virtually any citizen under investigation. If they say that the citizen could relate to an investigation they can tap your phone, take your medical records, find out what church and political organizations you belong to, look through your email, search the websites you view, and many more things that make you completely transparent to the outside world. It's also DOMESTIC phone calls, they can wiretap pretty much anyone without a warrant under this law. The fact is that we as people who cherish our right to privacy and our protection from illegal searches and seizures should demand that our government return to physical evidence and probably cause as their requirements for taking away our rights. The government has overstepped it's bounds in many ways and this is one of the most egregious of them. "It is important to understand why such a thing is necessary and just how much the Patriot Act has benefited our country. Phone tapping has been crucial to stopping the many terrorist plots that have arisen...terrorists were going to blow up 10 planes coming across the Atlantic to the United States. It was by the use of wiretapping that this attack was prevented. In these cases there is not always time to go through lengthy procedures; action has to be taken in order to prevent such a horrible thing from occurring... If the Patriot Act was repealed we would not be able to defend ourselves as efficiently as we have in the past and it would cause the lives of an untold number of innocent people. My opponent offers no other means of foiling these plots and I have proven how the Patriot Act has been a successful means of doing so." No, what is most important is to understand why we were attacked last time and what the problem was. In each of these terrorism cases we have more than enough warning to tell us when and where they will attack. I will use 9/11 as an example. The only thing hindering us from stopping the attack was poor communication between the separate agencies. There were several times that the exact name of the pilot was reported to the government but because of bureaucratic incompetence we failed to properly investigate and catch those villains. We have since put all the agencies under the umbrella organization of the Department of Homeland Security, problem solved. The problem is rarely if ever lack of information, thanks to informants that is never the case examples being the New Jersey plots, the Fort Fox plots, and the Miami cell plots. Furthermore, it is never right to trade liberty for security I will reiterate my quote here, "Those who are willing to give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security" - Benjamin Franklin. I think as a founding father of these United States he would know a little bit about what this nation's priorities should be. "I have successfully refuted my opponent's claims and proven the great protection the Patriot Act has provided for us. For these reasons, I negate the statement that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional and should be repealed immediately." The Patriot Act has created a witch hunt and in fact distracts the government from spending the time to investigate real cases. Now the government wastes time, man power, and resources tracking citizens cell phone calls and piling the results into databases. The Patriot Act and all of it's unconstitutional acts distract the government from following real evidence, and it is in fact harmful to both the citizen and the War on Terror. The Act tramples on the constituion as it violates the 5th Amendment (Due Process), 4th amendment (Protection from illegal searches and seizures), 8th amendment (allows for "enhanced interrogation techniques which clearly amount to torture), the Writ of Habeas Corpus and many others that I will outline further at a later juncture.