Chapter 4 Civil Liberty Notes

Chapter 4: Civil Liberty - The Bill of Rights resulted from the Framers' belief in the social contract and classical liberalism. - The Declaration of Independence, individual liberty was inherent in the human condition. It was not derived from governments or even from constitutions...

Chapter 4: Civil Liberty - The Bill of Rights resulted from the Framers' belief in the social contract and classical liberalism. - The Declaration of Independence, individual liberty was inherent in the human condition. It was not derived from governments or even from constitutions. Rather, governments and constitutions existed to make individual liberty more secure. - The authors of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) did not believe they were creating individual rights but rather recognizing and guaranteeing rights that belonged to people by virtue of their humanity. - The Bill of Rights protected the liberty of Americans against all forms of government intrusion; surprisingly, until relatively recently, many of those protections only limited intrusion from the federal government. - While states often had similar protections written into their own constitutions, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights said nothing about protection from state government. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government and not to state governments. - The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, included two important clauses that protected the liberty of the people from intrusion by state governments. - The due process clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving people of life or property without due process of law. - The equal protection clause requires that states provide equal protection under the law to all people in their jurisdiction. - The Fourteenth Amendment, particularly the due process clause, has played an important role in the incorporation of the other rights afforded under the U.S. Constitution. - The establishment clause provides for the separation of church and state. The courts have applied various standards, notably the Lemon test (Lemon v. Kurtzman), to determine whether specific activities may violate the establishment clause. Many of the cases involving this issue are related to whether prayer or other religious activities are permissible within public schools or other public venues. - The free exercise clause guarantees that people can freely practice their chosen religion. Cases related to the free exercise clause address whether people can use religious rationales to engage in activities that would otherwise be considered illegal, such as polygamy or use of hallucinogenic drugs. - Although many early American colonists came to the new land to escape religious persecution, they frequently established their own government, supported churches, and imposed their own religious beliefs on others. - The Framers of the Bill of Rights sought to prevent the new national government from establishing an official religion or interfering with religious exercises. - Freedom of religion was guaranteed in the First Amendment, which provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Religious liberty is thus usually thought of as comprising two elements. - The free exercise clause prohibits government from restricting religious beliefs or practices. - The establishment clause is interpreted to require the separation of church and state. - FISA and domestic surveillance. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 2008 does the following: - Allows the government to undertake warrantless surveillance of suspected terrorists for seven days before obtaining a FISA warrant - Allows wiretapping of international calls and intercepts of international e-mails - Removes requirements for detailed descriptions of the information sought in a request for a FISA warrant - Protects telecommunications companies from lawsuits for "past or future cooperation" with the government in electronic surveillance - The Patriot Act provides an interesting lens through which to explore the intersection of civil liberties, democracy, and security in the United States. - In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Department of Justice's first priority is to prevent future terrorist attacks. Since its passage following the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Patriot Act has played a key part---and often the leading role---in a number of successful operations to protect innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists dedicated to destroying America and our way of life.