US Responses after 9/11

Random Fact

​SEARS once sold houses.

SEARS once offered kit houses that you would have to assemble yourself. The original instruction manual was 75 pages long. This was much before every city and state in the U.S had Walmart.

US Responses after 9/11

Learning Target

I can Identify the steps taken by the United States following the events of 9/11 by
the end of the lesson

Global War on Terror

-After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, President Bush
announced a comprehensive plan to seek out and stop terrorist around the world

Key points of that plan:

●Destroy al- Qaeda’s grip on Afghanistan by driving the Taliban from power

●Disrupt al- Qaeda’s global operations and terrorist financing networks

●Destroy al- Qaeda terrorist training camps

●Help innocent people of Afghanistan recover from the Taliban’s reign of terror

●Help Afghans put aside long-standing differences to form a new interim
government that represents all Afghans

Tried to achieve this through:

● Diplomacy
● Freezing of terrorist finances
● Military Campaign

Homeland Security

-
Homeland Security Act, U.S. legislation signed into law by President

George W. Bush on November 25, 2002, that established the Department

of Homeland Security (DHS) as a new department in the executive

branch of the government and established a number of measures aimed

at protecting the national security of the United States

-Created in 2002 and assumed control several agencies responsible
for domestic security and emergency preparedness.

Agencies included:

●Customs Service and Border Patrol
(now U.S. Customs and Border
Protection)

●The Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA)

●Transportation Security Administration
(TSA)

●The Secret Service

●The Coast Guard

The Patriot Act

The Patriot Act is legislation passed in 2001 to improve the
abilities of U.S. law enforcement to detect and deter
terrorism. The act’s official title is, “Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism,” or USA-PATRIOT. Though the
Patriot Act was modified in 2015 to help ensure the
Constitutional rights of ordinary Americans, some provisions
of the law remain controversial.

10 Highlights of the Patriot Act

According to the Department of Justice, the Patriot Act simply expanded the application
of tools already being used against drug dealers and organized crime. The act aimed to
improve homeland security by:

●Government can-access personal information, such as: medical, mental health, financial, and
education records.

●Government can more easily conduct secret searches and telephone and Internet surveillance.

●Government can obtain library records, and prohibiting librarians telling people the spying is taking
place.

●Government has the power to label groups, including religious and political organizations, as “terrorist
organizations.”

●Government can jail individual indefinitely (no end in sight) on suspicion alone.

●Government allowed males of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent to be profiled as potential
terrorists, without any links to illegal behavior.

●The Government granting the Attorney General the power to deport foreigners- even if they are not
accused of a crime.

●Granting the Attorney General the power to jail citizens-designated as “enemy combatants”-without
access to an attorney fair trial.

●Allowed eavesdropping on confidential communications between lawyers and their clients who are in
federal custody.

●Allowed agents to conduct so called “sneak and peek” or “black bag” searches, in which the subject of
the search warrant is not notified that his property is or will be searched.

Patriot Act & Privacy Debate

Despite the supposed noble intentions behind the Patriot Act, the law is still hotly debated. Civil

rights groups have claimed it violates American citizens’ Constitutional rights and allows the
government to spy on them without due process, search their homes without consent and

increase the risk of ordinary citizens being accused of crimes without just cause.

The federal government asserts the Patriot Act has safeguards to protect the rights of American

citizens. Still, some parts of the law were found illegal by the courts. For instance, in 2015 the

United States of Appeals for the Second Circuit found Section 215 of the Patriot Act could not be

used to validate the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.

Significant Amendments

4th

Protects people

from law

enforcement
entering their

home without their
permission or an

order from the
court called a
search warrant.

5th

Persons cannot be

made to testify

against themselves in

a criminal trial. A
person cannot be

tried more than once
for that same crime.

People’s property

cannot be taken away

without their being

paid for it.

6th

Requires a person

accused of a crime to

receive a speedy

public trial by a jury.

This did not happen in

England during this
time. People were
held in jail for years
before their trial and

often the trial was

held in secret.

9th

Some of the

delegates thought

that if a right was not
listed in their Bill of
Rights, it might be
interpreted to mean
that the people did
not have that right.
Protects the rights
people have though

not listed in the

Constitution.

1st

Allows people to

establish and practice
their religion freely, and
to speak their ideas and
opinions. It protects the
rights of its citizens to
hold meetings and to

petition the government.

It gives the press

(newspapers,

magazines) the right to
publish the news and

ideas.