Good and Evil

M. C. Escher - "Circle Limit IV"

close your eyes, picture the image

does your mind's eye see the many white angels dancing about the dark heavens?

Or do you see the many black demons?

Once aware between good and evil, you can not see only one and not the other.

• What makes human behavior work?

• What determines human thought and action?

• What makes some of us lead moral, righteous lives, while others seem to slip easily into immorality and crime?

• Is there anything that anyone has ever done that you are absolutely certain you could never be compelled to do?

• How well do you know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses?

• Does your self knowledge come from reviewing your behavior in familiar situations OR from being exposed to totally new settings where your old habits are challenged?

• How well do you know the people with whom you interact daily: your family, friends, classmates, significant other?

We KNOW ourselves from limited experiences and situations – go to school, pay bills, vacation

What happens when we are exposed to totally new and unfamiliar settings where our habits don’t suffice?

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - review for September 7th

"This May be True in Theory, but it does not Apply in Practice”

What are human rights?

Why should anyone ever want or need human rights?

What happens if we do not have them?

If not all human rights are equal, which ones deserve primacy?

Class Activity - Where Do You Stand?

Materials:

- A set of Decision Cards for each group of 3 to 5 players. (Your group will write the statements on the index cards - Decision Card statements are listed below.)

- A game board, drawn on a large sheet of paper - The game board contains three concentric rectangles:

the rectangle in the center of the board is marked: IN EVERY CASE the second rectangle (moving outward) is marked: IN MOST CASES the third rectangle is marked: IN SOME CASES.

- A large sheet of paper for each group and markers for groups to record their lists of rights

Decision Card statements:

1. Killing is wrong.

2. It is wrong to keep someone else as a slave.

3. After a certain age, people should be able to marry whomever they choose.

4. People should be allowed to say or write what they wish.

5. All people should be treated equally. It should not depend on such things as their gender, appearance, or the country they come from.

6. People in prison should be told why they are being held.

7. People should be allowed to criticize the government.

8. People should be allowed to talk to and meet anyone they wish.

9. It is wrong to force a person to work.

10. A person accused of a crime should be tried by someone who has nothing to do with the case.

11. People should be allowed to travel and leave their country if they wish.

12. Private letters and telephone calls should not be intercepted.

13. People should be allowed to have, or not have, whatever religious beliefs they wish.

14. All people have a right to belong to a country.

15. All people have the right to medical help if they are ill.

16. All people have a right to education. Parents have the right to choose the kind of education to be given to their children.

Playing the Game:

Step 1: Create a group of 3 to 5 players and write the Decision Card Statements on the index cards. [Note: An odd number of players makes it somewhat easier to reach consensus.] One person in the group should deal out all the cards. It doesn’t matter if some people get more cards than others.

Step 2: Without talking to anyone else, each person reads through their cards and places each one face up, where she/he thinks it should go on the board. For example, if one of the cards says: Torture is wrong, and the person thinks that torture is wrong in every case, she/he should place the card face up in the center rectangle. If she/he feels it is wrong in most cases, he places the card in the middle rectangle. If she/he thinks it is wrong only in some cases, he places it in the outermost rectangle.

Step 3: When everyone in the group has decided where to place his/her cards on the board, still without talking, everyone looks carefully at the cards that have been placed on the board by the other members of the group. If a player feels that a card has been placed in the wrong section, she/he turns it over so that it is now face down on the board.

Step 4: When everyone has had a chance to consider each of the cards on the board, the cards that have not been turned over are those on which the group agrees.

Step 5: Each group now looks together at each of the cards which are face down. The group’s job now is to reach consensus (a group decision) on where each of these cards should go. (In each case the group might want to find out who put the card in this section of the board and who turned it over.)

Step 6: The cards in the center of the board describe rights which all believe should apply to everyone – no matter who they are, regardless of age, gender, religion, etc. – in all circumstances. These comprise the group’s list of human rights. On the large sheet of paper provided, each group should use the markers to make a list of these rights.

Step 7: The group now looks at the cards in the other two sections of the board (“in most cases” and “in some cases”) and examines the language of these cards, looking for ways to re-write the language in such a way that these cards too can be moved to the center section (“in every case”). If such language can be found and consensus reached to move the cards, these statements are also added to the list of human rights.

Step 8: Groups will share their list with the class.

Assignment

The Cancer of Human Rights - Due Sept. 9th

• Summarize the thesis and evidence

• Explain the importance of the evidence

• Evaluate/assess the effectiveness of the evidence

• Form questions that can extend your understanding and ideas.

Can as Gentry suggests, the pursuit of human rights go too far, even up to the point of endangering the stability of the entire community?

The Patriot Act:

What Is the Proper Balance Between National Security and Individual Rights?

Congress passed the Patriot Act shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Did this law go too far in the name of national security?

Terrorists struck America on September 11, 2001. Highjacking four planes, they flew two of them into the World Trade Center towers in New York and another into the Pentagon in Washington. The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania before it reached its target in Washington. Within two hours, both of the massive 110-story twin towers had collapsed. A wing of the Pentagon was severely damaged. More than 3,000 people died in the attacks. Two days later, the White House identified the culprits as members of Al Qaeda, an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group based in Afghanistan but with terrorist cells throughout the world. The hijackers had worked out of Al Qaeda terrorist cells operating in the United States. No one knew whether more terrorist attacks were coming.

Soon after September 11, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft brought before Congress a list of recommended changes in the law to combat terrorism. Some of these measures had long been opposed by members of Congress as infringing on the rights of Americans.

But September 11 had swept away all previous objections. The U.S. Senate quickly passed the USA PATRIOT ACT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism). Only one senator, Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), voted against it.

The next day, the House of Representatives passed the bill 357-66. The final bill was 342 pages long and changed more than 15 existing laws. Most of the Justice Department's recommendations were incorporated into it, but several provisions will expire in 2005.

On October 26, President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law. He praised the "new tools to fight the present danger . . . a threat like no other our Nation has ever faced." He also asserted that the Patriot Act "upholds and respects the civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution."

The Patriot Act defines "domestic terrorism" as activities within the United States that . . . involve acts dangerous to human life that. . . appear to be intended--

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. . . .

The Patriot Act and Privacy

Some of the most controversial parts of the Patriot Act surround issues of privacy and government surveillance. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . ." It requires law-enforcement officers to obtain warrants before making most searches. To get a warrant, officers must make sworn statements before a judge "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The judge may only issue a search warrant if officers show "probable cause" that the person is engaged in criminal activity. Federal law requires that officers report to the court on the results of the search.

Surveillance such as wiretaps and physical searches requires officers to prove "probable cause" of criminality. Even before the Patriot Act, there were exceptions under federal law.

One was for so-called "pen-trap" orders. To obtain from a telephone company the numbers dialed to and from a particular telephone, officers must get a pen-trap order from a judge. They do not need to show probable cause, but must certify that the information is needed for an ongoing criminal investigation. The reason for the lesser standard is that these records are far less intrusive than wiretaps and physical searches.

Another major exception was for matters before the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court. Congress created the court in 1978 following scandals revealing that U.S. intelligence agencies had spied on hundreds of thousands of American citizens, most notably the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

The court was a compromise between those who wanted to leave U.S. intelligence agencies free from any restrictions and those who wanted intelligence agencies to apply for search warrants like other law-enforcement agencies. Congress required U.S. intelligence agencies (the FBI and National Security Agency) to apply for warrants for wiretaps and other surveillance on foreign governments and suspected foreign agents. But because the agencies are not investigating domestic crime, they do not have to meet the probable cause standard. They only have to certify that the purpose of the investigation is to track a foreign government or agent. They do not have to report to the court on the results of the surveillance. The court meets in secret with only government representatives present and has never denied an intelligence agency's application for a search warrant.

The Patriot Act expands all these exceptions to the probable-cause requirement. Section 215 of the act permits the FBI to go before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for an order to search for "any tangible things" connected to a terrorism suspect. The order would be granted as long as the FBI certifies that the search is "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities [spying]." But the FBI would not need to meet the stronger standard of probable cause.

The Patriot Act now authorizes this court to issue search orders directed at any U.S. citizen who the FBI believes may be involved in terrorist activities. Such activities may, in part, even involve First Amendment protected acts such as participating in non-violent public protests.

In Section 215, "any tangible things" may include almost any kind of property--such as books, documents, and computers. The FBI may also monitor or seize personal records held by public libraries, bookstores, medical offices, Internet providers, churches, political groups, universities, and other businesses and institutions.

The Patriot Act prohibits third parties served with Section 215 orders such as Internet providers and public librarians to inform anyone that the FBI has conducted a search of their records.

Section 216 of the Patriot Act extends pen-trap orders to include e-mail and web browsing. The FBI can ask Internet service providers to turn over a log of the web sites a person visits and the addresses of e-mail coming to and from the person's computer.

Another area of concern is Section 213 of the Patriot Act. It authorizes so-called "sneak- and-peek" searches for all federal criminal investigations. When applying for a search warrant, officers may show that there is "reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification . . . may have an adverse result." If the judge approves, then the FBI can delay notifying a citizen about the search for a "reasonable period." Thus, the FBI may search a citizen's home or business in secret. The FBI says these searches may be necessary to prevent the destruction of evidence or to keep from jeopardizing an ongoing secret investigation.

The Debate Over the Patriot Act

According to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, three states (Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont) and 149 cities, towns and counties have passed resolutions protesting provisions of the Patriot Act. In response to criticism of the act, Congress may be having some second thoughts. The House of Representatives voted 309-118 to repeal "sneak- and-peek" searches. In the Senate, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have introduced the Rights of Individuals Act. This is a comprehensive bill, addressing a number of issues related to the Patriot Act. One part of the Murkowski-Wyden bill would limit "sneak and peek" searches. Those whose homes or offices had been searched under "sneak and peek" would have to be notified within seven calendar days.

Attorney General Ashcroft and other Americans defend the Patriot Act. "We are at war," Ashcroft says, "and we have to do things differently than we did before." He points out that the only purpose of the Patriot Act is "to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction." Ashcroft also argues that the courts and Congress still safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans.

Public opinion has consistently supported the Patriot Act. An August 2003 Gallup Poll asked whether the Patriot Act goes too far, is about right, or doesn't go far enough in restricting people's civil liberties. Only 21 percent responded that it goes too far. Fifty-five percent said it is about right, and 19 percent answered that it does not go far enough.

In June 2003, the attorney general called for another law to further strengthen the powers of law enforcement to fight terrorists. Called "Patriot Act II" by critics, the proposed new law would, among other things, enable the government to ask a court to revoke the citizenship of any American who provides "material support" to terrorists.

The courts are just beginning to review the constitutionality of the Patriot Act. In the first major legalchallenge to the Patriot Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in July 2003 against Section 215 searches. The suit argues

that these searches violate the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures as well as First Amendment freedoms of speech and association.

In a report called "Unpatriotic Acts," the ACLU warned that American freedom was endangered by the Patriot Act:

Section 215 is likely to chill lawful dissent. If people think that their conversations, their emails, and their reading habits are being monitored, people will feel less comfortable saying what they think--especially if they disagree with government policies.

In a Washington Post opinion piece, Heather MacDonald, a writer at the Manhattan Institute, defended the Patriot Act. She countered the ACLU by stressing that Section 215 requires a court order. She said there was no reason for anyone to feel "afraid to read books" or "terrified into silence." "Were that ever the case, it would be thanks to the misinformation spread by advocates and politicians, not because of any real threat posed by" the Patriot Act.

It will be quite some time before cases like the ACLU lawsuit will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The basic question that the court will have to answer is: What is the proper balance between national security and protecting individual rights?

The members of each group should discuss and then decide whether to support or oppose the following parts of the Patriot Act:

1. Section 213 "sneak-and-peek" searches of a person's property.

2. Section 215 orders by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for searches of a citizen's "tangible things" based on FBI certification rather than probable cause.

3. Section 215 searches of a citizen's public library records.

4. Section 215 requirement that third parties like librarians are prohibited from informing anyone an FBI search has taken place.

What role should support of human rights play in the foreign policy of the United States?

Should Human Rights be given more or less emphasis in a post-September 11 world?

Should states make it their business to intervene against other states in matters of human rights?

• Overall, has this technology had a positive or negative effect on human rights? How?

• In what ways does this technology strengthen human rights? For whom?

• Which groups are strengthened by this technology? Do they share any common features?

• In what ways does this technology weaken human rights? For whom?

• Which groups are weakened by this technology? Do they share any common features?

• Does the effect of this technology differ for different groups of people, based on their class, gender, race, disability, age, or geographic location?

• If this technology weakens human rights, how could its application be changed in order to promote human rights?

• Does this technology create any human rights conflicts (e.g., one person’s right to privacy vs. another’s right to information)?