Question

1. What is the difference between civil rights and civil liberties?

2. Select three important civil rights or civil liberties to discuss. Explain their histories and importance.

3. Are there any civil rights or civil liberties that you believe need to be expanded? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

Question 1)

Civil rights refer to legal provisions that stem from notions of equality. Civil rights are not in the Bill of Rights; they deal with legal protections. For example, the right to vote is a civil right. A civil liberty, on the other hand, refers to personal freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights. For example, the First Amendment's right to free speech is a civil liberty.

Question 2)

Most laws guaranteeing and regulating civil rights originate at the federal level, through federal legislation such as the following laws:

• Age Discrimination Act of 1975 - Prohibits discrimination on the basis of age in programs and activities that receive federal assistance such as educational programs, health care services, housing, welfare, food stamps, and rehabilitation programs.
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) - Prohibits discrimination against job applicants and employees over the age of 40 in terms of compensation, advancement opportunities, and other employment conditions.
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - Prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability (real and perceived) in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications.

Many important events involving discrimination against African Americans proceeded the era known as the Civil Rights Movement. The importation and enslavement of Africans marked the beginning of the black experience in America. In 1808, there was a ban on the import of slaves. The prohibition was in vein because the trade continued. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln officially ended slavery. However, the proclamation could not instantly transform attitudes of many citizens or the legacy of a country that had considered African Americans as less than human. In 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation was confirmed by the 13 th amendment of the Constitution which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude. In 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson established a policy of separate but equal accommodations for African Americans. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, presented by Thurgood Marshall, overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. It was an important step in initiating integration. In 1957, the governor of Arkansas attempted to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the court order. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 protected the freedom of African Americans to vote. In 1960, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal in interstate bus and train stations. A group of citizens called Freedom Riders tested this ruling by traveling throughout the southern portion of the country on buses. The Freedom Riders encountered violence in Alabama. President Kennedy intervened to ensure their safety. In 1962, President Kennedy sent federal troops to the University of Mississippi so that rioters would not prevent James Meredith, the school's first black student, from attending. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination in public places and by any program that receives federal government funding. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a U.S. government agency that takes employment discrimination complaints to court, in an effort to enforce laws that prohibit job discrimination. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspended the use of voter qualification tests, creating a sharp increase in black voter registration. These tests had been used to disqualify African Americans from their voting rights.

Civil liberties are defined as rights guaranteed to the people by the United States Constitution and by court-made law or legislation. These liberties allow us to speak out freely against our government, express our opinions, organize protests and worship in whatever way we choose. It was important to the early settlers that we have these liberties in order to be protected from unnecessary government intrusion. These liberties are included in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, and include the right to privacy, the freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.

The historical backdrop of common freedoms in America, similar to the historical backdrop of social equality, is an account of battle. Indeed, even in peacetime, Americans continually haggle between the requests of freedom and the requests of request and security. In any case, in the midst of public crisis, the contention between these requests turns out to be especially serious and the general cases of request and security normally become stronger. Civil freedoms are not a blessing from the express that the state can pull back when they become badly designed. They are the result of constant exertion, which has reached out more than two centuries and must proceed into a third–in perilous occasions just as in quiet ones–if individual flexibility is to stay a crucial aspect of our public life.

It is important for our public folklore that the composers of the Constitution ensured common freedoms to all Americans through the Bill of Rights, and that we are the recipients of their astuteness. In any case, during the ½rst century and a greater amount of the historical backdrop of the United States, the Bill of Rights had generally little effect on the lives of most American residents. Far reaching infringement of common freedoms that by present day norms would appear to be especially abusive motivated one researcher, commenting on the early history of the Bill of Rights, to depict it as "140 Years of Silence." Even disregarding the heinous infringement of rights and freedoms delivered on both oppressed and free African Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, and numerous different gatherings of foreigners, and the standard constraints of the privileges of ladies, the abstracts of common freedoms were serious and schedule. Nearby governments regularly prohibited books, controlled papers, and in any case policed "shocking" or "impious" discourse. Networks authorized unbending guidelines of public propriety and conduct and regularly condemned whimsical lead. The lawful privileges of the denounced in criminal preliminaries had not many viable assurances, and compliance to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments was regularly token or nonexistent. Opportunity of religion didn't generally stretch out to Catholics, Jews, nonconformist, rationalists, or nonbelievers; and such individuals had no assurance against segregation in instruction, occupations, and even spot of home. It would be a lot to state the Bill of Rights was a vacant shell during the nineteenth century. Things would most likely have been more terrible without it. However, to a huge degree it stayed contentless without mainstream, authoritative, and legal help which were all irregular and frequently hesitant for over a hundred years. Our advanced idea of common freedoms was, actually, not brought into the world with the production of the Bill of Rights. A more significant defining moment may have been American inclusion in World War I, which cultivated probably the most horrifying infringement of common freedoms in our set of experiences and, by implication, a portion of the main fiery protections of them.

Question 3)

Privacy has for quite some time been regarded as a major right of free individuals.Law on the privilege to security has gotten snared in an obscure web of spreads and obscurations.
A better foundation would be the old doctrine, "A man's home is his castle." That's the principle mat underlies the Fourth Amendment and other parts of the Constitution. In any case, a few individuals in the legislature have utilized the phantom of psychological oppression, youngster sexual entertainment, and composed wrongdoing to work on our entitlement to protection. Significant messages are progressively sent electronically. In this manner the security of electronic interchanges is a developing concern. Nobody anticipates us to compose every one of our letters on postcards so mailmen can understand them, furthermore, on the off chance that we compose letters in code, that is not the official's to worry about. In any case, the government has attempted to confine our capacity to keep our electronic correspondences private. It has restricted the export of the most viable encryption innovation

One of the fundamental principles of the rule of law is equal treatment under the law for all citizens. Justice doesn' t require equality of outcomes— indeed, only massive injustice could seek to achieve such a result—but it does require equal legal rights. "Civil rights" should certainly mean equality under the law. No one should be given legal preferences or disadvantages on the basis of such characteristics as race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.

No administration can use so much coercive force from numerous points of view without interrupting into an ever increasing number of parts of individual freedom. From wiretapping to information assortment, from Internet guideline to the developing militarization of government law requirement, Congress ought to deliberately look at the effect on common freedoms of its laws and the individuals who authorize them. The most ideal way for Congress to secure common freedoms is to get control over its stunning perspective of the extension and intensity of the central government and start to return the government to its established cutoff points.