RJA #14: Annotated Bibliography, Part 2

Harr, Scott, and Karen Hess. Constitutional Law and the Criminal Justice System. Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2008. Print.

This is a book that I use for some classes I take for research purposes. The book focuses on criminal justice issues particularly focusing on the bill of rights.

I believe Harr and Hess to be credible sources and trust what they write in their books. Furthermore their books are widely used studying in college criminal justice courses. Scott Harr is the chair of the criminal justice program at Concordia University in Minnesota. He has multiple licenses to be a law enforcement officer as well as a lawyer.

I used this source because I wanted to get a more summarized approach to the Fourth Amendment. This book not only stated the word for word lettering of the Amendment, but also cited cases like the Katz case when explaining it.


Justice Stewart, Potter. "Katz v. United States." OYEZ U.S. Supreme Court Media, 1967. Web. 17 Nov. 2009. http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1967/1967_35/.

This website is dedicated to the cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. This page gives a summary of the case as well as the decision and why the Justices voted the way they did.

I consider this website to be trustworthy and truthful because it is run by the U.S. Supreme Court. Furthermore the opinion given was posted by one of the Justices, so there is no reason why I should not trust what they are stating.

I used this website to gather information on one of the main court cases that determined the basis of legality of wiretapping. I cited the case of Katz v. U.S.


"National Security Letters." American Civil Liberties Union N.p., 30 Nov. 2005. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

This website is run by the ACLU which is this countries premiere watchdog organisation. Their staffing includes more lawyers and people who know about the constitution than any other civilian organization.

I believe that the ACLU is trustworthy to an extent meaning that they have one purpose only and that is to challenge rulings that come from the Supreme Court and challenge the constitutionality of laws, acts, and bills passed by the legislatures. The goal of this source is to inform the public as to what is happening in any current legal situation.

I used this site to gain information on NSL's because it is a valuable tool that our government uses to gain intelligence and is at issue because many think that these letters violate the citizens civil liberties.


"National Security Letters." Electronic Privacy Information Center epic.org, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. http://epic.org/privacy/nsl/default.html.

Epic is a website who's goal is to research privacy rights issues concerning civil liberties. It has a variety of topics but all of them deal with the constitutionality of laws enacted.

I consider this source to be valid and informative. The website publishes e-mail and newsletters and even books relating to civil liberties. The organisation has also won many awards .

The information gained from this website was used in my paper to give information on national security letters. The web page provided many articles and news stories regarding the NSL's but I declined to use them because I already got the information I sought.


Samixxx. I Hear You. Photobucket. Web. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. http://media.photobucket.com/image/wiretap/sammixxx/unwarrentedwiretap.jpg?o=37.

Photo bucket is a website where the public can post pictures and store pictures that they have taken for an extended period of time. The site allows a user to look or show their pictures to anyone using any computer.

I consider this source to be somewhat trustworthy. I am not sure that he or she in fact made the picture through photo shop or similar means but no credit is given to where they found it. Furthermore, I found the rest of the pictures that this person submitted to be pictures of various tattoos on bodies, making the belief that this person created the image even more implausible.

I used this picture in my paper because I thought it fit well with my topic and in particular the section where I was talking about wiretapping.


"Spies, Lies and FISA." Editorial. New York Times 14 Oct. 2007. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun1.html.

This website is run by the New York Times newspaper and the web page is from the editorial section. The organisation provides information on anything current and newsworthy.

I believe this website to be reputable for the most part. I believe they are truthful in the things they say however their information could easily be leaning to ward the liberal point of view. I believe that it is general knowledge that they only provide information that would benefit leftists. Therefore when judging the information to be valid I believe that there is truth to what they are saying but untruths as well because they are only publicizing one side of the story.

I used this newspaper to gather information on one of my subtopics, FISA. I got what I wanted which was valuable information to be used in my paper.

RJA #13b: Annotated Bibliography, Part 1

107th Congress. "H.R. 3162 In the Senate of the United States." Electronic Privacy Information Center N.p., 24 Oct. 2001. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html.

This website provides a word for word copy of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. It has an index to help guide you to the section you are looking for.

This is a website that I have used in the past to do research on a particular bill or act and found it very informative and unbiased because it states only the facts. This page is an exact copy of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. The reading can be somewhat difficult because the terminology used can be difficult to understand and very lengthy.

It is very long, therefore I use the option to download it in a PDF format so I could utilize the search option when searching for key words which is a must when some of these documents can be 100+ pages.


"Does the PATRIOT Act provide the government with overreaching power to conduct searches, surveillance's and wiretaps?." ProCon.org ACLU, 4 June 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. http://aclu.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionID=718.

This website is run by the ACLU and it gives viewers the opportunity to debate current or non-current issues. This particular webpage debates the validity of wiretaps and whether or not the government is extending its rights too far.

I liked this website that was suggested by my instructor and found it very valuable in terms of getting viewpoints from both sides of the issue. I believe the website to be accurate and truthful for a couple of reasons. First of all, the sponsor of the website is the ACLU which is an organization that acts somewhat as a governmental watchdog and is populated by more lawyers than every organization other than the US Senate and House. Secondly, the people who have posted their beliefs are particularly reputable like the Director of the FBI, Robert S. Mueller and David Cole who is a professor of law at Georgetown. I believe that if these people were misquoted than something would have been done about it.

This source helped me to see the other side of my viewpoints and allowed me to rebuke the claims on that other side.


"Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)." Electronic Privacy Information Center epic.org, n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fisa/#Overview.

This is a website that summarizes Acts and Bills passed. This particular page covers FISA and recent actions taken regarding FISA that were in the news.

Again I cited a source from epic.org because of their factual nature of providing information. I liked this page because it provides several aspects of information on FISA. First of all it gives a summary of FISA in an outline format so it is a much easier read than the act itself. Secondly it provides information on the patriot act and how it differs from FISA and other acts regarding terrorism. Finally what I like the most is that it provides links to current news stories regarding the particular topic like what kind of reform is being sought.

I used this source to help me gather information for my paper. I also looked at the newsworthy articles that it also posted but did not use them for a source because I couldn't find any information I wanted to use.


Grey, Tully . "The History of Wiretapping." ehow.com N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2009. http://www.ehow.com/about_5382785_history-wiretapping.html.

This article is from a website that tells you about how things came to be and their history. Just about anything you want to learn how to do, how it became, or just more information about can be found on this website.

The author is a freelance writer and has been writing for 10 years, she has multiple college degrees from Columbia College. I consider her to be a good resource for the information I gathered from her which is the history of communicating. It seems that in writing this article she did quite a bit of research and compiled it into one page. I don't think I would look to her again for information given that her expertise is not relevant to issues I am concerned with.

I used this source just to give me some information about the background of my topic. It was helpful in doing so.

RJA #13a: Field Research Report

For my field research I conducted a poll on what people think about the government wiretapping. I new that I needed to be as vague as possible and give as little information as possible when asking the question in order to remove any bias I may give. I started with the contacts in my phone and figured I would just text the message " wiretapping by the government, how do you feel about it?" to all and let the results pour in.
From the start it was a dead heat. I had a few people call me and ask situational information before they would answer, and I told them that I would give them all the information they needed after they answered. I had an understanding that if I told them that the majority of wiretapping cases involved suspicion of terrorism, mob activities and drug trafficking, than they would all answer in the affirmative. So at the end of the phone portion, my results tallied 18 for wiretapping and 15 against wiretapping.
The next step was to take the poll out into the field. I am a surveyor who visits an average of three active construction sites per day. From time to time people would come to me asking me to do something for them and I would reply that I would if they answered an anonymous question I had for them. They all did and my results showed that for the most part, they were for wiretapping 12-8.
All in all I think it was a successful poll in which I gathered valuable information and sparked debate amongst those who I asked in a group. I learned that those who had been convicted of a crime were much more likely to be against the issue, one in particular stated that they sometimes see the satellites tracking him in the sky.

PowerPoint presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/Jb1aGZNpEvWbIb

RJA #12c: Introduction Check

http://jalves1.blogspot.com/2009/11/research-journal-assignment-11a.html#comment-form

http://stinoeng.blogspot.com/2009/11/rja-11a.html#comment-form

RJA #12b: Presentation Plan

I am planning on presenting information on FISA, USA PATRIOT Act, SAFE act focusing on some of the more controversial issues like wiretapping, detention of foreign combatants and so on. There will be a few pictures I have already saved in preparation for my presentation that I need to properly format.

RJA #12a: Progress Report

I have completed my formal outline and need to start gathering all my sources together and put them in order for which I plan to use them. I believe I have enough sources and information saved on my delicious account and books have been obtained from the downtown library. I plan on gathering everything together and starting to write the paper this weekend. I plan on breaking it up into three parts where one time I work on introducing my topic and giving a bit of background information. Second I will talk about my reasons why I feel the way I do. Thirdly, I will give all the objections I could think of and refute them as well as conclude my paper.