Sample Reaction Paper: The Challenge That is USA Patriot Act

In light of the 9/11 attacks, the US government revamped its interest of expanding its power against terrorism. It was on October 26, 2001 – exactly 43 days after the terrorist attacks – when the Public Law 107-56 or commonly known as the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, or simply USA PATRIOT Act, took effect. As controversial as it is, the question now is: will the said Act protect the public or will it bring more harm than protection?

Our basic premise is that USA PATRIOT Act was designed with good intentions, however, due to ordinary human limitations, certain unintended consequences built into its design. The aim of this article is to highlight them and then outline the ways the Act can be improved by reducing if not eliminating these unintended consequences.

While the ‘War on Terror’ initiative is acceptable since the US government is seriously taking the appropriate measures to combat terrorism that threatens national sovereignty and civil liberties per se, there are inadvertent outcomes of the Act. Here’s a comprehensive list of the unintended consequences of the US PATRIOT Act. In general, the Act:

1) Jeopardized constitutional freedoms;

2) Endangered individual rights;

3) Blurred boundaries between domestic and non-domestic law enforcement agencies; and

4) Threatened the freedom of expression.

Specifically, the Act:

1) Alienated domestic Muslim citizens;

2) Reduced confidence in the ‘hawala’ system;

3) Led to unrestricted information sharing about non-US citizens’ identity;

4) Violated privacy of the people who come in close casual contact with a suspected person;

5) Detained suspected individuals and imprisoned them without legal protections;

6) Led to unprecedented examination of public records; and

7) Resulted in the issuance of search warrants surreptitiously and without probable cause which led to unreasonable searches and arrests.

On the other end, the possible remedies to the Act’s unyielding consequences may not be far. The following are recommendations on how these issues can be addressed.

First, there should be more congressional oversight. The Congress has a role in protecting national defense by actively shaping various policies. Thereby, the Congress can protect the people by passing public policies that focus on the people’s welfare. The role of the Congress, however, does not stop here. Instead, the Congress should have a deeper involvement in the delivery of these policies.

Second, there should be more freedom of information request. The Amnesty International, for instance, is keen in publicizing information while also mobilizing public opinion. Information is the lifeblood of the organization. If the information is withheld from public scrutiny, how can the public mold its opinion, and how can Amnesty International release the most crucial information relating to human right issues when its access to information is suspended. There is freedom of information legislation, which forms part of the transparency goal, in approximately 72 countries worldwide. How such legislation is being delivered for public utilization is another issue though.

Third, there should be public petitions and signature campaigns in areas people feel strongly. A petition is a direct, formal request to government officials to require action including amendment of a law or passing a new law depending on the public agenda at hand. A signature campaign, on the other hand, is a process of gathering a specified number of signatures for government official’s attention and then action. Either of the two processes, the goal is to get the message across that the public perceives something as unlawful, unfair, unreasonable or just plain illegal.

Finally, the web space can be utilized as a public bulletin board. The power of the bloggers cannot be underestimated. The most unpretentious bloggers blatantly criticize the government and its [lack of] action. The uncensored nature of blogging makes it an effective avenue to make the government officials know the pulse of the public.

Going back, the Act features sunset provisions which mean that some sections will automatically expire after the pre-determined date (December 31, 2005) unless new, additional legislations extend it. Provisions were, nonetheless, extended until March 10, 2006, and controversies were renewed especially that the Congress is debating whether to make the Act permanent or not. A congressional hearing was conducted on June 10, 2005, and eventually, a compromised bill was passed into law by March 9, 2006. PATRIOT Act II was born, but there remain questions about specific provisions especially those that affect the protection of civil liberties.

Sample College Exam: Human Resource Management – Balanced Scorecard

Balanced Scorecard Exam

(a) Briefly describe the framework and potential content of the Balanced Scorecard as promoted by Kaplan and Norton.

First detailed by Kaplan and Norton in 1996, the balanced scorecard evolved into a critical management tool. For the authors, other fundamental perspectives can balance the financial perspective of the company. These perspectives are relevant in becoming a strategy-focused company. Other than the financial perspective, the other perspectives include customer, internal businesses and learning and growth. With vision and strategy at the core of the balanced scorecard, there are other important elements for each perspective. These are the objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives, all of which must be inherent in the organization.

Some examples are as follows:

a) Customer

The objective should be 100% customer satisfaction. The measures should be the number of loyal customers and rate of repeat purchases. The target should be high-quality product and service provision. The initiatives must be a consumer reward system program

b) Financial

The objective should be revenue growth and profit increase. The measures should be DEA (or data envelopment analysis) efficiency scores relating to revenue and profit margin. The target should be high productivity rates among decision-making units. The initiatives must be an input and output analysis.

c) Internal business processes

The objective should be cost reduction. The measures should be the expense as a percentage of profit and cost as a percentage of revenue. The target should be cost reduction measures at the operational level. The initiatives must be the introduction of cost-cutting measures.

d) Learning and growth

The objective should be service innovation. The measures should be investment on upgrades and upskilling. The target should be a targeted investment strategy. The initiatives must be conducting a materiality analysis to determine which needs upgrades and who needs upskilling.

Personally, as the contemporary organization moves along with the changes in the global business environment, there other perspectives that the balanced scorecard should include. The first is the employee. Like customers, employees must be also treated as a separate entity in the balanced scorecard. The second is green practices. Green practices within the organization are increasingly becoming important in the overall management of a business. Employees and green practices have their economic value added, which means that the financial perspective is somewhat affected by these factors. The third is sustainability. Vision and strategy still hold their importance, but they should include sustainability at its core. The reason behind this is that all of these perspectives would be irrelevant if they are not sustainable or if they cannot contribute to the continued existence and survival of the organization.

(b) Evaluate the extent to which the Balanced Scorecard is:

(i) An improvement upon exclusive reliance on financial measures

Organizations do not exist in a vacuum hence profitability is no longer the sole basis of the survival of such though it is still very critical. As such, financial measures must be accompanied by other measures to make the performance more balance. For one, there are many qualitative elements directly and indirectly related to the operation, and these elements are definitely difficult to quantify. Some of these qualitative elements include the perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of the employees as well as the motivating factors driving the customers to make a purchase. Even the organizational culture and subcultures cannot be easily quantified. Also, there are inherent drawbacks to using financial measures alone including the indication of future performance. Financial measures can only analyze, estimate and predict.

This is where the role of balanced scorecard becomes even more significant today. Kaplan and Norton was able to combine financial with non-financial measures in measuring the current performance of the firm.

(ii) Suited to the ‘information age’

In an era where organizations are trying to be a knowledge organization, there is a need to look beyond the financial perspective that does not completely gauge the organization in creating value. Any value proposition of a firm encompasses customer relationship, human resource and innovative process. It is all that and more. Businesses today have value propositions that are always forward-looking. Competition is no longer measured on short term but rather on long term hence becoming sustainable is the goal.

Balanced scorecard is best suited for this information age since it captures all the elements and make these elements operational needed to compete with other firms. These elements include but are not limited to product customization, employee skills, information technology, innovative processes and many others. There should be strategies for these elements that the organization must create and put into action.

(iii) A contribution to strategic management accounting

Seemingly, all the strategies within an organization aim or are directed at improving the financial performance of the firm. This could be the reason why Kaplan and Norton puts emphasis on financial perspective since there are other perspectives that should be inexistence to balance the overall perspective of the company. When strategic management accounting enters the pictures, this is the focal point of the introduction of the balanced scorecard. The scorecard becomes the foundation, the catalyst and the facilitator of the strategic management accounting.

While it is not decisive of the firm’s future profitability, the balanced scorecard encourages continual financial improvement within the organization. The goal of strategic management accounting is sustaining the competitive edge of the business through financial performance. Such a performance flows from and consistent with the grand strategy of the firm. Taking into consideration the cause and effect, if the company wants to improve at something, other performance measures must be also improved, achieving the desired results in the process; results that mostly manifest through in the balance sheet as profit or revenue among others.