Jose Rivera

Period: 5th
9/18/16

Declaration Essay
The Declaration of Independence is a document signed by our founding fathers in order
to separate the 13 colonies from rule of the king of Great Britain. This gave us our freedoms and
declared us to be free. Although, there is a line from the Declaration that is very questionable in
todays society or culture. The line stating, by their creator with certain unalienable right, that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This implies, that we as people have
certain rights that cannot be taken away from us. However, with these rights we are rewarded
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There are lots of topics that revolve around our rights
and how they are either put to good use or that of negative usage. Some topics may include
privacy, freedom of press, race, right to bear arms, etc.. all these issues all occur in todays
society and it is changing the way our government is acting and enlisting new laws to original
documents.
There always seems to be issue with privacy of the people and that includes the 4th
amendment of the constitution. The 4th amendment states, The right of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects of unreasonable searches and seizures and shall not
be violated. In one case the police seized a text message without warrant or permission.
According, to newspaper ars Technica the police handled the phone and the text message stated,
What if I got 2 take him to da hospital what do I say and dos marks on his neck omg. and the
other message used profane language and references to hurting the victim by punching him in the
stomach. In result, the judge determined that the searches were illegal and and unreasonable in
violation of the 4th amendment. This implies, that people have the right to be secure with their
belongings and if violated then it is illegal. Tying this back to why our life, liberty, and pursuit of
happiness does not live up to todays society is because there is no liberty when officials like
police or government invade your belongings or privacy. Also, the government has access to
everything we have including our technology, recently a film a has hit movie theatres based on
true events. It relates to this topic because this man leaked all information of what the
government did with our data and files. Nothing is private and there should be a limit to what the
government can and cannot seize.
Our 1st amendment gives us basic freedoms such as freedom of religion, freedom of
speech, and press. There was a case in which this amendment was violated, specifically
intimidation of the press. In relation to the privacy of phone records, reporter James Rosen
suspectedly violated the 1st amendment. In the job of reporting news sources to be anonymous is

very important. However, the government threatened to put this man in jail for doing his job in
reporting. In other words, the government does not want the reporters to speak about the
government because it speaks truth. In result, this forces other reporters not to continue or do
their job because of intimidation. It scares them into not doing anything which violates our
freedom to live in liberty. Picture a bully punching a little boy down until he bleeds. This relates
to how the government is the bully and all the kids or reporters are being punched repeatedly
until they do not get back up again. Makes others wonder if all the news has to be filled with lies
or simply nobody to speak of the right but to speak of all the wrong and negative. How can
people live in peace if there is nothing but lies but then again it connects to our American ethos
and the way we are represented. The government does not want the truth to be spilled so we can
still hold the image of being great.
Having a voice means a lot and can influence lots of change in a society. It is our right to
have freedom of speech which what is stated in the declaration to have liberty. There was an
instance in where freedom of speech was not recognized. We have the right to speak about our
government and president. In July a man named steve Howards spoke his opinion to vice
president Cheney about the U>.s casualties in Iraq and how it reached 2,500. The dispute they
both had resulted in Howard being taken in cuffs for apparently assaulting the vice president.
Now there is a law that prohibits anyone protesting near the president or any official. It makes no
sense because we have the right of speech and a man gets arrested for speaking his mind. Back to
what was stated in the first paragraph, new laws that are being signed are slowly diminishing our
rights. Getting closer to prohibiting that natural given right.
In today's society we have not lived up to the statements in the declaration of
Independence. It is getting harder and harder to acquire change due to all the laws and acts that
have been passed. They have slowly but yet surely been diminishing our rights. Laws like this do
not improve our society and makes it difficult to make change. Although, there still is hope
because people are still able to form groups in order to fight against government if rights are
even taken away. Which does promise our freedom and pursuit of happiness.