Eng

When the founders of the United States of America got together to write the Constitution they anticipated certain issues that might occur between the Federal Government and the individual citizen. It was these concerns that caused them to include certain civil liberties in the Constitution. A civil liberty is an individual right protected by the Constitution against the powers of the government. (Sidlow and Henschen 2001, p. 470). After leaving the command of Britain, the citizens of the colonies were against big centralized government, so when it was decided that the Articles of Confederation wasn't sufficient, and that a Constitution would be drafted, it was also decided, mostly by those known as Anti-Federalist, that civil liberties must be included. Though civil liberties were put in law over 200 years ago, over time they have been challenged up until the present day. Although civil liberties were recognized by the federal government, it took Amendment XIV to incorporate civil liberties into state governments. It is said within that no state "shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges

or immunities of ctizens of the United States," (Sidlow and Henschen 2001, p. 81). This shows helps to show how important civil liberties are to the American people.

The main source of civil liberties is found within the first ten amendments to the constitution also known as the Bill of Rights. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect the individual citizen from certain actions of the US Government. Amendments I-VIII deal directly with civil liberties such as freedom of speech, and the right to a fair trial. Freedom of Speech is not absolute though. There are some types of speech that are more proteted under the 1st Amendment than others. Everyday spech and symbolic speech is actually more protected than commercial and seditious speech. Freedom of religion which is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution is a civil liberty that hold very high value in the United States. Amongst other civil liberties that we take advantage of daily is the right to a impartial jury, which is guaranteed in Amendment VI. It is through this amendment that gag orders are allowed, which is to deter from information getting out to the public, that might cause a case to become impartial to the defendant. Amendment VI can also affect the location of a given trial. In the case of Timothy McVeigh, there was no way that he could have received an impartial trial in the state of Oklahoma due to the severity and publicity of the case, so it was then decided that the case must be tried in another location. From the protection of unreasonable search and seizures to freedom of press, civil liberties as such are put in place in order to make the people feel protected and safe from the powers of our government.

One of the main reasons for the colonists voyage to the New World, was to be able to practice free religion. We are all entitled to practice whatever religion we please. As with most civil liberties, we as citizens are granted these civil liberties, but they can not infringe on the liberties of others. Although we have the right to free religion, it would not be okay to participate in things such as murder even if it was part of your religion due to the fact that murder infringes on the rights of others. In order to proceed the citizens from an official religion freedom of speech was added as a protection. The Establishment Clause which is located in the 1st Amendment, forbids the government to establish an official religion. (Sidlow and Henschen 2001, p. 82). Although we are protected to practice free religion the are still controversies over the issue. One such controversy involves the separation of church and state. This came to the forefront in the case Engel v. Vitale in 1962, where it was discussed whether or not there should be prayer in schools, and whether or not prayer in schools violated people First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court ruled that prayers said in school did in fact violate the Establishment Clause and therefore took prayer out of schools. Although the ruling was made so long ago the controversy still continues.