What rights and protections are afforded to American citizens in the Bill of Rights?
The Bill of Rights is an important document that provides American citizens with a variety of rights and protections. These include the right to bear arms, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, freedom of speech and expression, the right to due process, as well as protection from cruel and unusual punishment (Baumann et al., 2018).
The first amendment protects citizens’ freedoms such as free speech, religious practice and peaceful assembly. It also guarantees the right to petition government for redress of grievances. This means that citizens are allowed to express their opinion without fear of retribution or censorship (U.S Constitution 2019).
The fourth amendment prevents law enforcement officers from conducting unreasonable searches or seizures without a valid warrant. A warrant must be obtained in order for police officers to search someone’s home or property (US Constitutions 2020). Furthermore, the fifth amendment ensures that any person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt with due process in court proceedings (U S Constitution 2021) .
Finally , the eighth amendment prohibits excessive bail or fines as well as prohibiting cruel or unusual punishments which may violate human dignity . In addition , this same section also ensures humane treatment towards prisoners while incarcerated by providing standards such appropriate housing etc – all designed to ensure fundamental level respect even to those who have been convicted in criminal activities.
is leads to question of what qualifies to be a combatant, and whether it is lawful to kill each other as combatants. Combatants are people who are involved directly or indirectly with the war and it is lawful to kill ‘to shelter the innocent from harm…punish evildoers (Begby et al (2006b), Page 290).However, as mentioned above civilian cannot be harmed, showing combatants as the only legitimate targets, another condition of jus in bello, as ‘we may not use the sword against those who have not harmed us (Begby et al (2006b), Page 314).’ In addition, Frowe suggested combatants must be identified as combatants, to avoid the presence of guerrilla warfare which can end up in a higher death count, for example, the Vietnam War. Moreover, he argued they must be part of the army, bear arms and apply to the rules of jus in bello. (Frowe (2011), Page 101-3). This suggests Frowe seeks a fair, just war between two participants avoiding non-combatant deaths, but wouldn’t this lead to higher death rate for combatants, as both sides have relatively equal chance to win since both use similar tactics? Nevertheless, arguably Frowe will argue that combatant can lawfully kill each other, showing this is just, which is also supported by Vittola, who states: ‘it is lawful to draw the sword and use it against malefactors (Begby et al (2006b), Page 309).’
In addition, Vittola expresses the extent of military tactics used, but never reaches a conclusion whether it’s lawful or not to proceed these actions, as he constantly found a middle ground, where it can be lawful to do such things but never always (Begby et al (2006b), Page 326-31). This is supported by Frowe, who measures the legitimate tactics according to proportionality and military necessity. It depends on the magnitude of how much damage done to one another, in order to judge the actions after a war. For example, one cannot simply nuke the terrorist groups throughout the middle-east, because it is not only proportional, it will damage the whole population, an unintended consequence. More importantly, the soldiers must have the right intention in what they are going to achieve, sacrificing the costs to their actions. For example: if soldiers want to execute all prisoners of war, they must do it for the right intention and for a just cause, proportional to the harm done to them. This is supported by Vittola: ‘not always lawful to execute all combatants…we must take account… scale of the injury inflicted by the enemy.’ This is further supported by Frowe approach, which