"Perpetual war produces a state of mind in which differences of opinion become questions of patriotism, adversaries become enemies and ideological territory must be defended inch by inch." |
The Patriot Act: Defending Democracy or Attacking Freedom
The Patriot ActThe USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) was submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration on September 24th, just 13 days after the attack.
With little restraint or concern shown by Congress, outsiders could not do much to stop the bill. Anyone who opposed the bill was seen as a radical. Two of the Senators who attempted to slow passage of the bill, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, were targeted with letters containing anthrax, which was delivered to their offices. |
An excerpt from the political documentary: Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties
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On October 26, 2001, the PATRIOT Act was passed into law. The bill had not yet been printed out in its final form before being voted on; showing just how rushed Congress was on passing the bill. There was no debate and few if any in Congress understood it's contents. When the votes were counted, the bill was passed with a 98-1 vote. In retrospect, it granted law enforcement and intelligence agencies broad new powers to spy, detain, and charge citizens, while freeing the same agencies from accountability to the people. However, it has been very useful in helping to share information between agencies, even if the power has not been used correctly every time.
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Another excerpt from the political documentary: Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties
"The fact that public opinion appeared deeply ambivalent made procedural changes difficult and contributed to the luxuriant growth of complex regulations adopted by DOJ and endorsed by the FISA Court. After 9/11, public opinion shifted dramatically,resulting in the rapid passage of the USA PATRIOT Act and other legislation. The need to encourage the sharing of information and the connection of dots is now unquestioned, but there are lingering concerns about the risks that widespread information sharing may jeopardize civil liberties." |
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"If the United States is at war against terrorism to preserve freedom, a new coalition of conservatives and liberals is asking, why is it doing so by wholesale abrogation of civil liberties? They cite the Halloween-week passage of the anti terrorism bill... USA PATRIOT Act. Critics both left and right are saying it not only strips Americans of fundamental rights but does little or nothing to secure the nation from terrorist attacks." |
Overview of Patriot Act
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A more detailed look at the Patriot Act by the ACLU:
Government Surveillance: The USA PATRIOT Act minimizes the power of the courts to prevent law enforcement authorities from illegally abusing certain types of telephone and Internet surveillance in both anti-terrorism investigations and run-of-the-mill criminal investigations of American citizens. |
Tearing Down the Wall
9/11 and the quick public opinion change to support information sharing along with the Congress' strong support of the Patriot Act allowed key changes to be made on FISA, the Patriot Act, and other legislation. The USA PATRIOT Act, has helped investigators identify, dismantle and disrupt many terrorist plots along with helping to tear down the FISA “wall” that prevented effective information sharing between intelligence officers and law enforcement departments.
A Turning Point for Information Sharing
However, The Patriot Act has been very useful in coordinating information between different agents and departments. Following the enactment of the PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice implemented two important subsections (Seen below) and fully realized the usefulness of increased coordination and information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement departments.
"Subsection 203(d) permitted the disclosure of foreign intelligence,counterintelligence, or foreign intelligence information obtained as part of a federal criminal investigation, notwithstanding any other provision of law, to any federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigrations, national defense, or national |
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"In addition to allowing law enforcement officials to provide valuable information to the intelligence community, the Patriot Act also enhanced the information transfer between law enforcement and intelligence officials. In section 218, the government allows information obtained by intelligence officials from FISA to be shared more readily with law enforcement officials. Before the enactment of the PATRIOT Act, courts had ruled that surveillance under FISA could be utilized only when foreign intelligence was the "primary purpose" of a national security investigation. See, e.g., United States v. Truong, 629 F.2d 908 (4th Cir. 1980). This "primary purpose" standard, however, had the effect of discouraging intelligence investigators from sharing information and coordinating with law enforcement officers."
Larry D. Thompson
"During my tenure as deputy attorney general, the Department of Justice utilized these provisions of the PATRIOT Act on dozens of occasions to disclose vital information to the intelligence community. The U.S. attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, for example, had accumulated extensive intelligence during its investigation and prosecution of numerous significant terrorism cases, such as the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, that it was finally able to share with intelligence agencies after the passage of the PATRIOT Act." |
Misused Power
New Power Allows the Government to: Effects:
Expanded the authority of the FBI to issue National Security Letters (NSL) requesting information from and about Americans.
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NSLs can force banks or internet providers to give personal information without judicial approval. The FBI only needs to certify that the requested information is "relevant" to a terrorism investigation
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The number of NSLs has doubled in the last two years. The Inspector General of the Justice Department has found this law enforcement tool to be widely abused.
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Authorized "sneak and peak" searches.
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"Sneak and peak" search warrants allow the government to search your home or business and not tell you about it until moths later
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Only 1% has been used for terrorism cases although "national security" was the stated concern needed. Most have been used to search for suspected drug cases.
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Despite opposition from many civil liberty groups such as the ACLU and CCAPA - Concerned Citizens Against the Patriot Act, the Patriot Act was renewed again in 2011 by President Obama. This time, there was bipartisan support to not renew the act, but it was overturned. Many amendments have been proposed and most have failed.However, different sections have been added to try to encourage the protection of civil liberties. The USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 was passed and the Sunset Extensions were most recently signed. |
USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2006
Expiring sections of the Act were reissued through the Improvement Act of 2006. The government has tried to listen to This allowed investigators to continue to use these powers and have helped protect the nation in the following ways:
United States Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs
- "Allowed federal agents to better track sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection, and provided national security investigators with tools comparable to those commonly used in criminal cases.
- Updated investigative tools to reflect new technologies and threats, and allowed authorities to obtain search warrants from a single court regardless of where terrorist-related activity occurred.
- Increased penalties for those who commit certain terrorist crimes and those who support them.
- The USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act added dozens of additional safeguards to protect privacy interests and civil liberties."
The Kuala Lumpar Commission ruled that:
"The United States has violated and condoned violations of human rights, civil liberties and the U.S. Bill of Rights in the United States, in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to achieve its purpose of military domination |
Irony in The Patriot Act
9/11 was a turning point on the American political landscape. A number of knee jerk reactions occurred and countless laws were passed and new departments were created with little thought about their usefulness. The Patriot Act was a prime example of a turning point which made America less democratic as a response to an attack on democracy itself. This irony shows how turning points may not necessarily be for the best. Although this act may have taken away the civil liberties of our citizens, for the government, it has been a very useful tool for the coordination of agencies, and the protection of the citizens.
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