USA PATRIOT Act

USA Patriot Act. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA PATRIOT Act, hereafter cited as Patriot Act) significantly increased the surveillance and investigative powers of law enforcement agencies. It also raised troubling questions about the protection of civil liberties.

The legislation stemmed from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Attorney General John Ashcroft initially proposed the law to strengthen the nation's defense against terrorism, demanding that Congress pass the bill in one week. Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, persuaded the Justice Department to accept some amendments. The Attorney General, however, warned that further terrorist acts were imminent, and that Congress would be blamed if it failed to act immediately. Congress succumbed without ever issuing a formal report from either the House, Senate, or a conference committee. In the Senate, only Democrat Russell Feingold of Wisconsin voted negatively on the grounds that it would grant law enforcement officials excessive powers. The House passed the legislation by a vote of 357 to 66, with only Democrats voting against it. President George W. Bush signed the Act into law on October 26, 2001.

The three-hundred-and-forty-two page Patriot Act dramatically expanded the federal government's investigative authority. It extended to the Internet the use of pen registers and trap-and-trace devices (which collect data on outgoing and incoming messages respectively); it also increased the authority of government attorneys to share grand-jury information, expanded law enforcement's authority over cable providers, expanded the scope of subpoenas for electronic evidence, granted authority for delaying notice of the execution of a warrant, and expanded the jurisdictional authority of search warrants for terrorism investigations. The Act made other less controversial but still important changes, raising the number of judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to eleven (from six), and amending immigration laws.

Passage of the Patriot Act involved a compromise sunset provision terminating several of the electronic surveillance amendments on December 31, 2005. This clause persuaded some congressional skeptics to vote in favor of the bill, with the understanding that the law could be revisited. However, the sunset provision did not apply to a host of areas.

As the immediate shock of September 11 receded, both ends of the ideological spectrum subjected the clumsily worded Patriot Act to withering criticism. The Center for Constitutional Rights, a conservative organization, denounced the law for trampling on the rights of ordinary Americans; the American Civil Liberties, a liberal group, condemned it as the grossest violation of civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition Acts. In the fall of 2003 Attorney General Ashcroft toured the country seeking support for not only renewing the Patriot Act but passing an even more muscular version. In city after city, however, Ashcroft confronted skeptical audiences, and by mid 2004 more than 100 municipalities had passed resolutions calling for repeal the Act. As the presidential election of 2004 unfolded, the Act became a point of dispute between President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, who, while demanding modifications in the controversial law, had nonetheless voted for it.
See also Federal Government, Executive Branch: Other Departments: Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security; Iraq War of 2003 and Aftermath; War on Terrorism.

Bibliography

Amitai Etzioni and Jason H. Marsh, eds., Rights vs. Public Safety after 9/11: America in the Age of Terrorism, 2003.

Kermit L. Hall

USA PATRIOT Act [ U niting and S trengthening A merica by P roviding A ppropriate T ools R equired to I ntercept and O bstruct T errorists], 2001, U.S. federal law intended to give federal authorities increased abilities to combat international and domestic terrorism. Quickly enacted with little opposition in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon , the USA PATRIOT Act primarily enlarged the powers of federal law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering agencies when dealing with terror crimes, but sections of the extensive bill also apply to criminal acts generally. The number of terror-related offenses was also increased, and reporting requirements, crimes, and penalties associated with money laundering were expanded.

Civil libertarians, librarians, and others have protested changes made by the act that have the potential to lead to law-enforcement abuses, including reduced judicial oversight of wiretaps, expanded law-enforcement access to records held by third-party businesses and organizations, and an ambiguously broadened definition of providing material support to terrorists. Such concerns have been partly prompted by the fact that the USA PATRIOT Act was designed in part to reduce restrictions enacted in response to abuses of government power associated with Watergate, anti-Vietnam War protesters, civil-rights groups, and the like.

These worries contributed to the vocal opposition in 2003 to the Bush administration's draft Domestic Security Enhancement Act, an expansion of the USA PATRIOT Act that ultimately was not submitted to Congress. Similarly, the renewal of those sections of the act slated to expire at the end of 2005 became contentious enough that opponents in the Senate were able to stall legislation to make them permanent, but after some modifications were made to the act in 2006, the act was renewed and most sections became permanent. Aspects of the law have been challenged in the courts, with varying results.