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How the Patriot Act Works

by Ed Grabianowski

Browse the article How the Patriot Act Works

Homeland Security National Operations Center

Photo Courtesy of U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Introduction to How the Patriot Act Works

The Patriot Act is a U.S. law passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Its

goals are to strengthen domestic security and broaden the powers of law-enforcement agencies

with regards to identifying and stopping terrorists. The passing and renewal of the Patriot Act has

been extremely controversial. Supporters claim that it's been instrumental in a number of

investigations and arrests of terrorists, while critics counter the act gives the government too

much power, threatens civil liberties and undermines the very democracy it seeks to protect.

Let's take a look at what the Patriot Act is, the support and criticism behind it and if the Patriot

Act is really working.

Main Provisions of the Patriot Act

The Patriot Act's full title is Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools

Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. It's split into 10 parts, and it covers a

lot of ground. Here is a summary.

Title I - This section pertains to the protection of civil liberties. It authorizes federal money to

accomplish much of the act's provisions and authorizes the Secret Service to create a nationwide

electronic crime task force. This section also gives the president the authority to confiscate the

property of any foreign person who is believed to have aided in a war or attack on the United

States. Such seizures can be submitted secretly to courts as evidence.

Title II - This section broadens the ability of law-enforcement agencies to conduct surveillance

on "agents of foreign powers." It allows the interception of communications if they're related to

terrorist activities and allows law-enforcement agencies to share information related to terrorist

activities with federal authorities. In addition, Title II authorizes roving surveillance -- that is, a

court order allowing surveillance on a particular person allows officers to use any means

available to intercept that person's communications, regardless of where the person goes.

Previously, a court order would only allow a wiretap on a specific line in one location. Further, it

allows the government to order files from the providers of communications services with details

about specific customers' use of the service. For example, an Internet service provider can be

ordered to provide information on IP addresses, login times and sites visited. Title II also allows

delayed notification of search warrants, meaning a suspect's house could be searched while the

suspect isn't present, and the suspect would not be notified of the search until after it was carried

out. The wide-ranging Title II included many other relatively minor clauses. Title II also

contained the sunset clause that would have caused many of the act's provisions to expire in 2005

had they not been renewed. We'll discuss more on the sunset clause later.

Organization Chart of the FBI National Security Service

Photo courtesy of the FBI

Titles III-X of the Patriot Act

Title III - This section of the Patriot Act is aimed at cutting off the financial support of terrorist

groups. It has provisions requiring banks to take steps to prevent money laundering, allows law-

enforcement agencies to gather information from banks and creates longer prison terms for

money laundering and smuggling.

Title IV - This section has provisions intended to strengthen border security. It authorizes

increased funding for border patrols, customs officials and immigration officials. Foreigners with

ties to terrorist organizations are banned from entering the United States, and the monitoring of

foreign students is expanded by Title IV.

Title V - The most important part of Title V is the use of National Security Letters (NSL). An

NSL is a demand for the release of information and paperwork related to a person under

investigation. The Patriot Act makes NSLs much stronger, allows them to be used against U.S.

citizens and contains a gag order preventing the target of the NSL from ever knowing about it or

telling anyone else about it. There is no judicial review or need for probable cause when an NSL

is requested and issued.

Title VI - This section contains provisions for providing financial compensation to victims of

terrorism and their families.

Title VII - Authorization and budgeting for increased sharing of information between law-

enforcement agencies and jurisdictions are contained in this section.

Title VIII - This portion of the Patriot Act adds several crimes to the list of things considered

acts of terrorism, including attacking a mass transit system, using a biological weapon,

supporting terrorism and computer hacking. The penalties for terrorist crimes are also increased.

Title IX - This section creates a method for the sharing of national intelligence information

between government agencies.

Title X - The final section of the Patriot Act contains a number of relatively minor,

miscellaneous provisions.

President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act into law.

Photo courtesy of The White House

Primary Criticisms of the Act

The Patriot Act has come under fire for a number of reasons. It was passed very quickly (just

over a month after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks), and Congress spent very little time

reading and debating it. By some accounts, less than 48 hours passed between the presentation of

the bill’s final wording and the law passing in both houses of Congress, leading to some doubt

whether many members of Congress actually read the lengthy and complex bill. However, Sen.

Russ Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin, was the only senator to vote against the act, while

several members of the House of Representatives joined his dissent or abstained from voting.

Critics contend that such a crucial and sweeping piece of legislation deserved more thorough

deliberation.

There are fears that the Patriot Act reduces or removes many of the civil liberties enjoyed in the

United States and guaranteed by the Constitution. The right to privacy (not specifically

mentioned in the Constitution but supported by numerous Supreme Court decisions) and freedom

from unreasonable searches and seizures are the most notable infringements due to the expansion

of the government’s ability to conduct wiretaps, obtain NSLs and perform searches without

notification. The detainment of material witnesses and terrorist suspects without access to

lawyers, hearings or any formal charges are seen as erosions of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments,

rights of due process and trial by jury, respectively.

Critics also charge that the Patriot Act unfairly expands the powers of the executive branch and

strips away many crucial checks and balances. The lack of judicial review, or secretive reviews

subject to strict gag orders are the key elements of this criticism. There are also fears that the law

will be inappropriately used against non-terrorist criminals. In fact, it’s been used to remove

homeless people from train stations, to pursue drug rings and to collect financial data on random

visitors to Las Vegas [Soure: Firstamendmentcenter.org, New York Times and Business Week].

The results of an internal FBI audit were released in 2007, revealing that the agency had misused

National Security Letters in more than 1,000 instances since 2002. It’s likely that this number

represents only a fraction of actual number of NSL abuses [Source: The Washington Post].

President Bush speaks about the Patriot Act in 2004.

Photo courtesy of The White House

A Brief History of the Patriot Act

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001,

spurred a nationwide desire for tighter security and increased abilities for law-enforcement

agencies to track and stop terrorists. The Patriot Act was drafted in response and introduced to

Congress by Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner. Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh was the

primary author of the act, following his review of Department of Justice practices and procedures

in the wake of the September 11 attacks [Source: Wired.com].

Separate versions of the law went before the Senate and the House of Representatives. The

Senate version was passed on October 11, 2001, but the House version was altered several times,

then redrafted and reconciled with the Senate version before being approved by the House. The

Senate approved this revised consolidated version and the full bill was signed into law by

President Bush on October 26, 2001.

The original act has a sunset clause which would have caused many of the law’s provisions to

expire in 2005. By then, opposition to the act had grown and Democrats used a filibuster to delay

reauthorization. The sunset clause was extended for several months, but increased Democratic

power in Congress forced a compromise, and the act was reauthorized in early 2006 with a series

of “civil liberties safeguards” in place [Source: CNN]. Most of the act’s provisions were made

permanent, but many were changed and three of them were not made permanent. Libraries will

no longer be subject to National Security Letters (unless that library also serves as an Internet

Service Provider). Provisions allowing roving wiretaps and FBI seizure of business records are

set to expire in four years [Source: The Washington Post].

The gag order on NSLs and other subpoenas was extended to one year, but the recipient is

allowed to challenge the order after that time has passed. Targets of NSLs are allowed to keep

the identity of their attorney from government officials. Other changes limit the length of time

the FBI can hold records and force government officials to provide more thorough explanation of

their reasons for requesting search warrants, surveillance or subpoenas [Source: NPR].

A bill known internally as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, but often referred to as

Patriot Act II, was drafted by the Department of Justice but never submitted to Congress. A

leaked copy of the draft showed that this bill featured harsh restrictions on civil liberties and

vastly expanded government powers.

President George W. Bush and the Department of Homeland Security discuss the war on

terror.

Photo courtesy of The White House

Is the Patriot Act a Success or a Failure?

The Patriot Act works on the theory that in the face of terrorist threats, Americans must balance

freedom with security. The balancing act only works if the measures taken to increase security

actually accomplish that goal. By one very significant measure, it could be argued that the Patriot

Act has worked -- there has not been a successful terrorist attack on U.S. territory since the act

was signed into law (the Anthrax scare that followed in the months after September 11 was never

determined to be a terrorist attack). Of course, that could also be attributed to increased airport

security, heightened awareness on the part of all Americans or the diversion of terrorist resources

to conflicts in the Middle East.

The Department of Justice lists many general ways in which the act has helped the country fight

terrorism, and one conservative analyst claims that 15 terrorist plots have been disrupted by

agents using powers granted by the act [Source: Lifeandliberty.gov]. The Department of Justice

document specifically cites the use of roving wiretaps, expanded surveillance authorization,

delayed-notification searches and interagency information sharing as crucial to the anti-terrorist

mission.

Opposing the Patriot Act

In some cases, critics of the Patriot Act have taken their opposition to court or written it into law.

An unnamed plaintiff sued Attorney General John Ashcroft with the help of the American Civil

Liberties Union over a National Security Letter. A federal judge ruled that the recipient of an

NSL has the right to contest it; the ruling automatically applied to all NSLs, deeming them an

unconstitutional restriction on free speech [Source: ACLU]. In a separate case, a judge ruled that

a clause of the Patriot Act making it a crime to provide aid to a terrorist group in the form of

expert advice was unconstitutional. The judge believed the law was needlessly restrictive of

speech and illegally vague by not defining what would constitute expert advice [Source: ACLU].

By 2004, almost 300 municipalities across the United States had passed local legislation formally

disagreeing with the Patriot Act or urging Congress to modify or repeal it. One town, Arcata,

Calif., passed a law making it a criminal offense to comply with those sections of the Patriot Act

the town considers unconstitutional [Source: The Boston Globe and The Washington Post].

For more information on the Patriot Act and related topics, check out the links on the following

page.

More Great Links

 USA Patriot Act - Electronic Privacy Information Center

 American Civil Liberties Union: USA Patriot Act

 USA Patriot Act - The Library of Congress

 United States Department of Justice

 USA Patriot Act - The White House

Sources

 ACLU. “Myths and Realities About the Patriot Act.”

http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/facts.html#eight

 CNN. “House approves Patriot Act renewal.” March 7, 2006.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/patriot.act/

 Dunham, Richard S. “The Patriot Act: Business Balks.” Business Week, Nov. 10, 2005.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2005/nf20051110_9709_db016.htm

 Etzioni, Amitai. How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?: Freedom Versus Security in the Age of

Terrorism. Routledge; 1 edition (July 8, 2007). 978-0415955560.

 H.R. 3162 (The USA Patriot Act). http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

 “John Doe v. John Ashcroft: U.S. District Court Decision.”

http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/nsl_decision.pdf

 Lichtblau, Eric. “U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs to Swindling.”

New York Times, Sept. 28, 2003.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/politics/28LEGA.html?ex=1183608000&en=06139

41aeb6560d1&ei=5070

 Mooney, Kevin. “Patriot Act Supporters See Success; Detractors Disagree.” CNS News,

Sept. 11, 2006.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200609/NAT20060911

b.html

 Nieves, Evelyn. “Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act.” Washington Post,

April 21, 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-

dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A64173-2003Apr20¬Found=true

 Raskin, Marcus and Spero, Robert. The Four Freedoms under Siege: The Clear and

Present Danger from Our National Security State. Praeger Publishers (November 30,

2006). 978-0275989118.

 Rosenberg, Steven. “Patriot Act foes sound alarm locally.” Boston Globe, April 15, 2004.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/04/15/patriot_act_foes_sound_alarm_lo

cally/

 Solomon, John. “FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data.” Washington

Post, June 14, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061302453.html

 U.S. Department of Justice. “The USA PATRIOT Act: Preserving Life and Liberty.”

http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/highlights.htm

 Zetter, Kim. “The Patriot Act Is Your Friend.” Wired, Feb. 24, 2004.

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2004/02/62388