Analyzing the Patriot Act

PATRIOT Act The United States of America's PATRIOT Act (formally the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Interpret and Obstruct Terrorism Act) was a hurriedly created legislation against terrorism reacting to the terror attack on September 11, 2001. Little debate and oversight was given to the large, complex law by the Congress and President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 26, 2001.

PATRIOT offers sweeping surveillance, and search to both domestic officers and foreign intelligence agencies and removes many checks and balances that initially gave the courts the chance to make sure that the powers were never abused. The developing PATRIOT and follow-up legislation (Gouvin, 2003) threaten the basic rights of most Americans. The Origin The United States of America PATRIOT Act, also known as USAPA brought in several legislative amendments that had a significant increase on the investigative and surveillance powers of the U.S. law enforcement agents.

However, the law did not make provisions for the checks and balances system that provide the traditional protection to civil liberties when such legislation is enacted. Legislative suggestions following the September 11 attacks in 2001 were enacted within a week following the attacks. President Bush signed the final bill, the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act into law on October 26, 2001(Michaels, 2005).

Though more than 15 relevant laws were amended by the Act, its introduction was quite hasty and its passage witnessed very little debates, and there was a total lack of any report from the Senate, House, or any conference. Following this, background legislative history was missing which mostly provides important retrospective legal interpretation. The Act represents a compromise edition of the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), an extensive legislative plan aimed at strengthening the defense of the country against terrorism (Michaels, 2005).

Several provisions were added to ATA that largely expanded the power of law enforcement and other intelligence outfits to check private communications and gain access to personal details.

The resultant legislation involved some relevant additions from the initial proposal of the administration: most apparently, the supposed provision (which provides that many sections of the act expire automatically after a certain period, except when congress renews them explicitly); on some provisions on electronic surveillance, and an amendment that provides judicial omission, the use of the FBI's Carnivore system by the law enforcement.

When the Bush administration introduced the legislative proposals following the September 11, 2001 attacks, John Ashcroft, the then attorney General Mandated Congress to pass the bill within one week -- without making any amendments. Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, partly succeeded in convincing the Department of Justice to consent to certain amendments, and members of the house started making very important improvements (Gouvin, 2003).

Nevertheless, the Attorney General gave a warning that more terrorist' attacks were imminent, and that any failure on the part of the Congress to ensure the bill is passed without delays will make members of the Congress answerable to any further attacks. Widespread and rushed deliberations in the Senate gave rise to a bipartisan bill, devoid of most of the concessions Senator Leahy had earlier won.

The majority Senate leader, Senator Thomas Daschle, sought general consent to pass the bill without amendment or debate; The only member who objected was Senator Russ Feingold. Minor amendments were carried out in the House, which oversaw the passage of the bill 357-66. There was a quick reconciliation between the House and the Senate, and on October 26, 2001, the bill was signed into law (Gouvin, 2003). Implementation of the Act The PATRIOT Act permits the investigators to utilize the already available tools to carry out investigation on drug trafficking and organized crime.

Most of the tools provided by the Act to the law enforcement agents to combat the terrorism menace have been utilized for several decades to combat organized crimes and drug traffickers, and the judiciary has given it a review and subsequent approval. According to Senator Joe Bidden (D-DE), at the time of the floor debate on the Act, the FBI could investigate the mafia by getting a wiretap, but it will not be easy to get a wiretap to carry out investigations on the terrorists.

Bluntly put, that was quite insane! What is termed good for the mafia should also be good for the ruthless terrorists (Wong, 2007). The PATRIOT Act empowers law enforcement agents to make use of surveillance to fight more terror-related crimes. Prior to the PATRIOT Act, law enforcement agents would need the permission of the courts to carry out electronic surveillance to carry out investigations on several common crimes that do not relate to terrorism, like drug-related crimes, passport and mail fraud.

The law enforcement agents could equally get wiretaps to carry out investigations on some of the crimes committed by terrorists, but not all of them. The Act made it possible for the investigators to gather details when studying the wide range of crimes that relate to terrorism, such as chemical-weapon crimes, using weapons of mass destruction, financing terrorism, and killing Americans overseas. It allows federal agents to track difficult terrorists trained to escape detection.

For several years, the law enforcement has been able to make use of roving wiretaps to carry out investigations on ordinary crimes, which includes drug racketeering and trafficking. A federal judge can give approval for the use of a roving wiretap to apply to a certain suspect, instead of a certain phone or any other such communication device, since international terrorists are trained to evade surveillance measures put up to track their movements by changing both locations and communication devices rapidly.

These communication devices include cell phones and computers, and according to the Act, agents can seek the permission of the court to adopt the same techniques in investigations that concern national security for tracking down the terrorists (Wong, 2007). The Act makes it possible for law enforcement agents to carry out investigations without alerting the terrorists. If the criminals get tipped off early into the investigation, they might destroy evidence, flee, intimidate the witness, severe contacts with associates, take actions to escape arrest or even kill witnesses (Woods, 2005).

Thus, in prudent situations, federal courts have long allowed the law enforcement agents to delay surveillance for a while once the subject has been informed that a search warrant approved by the judiciary has been carried out. There is always a notice, but the sensible delay enables the law enforcement to gain enough time to identify the associates of the criminals, preempt urgent community threats, and arrange the arrests of several individuals without their being alerted.

The delays of the notification of such search warrants have been in use for a couple of decades, and has been successful in combating several organized crime and drug-related cases, and the courts have always upheld that they adhere by the constitution completely. The Act makes it convenient for agents to request an order from a court to get relevant business records in cases involving national terrorism. Assessing business records offer vital information needed by the investigators to help them solve a number of crimes.

Investigators might go in search of certain records from chemical plants or hardware stores, for instance, to discover who purchased the materials used for the bomb production, or check bank records to discover who has been transferring funds to terrorist's organizations. Law enforcement personnel have never failed to gain access to important business records in such criminal cases through magnificent jury subpoenas, and keep doing so in cases of national security when necessary.

These records were searched for, in some criminal cases like the Zodiac Gunman investigation, suspected by the police to have gotten his inspiration from the Scottish occult poet, and tried to know who had borrowed the poet's books from the library (Woods, 2005). In cases threatening national security, where it was not appropriate to adopt the grand jury technique, investigators initially had very inadequate tools available to them to access certain important business records.

According to the PATRIOT Act, a federal court can now be asked by the government (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court), if the court needs the government's help to facilitate the investigation process, to give order for the creation of similar records available through the subpoenas of the grand jury (Wong, 2007).

However, the federal court, can issue such provisions only after the records in question have been demonstrated to be sought for a legal investigation to access international intelligence details that do not concern a United States citizen or to provide protection against clandestine intelligence activities or international terrorism, so long as such investigation on a citizen of the United States is not solely conducted on the ground of the activities the First Amendment protects.

The PATRIOT Act facilitated information sharing and teamwork among government functionaries and this made it easier for all involved to link up the dots more easily. The Act removed the main barriers that prevented the intelligence, national defense communities, and law enforcement from speaking out and working together as a team to keep the American people protected and enhance their national security. Boxes on an organizational chart should not restrict the efforts the U.S. government is making towards prevention.

Now, FBI agents, police officers, intelligence officials, and federal prosecutors can keep our communities protected by linking up all the important dots to uncover the acts of terrorists before they get the chance to carry them out.

According to what Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) had to say concerning the PATRIOT Act, it is not possible to win the war against terror if the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing (Relyea, 2002) Investigators and prosecutors made use of shared information in adherence to section 218 in carrying out the investigation of the defendants in the supposed Virginia Jihad case.

This suit affected members of the Dar al-Arqam Islamic Center, who were trained for Jihad in Northern Virginia by partaking in paramilitary training and paintball, which included eight individuals who visited terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan between 1999-2001. These persons were associated with the notorious Islamist terrorist group called Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), whose major areas of operation were Kashmir and Pakistan, and they had links to the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

As an outcome of an investigation that involved using information sourced through FISA, the prosecutors were able to charge these persons. Six of these defendants pleaded guilty, and on March 2004, three were convicted of charges such as conspiracy to war against U.S. and a conspiracy to lend material support to the Taliban. The prison terms received by these nine defendants ranged from four years to lifetime incarceration (Wong, 2007). The PATRIOT Act upgraded the law to represent new threats and new technologies.

The Act brought up the law in line with current technologies, which means we do not need to keep using antique weapons-legal powers (leftovers of the rotary telephone age), to fight digital-age wars. When carrying out the investigation on Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, for instance, one of the Act's new provisions were used by law enforcement, which involved using high-tech procedures to identify and find some of the murderers (Relyea, 2002).

The Act makes it easy for law enforcement agents to get search warrant wherever the terrorist-related activity takes place. Prior to the PATRIOT Act, law enforcement agents needed to get a search warrant in the area they wanted to carry out the search (Relyea, 2002). Nevertheless, investigations on modern terrorism trends always span different districts, and the officers thus needed to get different warrants under multiple jurisdictions, causing unnecessary delays.

The Act offers that it is possible to obtain warrants in any area where any terrorism-related activity takes place, irrespective of where they will be carried out. This does not alter the standards that govern the search warrant's availability, but streamlines the process of search warrant. Thus, it is possible for people who have been victims of computer hacking to ask for the assistance of law enforcement agents in countering the hackers of their personal computers.

The law was made neutral by this change; electronic trespassers and physical trespassers were placed on the same category. Now, these hacking victims can easily seek the assistance of law enforcement agents as a way of combating hackers, similar to the way homeowners call the police to apprehend burglars who invade their homes (Woods, 2005). The PATRIOT Act raised the punishment given to people who engage in terrorist crimes.

Americans face the same threats in the hands of those who finance bomb procurement as well as the person who detonates the bomb. This is why The PATRIOT Act introduced more severe penalties on anyone who take part in terrorist activities or supports them whether locally or internationally. Particularly, the Act: Forbids one from harboring a terrorist.

Under the Act, new offenses forbid anyone from intentionally harboring an individual or individuals who have either committed terrorist-related offenses or are about to do so, such as: gunning down an aircraft; making use of chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons; making use of weapons of mass destruction; bombing government properties, sabotaging nuclear facilities; and aircraft conspiracy (Woods, 2005).

The Act increased the hitherto inadequate highest punishment for different crimes that are likely to perpetrated by terrorists: Which include arson, destroying energy plants, providing material aids to terrorists or terrorists groups, and destroying national-defense materials (Wong, 2007). Increased a number of conspiracy punishments, which include arson, murders in federal facilities, providing material aid to terrorists, attacking communication facilities, sabotaging nuclear facilities, and interfering with the job of the members of the flight crew.

Under the former framework, several terrorism laws failed to specifically forbid engagement in any sort of conspiracies to commit any of these underlying crimes. In such situations, the government could do nothing more than to prosecute offenders under the general federal provision for conspiracy, whose maximum penalty is a jail term of five years (Gouvin, 2003). Now, it punishes those who carry out terror attacks on transit systems, to bioterrorists, and removes the law of limitations for some specific terrorism offenses and increases for the other terror-related crimes.

The success recorded by the government in their bid to prevent a future disastrous attack in September 11, 2001, on the American Homeland, would have been a whole lot difficult, if not outrightly impossible, in the absence of the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act. The powers provided by Congress have largely improved our ability to pre-empt, investigate, and prosecute terror activities. Future of the Act in light of the changing times However, since its passage, the popularity of the Act has become polarized.

Its effectiveness is lauded by the Bush administration, claiming that our ability to share intelligence information has increased because of the Act, amended the law with the aim of adapting to technological changes, and offered agencies saddled with the provision of federal law enforcement with necessary tools to carry out investigations on spies and terrorists. Proponents of civil liberties have not been sanguine enough: according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The U.S.A.

PATRIOT Act largely extends the surveillance on law enforcement and analytical powers and reflects one of the most important threats to privacy, civil liberties and United States historical democratic practices (Wong, 2007). Though, some of the criticisms to this Act are not verifiable, most come from legal concerns.

One thing is sure, there was no meaningful debate before the bill was passed into law: members of the House were prevented from offering amendments in the house, nor were most members given the opportunity to read out the bill before they were asked to support it by voting on it. Most of the provisions had been previously proposed and discarded due to concerns on civil liberties, and most of them went beyond the fight against terrorism (Wong, 2007).

This doubtful history justifiably led to claims that law enforcement rode on the wings of the hysteria and frenzy that surrounded the 9/11 attacks to secure bag of the powers that have been long desired. Towards the end of 2005, the PATRIOT Act was subject to significant drama. At first, the drafters of the Act set December 31, 2005 as the expiry date for about 16 of its most contentious provisions, except when renewed by the Congress.

Therefore, the Congress was already getting ready for the important debate when reauthorization was reintroduced and presented emphatically to the nation (Wong, 2007). President Obama signed the PATRIOT's Sunset Extension Act in 2011. There were two specific extensions of practices permitted by Title 11 of the first Act, and another one by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in 2004. The validity of the three extended practices (in Sections 206, 215 and 6001) is until 2015 (Liu, 2011).

According to Section 206 of the PATRIOT Act, the law enforcement agents were authorized to make use of roving wiretaps, the provision under which no individual is named and no specific means of communication is mentioned; the implication being, the wiretapped device may undergo changes all through the duration of the investigation without any need to get more permission. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act encourages seizure of documents. While there is need for court approval, there is possible cause of sensible suspicion.

According to Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, there should be a thorough surveillance of persons or a person working alone, suspected of terror-related activities, but not necessarily linked to any particular terror group. Secret intelligence courts grant this authorization and this is regarded as public information. The decision of President Obama to broaden these provisions was taken under serious controversies. Now, as the date of expiration comes nearer, the debate is once again intensified (Liu, 2011).

With the expiry of sunset extension of the PATRIOT Act, there was need for a reform the Act to give both the governed and its agencies the required might that the PATRIOT Act provided. This reform bill can be termed a bipartisan proposal named the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which received votes from the House Judiciary Committee in the month of May, 2015. The U.S.A. Freedom Act provides the government with needed tools: develop a latest call information.