Analyzing the Patriot Act

Patriot Act

The following will be an in-depth look at the Patriot Act.

History of the Patriot Act

This Act was developed after the terrorism tragedy on September 11 in New York, and became a law on 10/26/2001. It was a contentious law, since it made huge alterations on how the law enforcement should look into its communications. The Patriot Act was passed amid much disapproval, making it contentious to date (History of the Patriot Act -- Patriot Act). The enthusiasts of this Act believed that it allowed the law enforcement to prevent future terrorism. The critics, on the other hand, describe the law as ambiguous and intrusive. They also say that it is doubtful, considering the scope of the legislation, that it was directly based on the attack. It was apparently meant to finally give the law enforcement a chance to be more aggressive, using the terrorism tragedy as a loophole.

Controversial Provisions

The House pushed for an extension of 3 provisions of the spy legislation of the Act, which were about to expire. It was expected to be passed by a vote of 275-144. They were bound to expire at the end of the month. The House ignored making changes or even debating on them, and instead lobbed the third failure by Congress in more than a year to look into the law's contentions. The provision named "roving wiretap" gives the FBI the mandate to get wiretaps from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), a secret intelligence court, having neither goal nor knowledge of the communication method they needed to employ. The second legislation, "lone wolf" licenses aimless electronic supervision by the FISA court. They did not even need to show the culprit's involvement with terrorism or any foreign authority (Kravets, 2011). The government denied appealing the measure, while the Obama government claimed that it had the desire to maintain the power to appeal it. The third provision, "business records" gives the FISA court permission to access any record, whether library, medical or banking with no government declaration of a connection between the information under pursuit with a spying or terror investigation.

Libraries offer room for exercising academic freedom -- an open and welcome exchange of information and facts where people can freely inquire, and privately look for information. Privacy is important when exercising one's freedom of association, thoughts and speech. It is not allowed for other people to scrutinize or investigate one's interests in any library. According to the ALA, some parts of the Act undermine the privacy and legal rights of people using the library. Libraries work together with law enforcement to look for information on particular patrons under instructions from a court order. Nonetheless, there is a complaint that some of the provisions in the Act overstep the customary ways of using libraries when looking for facts.

Does It Need To Be Amended