Patriot Act Pros And Cons

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USA PATRIOT ACT
One of the most historical moments in American history is those fateful moments on September 11th, 2001, as two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, and one into the Pentagon. This blatant act of terrorism instilled fear into the hearts of all Americans, who soon started questioning the U.S. government on how they were preventing and stopping future terrorist attacks. Soon after the events of 9/11 unfolded, Congress called a meeting to pass a law that would prevent acts of terrorism in the future. Soon after this meeting took place, a bill called the USA PATRIOT Act was passed by Congress and signed by George W. Bush, which provided less legal limitations for law enforcement concerning terrorism, and harsher …show more content…

The Patriot Act was passed by overwhelming margins in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26th, 2001 (What Is the USA Patriot Web.). President Bush said that this law was intended to "enhance the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them" (George W. Bush Signs the Patriot Act). This means that the Patriot Act gives law enforcement more power against terrorists and anyone who helps …show more content…

On May 17th, 2002, a FISA court denied the Justice Department rights to monitor U.S. citizens (USA Patriot Act.). On January 23rd, 2004, the Supreme Court declares some parts of the Patriot Act unconstitutional (USA Patriot Act.). This meant that law enforcement had to change their tactics on observing suspected terrorists. Unfortunately, law enforcement and other security agencies were being caught breaking the law to find terrorists. In June of 2005, the telecommunication company AT&T admitted to allowing the government to illegally monitor millions of messages a second (USA Patriot Act.). Also, in March of 2007, a audit done on the FBI finds "thousands of self-issued subpoenas", which is usually the police departments duty (USA Patriot Act.). In both cases, the laws in the Patriot Act were reduced to prevent further illegal