Pros And Cons Of The US Patriot Act

The U.S. PATRIOT Act was passed on October 26, 2011. This act gives extensive powers to “federal investigators to track down suspected terrorists and spoil any future terrorist attacks in the United States” (Uddin, 2014). While there are both opponents and supporters of this act, it mainly seems to cause controversy as news stories chronicle the latest pros and mostly cons regarding the topic. When first passed, supporters said that the provisions would enhance information sharing. Detractors, however, said that “unrestricted sharing could lead to the development of databases about citizens who are not targets of criminal investigations” (Abramson & Godoy, 2005). Databases, of course did appear, but so did increased extremism and terrorism,

This section allows “one wiretap authorization to cover multiple devices, [which eliminates] the need for separate court authorizations for a suspect’s cell phone” and other technology (id.). While still causing ire among organizations and individuals, the government extended this section until June of 2015 (Reform the PATRIOT, n.d.). The ACLU says that this section, dubbed the roving John Doe wiretap, “permits [wiretapping] without identification of either the person or the facility being tapped” (id.). They continue and assert that this is “contrary to traditions notions of search and seizure,” and they demand that it be amended or allowed to expire (id.). What they do not mention, however, is these provisions are not just allowed under the PATRIOT Act. They are part of Title18 of the United States Code, section 2518 subsection 11, which allows criminal investigators to do the same (U.S. Code, n.d.). Inclusion in the PATRIOT Act just allows the intelligence community to have the same ability to protect the innocent as criminal investigators have when trying to find the

34). FISA investigators are required to seek authorization from the court prior to collecting intelligence (p. 34). As noted earlier, the PATRIOT Act dilutes this requirement by authorizing the FBI to wiretap any device with just one authorization (p. 34). In fact, authorization can be obtained without any documentation so security agencies are able to collect data from almost any source making a large population vulnerable to monitoring (p. 34). The Bush administration justified use of the wiretapping program. In fact, it was Congress who allowed President Bush to bypass FISA court and allow the NSA to spy on al-Qaeda in a program called Stellar Wind (Poladian, 2014). This also allowed for them to spy on people who were communicating with those outside the U.S. borders. The program was not without glitches, however, and some domestic traffic was intercepted, and reported in the media for public consumption. Eventually, lawsuits started flying, especially when the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against the president, vice president and his chief of staff, among others (id.). Hoping for relief when President Obama took office, people found his position coincided with his predecessor. Obama has supported his decision for use of this program stating that it is “an important tool to fight terrorism”