Patriot Act Research Paper

“At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United States have been thwarted since 9/11” (Reality). The majority of people know about the tragedy that happened on September 11th, 2001, but not that many people know about what came to be after the event; the Patriot Act. This act is the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001” (Miller). The Patriot Act got put in place by the President and almost got a unanimous vote to pass it nearly ten days after. It was later used to take down many of the 42 attack plots. The Patriot Act is justified tremendously by 9/11 because it has helped track down terrorists, it has given more freedom for communication throughout the

Nevertheless, this act has helped intercept a money courier, known as Florez-Gomez, who stole over “$1.3 million per month for the Colombian leftist rebel group ‘FARC’” (Ridge). As stated by the same article, “Thanks to Special Agent Norman Bright, an alert ICE agent who used his knowledge of key new elements of the Patriot Act in the investigation and interrogation, Florez-Gomez got arrested and charged with being an unlicensed money transmitter” (Ridge). Without this act, the agent wouldn’t have been able to track down the criminal. In addition to this, the Patriot Act was used to help free a 13-year-old girl from a kidnapper. The police used the act to access internet evidence to locate the criminal. Ridge said in the article “The Patriot Act Enhances National Security”, that “By protecting our freedom, civil liberties are enhanced, not diminished”(Ridge). Using the tools to find the criminals is helping to keep the citizens’ liberties safe. Although to do this, the government needed more communication between each branch to complete each

The article, “The Patriot Act Infringes on International Students ' Privacy Rights” claims that, “Campus police [...] has the right to find out what books we check out of the library, find out what kinds of political convictions we express in our classes and around campus and go to other ridiculous lengths to screen our daily activities” (McCormack), this made people feel unsafe because the campus police are there to keep them safe, not impose on their private activities. But without them doing their jobs, they wouldn’t be able to find out key information about some terrorist attacks. The article also claims that the patriot act targets international students and imposes on their learning. Consequently, they do this because some of the terrorists that took part in 9/11 came into the country with a student visa, so the government has to be more cautious with the international students. Lastly, McCormack states that “This type of legislation threatens our ability to work for change within society and acts to silence voices of dissent” (McCormack). This is arguable because the act doesn’t restrict freedom, it protects liberties.

The Patriot Act is justified by the 9/11 attacks because it has helped put dozens of terrorism attempts in the ground, it has broken down communication barriers that were built between the branches of the government, and overall has heightened every