Seventeen years ago, the United States and her people weren’t officially in any war or conflicts. Very few citizens had even heard of Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden, and ISIL was not even a blip on her radar. America’s involvement in middle eastern affairs and the War on Terror – a reaction to the 9/11 terror attacks – created a drastic change in our nation’s political and social landscape. The aftermath of the attacks forced America to reevaluate their ideas regarding, safety and privacy. After the attacks of September 11th, the laws and regulations that have since passed have drastically improved national security, although the reduction in privacy, effects on foreign relations, and the lasting consequences of the War on Terror have had negative …show more content…
A highly successful program of the Patriot Act in reducing the threat of homegrown terrorism is through the increased attack on fraudulent money laundering. By targeting money laundering, the primary source of funding for terrorist organizations is effectively reduced. This act also expanded other forms of surveillance as well, increasing the authorization for wiretaps and searches by requiring very little evidence to enable one. The act further relaxes pre-measures for the invasion of US residents with the “Sneak and Peak” provision which allows law enforcement to search a suspect’s home without immediately notifying them, potentially for months (“Is the USA Patriot Act Necessary”, 2005). The USA Patriot Act played a huge role in setting current standards for immigrant treatment, “Once it became statutory, the Act gave the legal authorities the unfettered right to detain foreigners for an unlimited length of time, based solely on distrust, without the detainees having due process of law” (Smith, C. S., & Hung, L., 2010, p. 32). This is allowed under the act as the Executive Branch can preemptively detain immigrants who simply fall into the recently broadened category of a