Analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act
Introduct
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The USA PATRIOT Act û titled ôUniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorismö û was passed into law by the U.S. Congress in direct response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Act, Public Law 107 û 56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001), is described as giving to federal officials greater authority to track and intercept communications for both law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering purposes (Doyle, 2002). The Act also vests the Secretary of the Treasury with the power to combat corruption of American financial institutions for foreign money laundering purposes and seeks to close borders to terrorists, detaining and removing those whoa re found within our borders. Finally, the Act also creates a new set of crimes and attendant penalties and procedural efficiencies for use against domestic and international terrorists (Doyle, 2002). Even as Congress was deliberating on the provisions of the PATRIOT Act, criticisms of the Act were being expressed. Michaels and Van Bergen (2002), for example, noted that the powers granted to federal investigative services by the Act are unprecedented and vast. Indeed, these analysts believe that in passing the Act, Congress failed to deliberate, to debate and to follow its own procedures (e.g., committee hearings, conference reports, and so forth) before bringing the Act to the floors of the two legislative c
. . .
ed to Congress) PATRIOT II will be discussed below.
The Public Policy Issue
Nancy Talanian (2002), a spokesperson for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, identified the effects of the PATRIOT Act with respect to specific Amendments contained in the Bill of Rights. It is with respect to these basic civil liberties and protected rights that the policies changed by the Act will have the most impact. Earlier in this report, an overview of Fourth Amendment effects was offered, but Talanian (2002) pointed out that the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, and Eighth Amendment are also affected by the PATRIOT Act.
The First Amendment states that ôCongress shall make no law respect an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances (Talanian, 2002, 2).ö The PATRIOT Act affects the First Amendment in several ways:
. It creates the crime of domestic terrorism with
a broad definition that can be used against activist
exercising the right of assembly and dissent
. It permits the FBI Director to obtain records
from bookstore
. . .
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Approximate Word count = 5686
Approximate Pages = 23 (250 words per page)
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