USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is a law enacted shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, aimed at enhancing the government's ability to prevent future terrorism through improved information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Initially named the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, the legislation sought to address gaps in federal security that contributed to the attacks. While proponents argued that the law was essential for national security, critics raised significant concerns regarding its implications for civil liberties, citing potential invasions of privacy and the targeting of specific communities, particularly Muslim Americans.
Key provisions included the ability for law enforcement to conduct "roving wiretaps," which allow monitoring across multiple phone lines, and access to personal records through National Security Letters, which included gag orders preventing recipients from disclosing the request. Over the years, various amendments were proposed to curb potential abuses, but many provisions were reauthorized under subsequent administrations. Following public outcry and revelations about domestic surveillance practices, certain controversial elements of the act were allowed to expire in 2015, leading to the introduction of the USA Freedom Act. This new legislation aimed to reform data collection practices while still maintaining some surveillance capabilities, reflecting the ongoing tension between security measures and individual privacy rights.
USA PATRIOT Act
Federal legislation that expanded the power of law enforcement agencies in order to facilitate antiterrorism efforts
Date: Signed on October 26, 2001
Also Known As: Patriot Act; Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
Passed into law following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act sought to prevent future acts of terrorism against the United States by facilitating information sharing between intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, among other provisions. Many opponents considered the act unconstitutional because it sacrificed personal privacy for the sake of public security.
Initially called the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, the Patriot Act was proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Department of Justice in an effort to remove obstacles to law-enforcement efforts in monitoring and detaining terrorists. While the act updated existing laws, modernizing surveillance techniques to address new technology, it also focused on addressing federal weaknesses that allowed the September 11, 2001, attacks to occur. The Patriot Act enabled information sharing between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in order to address the information disconnect between the two groups. Since the attacks were made using airplanes, the act included provisions to increase airport security. The act also allowed indefinite detention of immigrants suspected of terrorist ties, a provision fraught with controversy. Another intrusive provision of the Patriot Act allowed government officials to search citizens’ homes and records secretly. While the federal government maintained that secrecy was vital to the success of these searches, opponents viewed the provision as invasive.
Opponents criticized the Patriot Act for its infringement on civil liberties. Early on, Senator Russ Feingold strongly opposed the act and voted against it. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center claimed that the act violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Electronic Frontier Foundation joined in opposition, touting the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Most criticized was the act’s section 215 of Title II, which gave the FBI access to the personal records of US citizens, including medical, financial, telephone, and library records. To obtain records, the FBI would issue a national security letter (NSL), which demanded the handover of relevant communication records and included a gag order to preemptively prohibit discussing the receipt of the NSL and challenging the NSL in court. The ACLU charged that section 215 and its gag order violated the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. They were joined by the American Library Association, which stated strong opposition to this invasion of privacy. Another key part of the law was a provision for "roving wiretaps," which allow authorities, with court authorization, to follow the subject of a wiretap from phone to phone rather than being restricted to a single telephone connection.
To curb the law’s potential abuses, members of Congress proposed several amendments. These included Senator Bernie Sanders’s Freedom to Read Protection Act and Senators Larry Craig and Dick Durbin’s Security and Freedom Ensured Act, though these measures failed to pass.
Impact
Although many provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire in 2005, both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama renewed several of the act’s provisions. These reauthorizations maintained key aspects of the law, while introducing some modifications, such as allowing for court challenges to national security letters. In 2011, Obama signed a four-year reauthorization of those same key provisions, including section 215 of Title II and the roving wiretaps provision. Many critics of the Patriot Act contend that, since its enactment, law-enforcement agencies have disproportionately and unfairly targeted law-abiding Muslim Americans for surveillance. As the act lived on, the US government needed to reconcile protecting American privacy with protecting American lives, particularly as surveillance technology advanced. While the law began as a measure to combat terrorism, critics of the act feared that it could be used to transform the US government into an oppressive force.
About two years after whistleblower Edward Snowden publicly leaked information about the National Security Agency's (NSA) debated domestic surveillance practices, the Senate ultimately allowed three of the more controversial provisions of the act to expire on June 1, 2015. One of these provisions was section 215. While the FBI and the NSA could continue to apply section 215 in investigations initiated prior to the deadline, the agency had officially shut down its bulk data collection program by the evening of May 31. The other expired provisions were those that involved the roving wiretaps and the ability to act nationally against suspected lone-wolf terrorists. The following day, President Obama expediently signed the USA Freedom Act, which had initially failed to pass the Senate the previous fall, into law. Response to the new bill was mixed, especially since the two latter provisions were fully reinstated. The provision pertaining to bulk data collection was also reinstated but with alterations. The new condition allotted the NSA six months to transition to a reformed system in which the data collected would be held by telecommunications companies instead; these companies would only turn this information over to the government upon the issuing of a specific warrant. While some saw this change as a significant improvement, opponents criticized the bill as another failure to protect civil liberties. The provisions from this Act were not renewed in 2020, and so Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act expired.
Bibliography
Diamond, Jeremy. "Patriot Act Provisions Have Expired: What Happens Now?" CNN. Cable News Network, 1 June 2015. Web. 7 July 2015.
Diamond, Jeremy. "Thought Bulk Data Collection Was Gone? Think Again." CNN. Cable News Network, 2 June 2015. Web. 7 July 2015.
Finan, Christopher M. From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act. Boston: Beacon, 2007. Print.
"Government Surveillance: Background." CQ Researcher 30 Aug. 2013: 725–30. Print.
Herman, Susan N. Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
McKinney, India, and Andrew Crocker. "Yes, Section 214 Expired. Now What?" Electronic Frontier Foundation, 16 Apr. 2020, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/yes-section-215-expired-now-what. Accessed 18 Mar. 2022.
Schwartz, Felicia. "Government Surveillance Faces a Deadline." Wall Street Journal 2 Jan. 2015: A7. Print.