Table of ContentsSummaryIntroduction/OverviewDiscussion and AnalysisConclusions or RecommendationsSummaryThe purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the Patriot Act in order to understand what it does and how we can arrive at a conclusion or recommendation appropriate to the law itself. It will focus on where the law came from, who was involved in it, why it was created and how the public responded to it. There will also be details on various expired and current titles. Through further research, the controversies surrounding the law will also be analyzed. The findings and recommendations at the end of the paper examine some ways Patriot Act headlines and organizations such as the NSA can be more honest with the public. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIntroduction/OverviewThe USA Patriot Act is an anti-terrorism law signed into law by the United States Congress in October 2001, at the request of the President George W. Bush in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was signed by Bush in October. 26, 2001, and is often referred to simply as “The USA PATRIOT Act,” 2016. The law gave new powers to the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and other federal agencies over domestic and domestic policy. international surveillance of electronic communications. It also removed legal barriers that prevented law enforcement, intelligence, and defense agencies from sharing information about potential terrorist threats and coordinating efforts to respond to them (“The USA PATRIOT Act,” 2016) . The Patriot Act contains ten titles each containing several sections, many of which are currently expired. Here are all the title descriptions.TITLE I: Strengthening Homeland Security Against Terrorism: Establishing a Fund for Counterterrorism Actions, Condemning Discrimination Against Arab and Muslim Americans, Increasing Funding for the FBI Technical Support Center, Authorizing the military assistance in certain situations involving weapons of mass destruction at the request of the United States Attorney General, expanded the National Electronic Crimes Task Force, and expanded the President's authority and capabilities in cases of terrorism ("How Works the Patriot Act”, 2007). TITLE II: Enhanced Oversight Procedures: Grants increased oversight powers to various government agencies and organizations ("How The Patriot Act Works", 2007). TITLE III: International Money Laundering Reduction and Financial Counterterrorism Act of 2001: aims to facilitate the prevention, detection and prosecution of international money laundering and terrorist financing (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE IV: Protecting the Border: aims to prevent terrorism in the United States through immigration regulations. The title's provisions generally increase the difficulty of entering the country for individuals known or suspected of having terrorist intentions ("How The Patriot Act Works," 2007). TITLE V: Removing Barriers to Investigating Terrorism: Allows the United States Attorney General to pay rewards under advertisements for assistance to the Department of Justice in combating terrorism and preventing terrorist acts ( “How the Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE VI: Providing victims of terrorism, public safety officers and their families: provides assistance to the families of public safety officers who were injured or killed duringterrorist attacks (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE VII: Increased Information Sharing for Critical Infrastructure Protection: Increases the ability of U.S. law enforcement to counter terrorism activity that crosses jurisdictional boundaries (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE VIII: Strengthening criminal laws against terrorism: modifies the definitions of terrorism and establishes or redefines the rules for dealing with it. He redefined the term “domestic terrorism” to broadly include mass destruction as well as assassination or kidnapping as a terrorist activity (“How the Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE IX: Intelligence Enhancement: Establishes requirements and priorities for foreign intelligence collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and to provide assistance to the Attorney General of the United States in ensuring that information derived from the electronic surveillance or physical searches be disseminated for effective and efficient foreign intelligence purposes ("How the Patriot Act Works", 2007). TITLE X: Miscellaneous: creation or modification of a number of miscellaneous laws that did not really fit with the other sections of the Patriot Act ("How the Patriot Act Works", 2007). The Patriot Act was later reauthorized by three bills. The first, the Patriot Act and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005, was passed by both houses of Congress in July 2005. This bill reauthorized provisions of the Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. It created new provisions regarding the death penalty for terrorists, increased security at seaports, new measures to combat the financing of terrorism, new powers for the secret services and a certain number of other miscellaneous provisions. The second reauthorization law, the Patriot Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006, amended the first and was passed in February 2006. Later, on Saturday, February 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law legislation that would temporarily extend, for a year, three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act which included: authorization of court-approved roving wiretaps that allow surveillance of multiple phones, court authorization of the seizure of records and property as part of counter-terrorism operations, and the authorization of surveillance against a “lone wolf”. " who is a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism and cannot be part of a recognized terrorist group. These provisions constitute the last two sections of the law which will expire in 2019 (Biscobing, 2016). The term lone wolf is often used in the news to describe a mass shooter who commits the act on his own (Strohm, 2016). For example, the Orlando nightclub shooter was considered a lone wolf because he single-handedly carried out mass killings. all victims of the nightclub However, it was reported that he had pledged allegiance to ISIS at the time of the attack. The Patriot Act has raised concerns among critics over the privacy rights of the. American citizens These concerns were particularly heightened in 2013, when NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed information showing that the agency was using the law to justify collecting data on millions of phone calls (Szoldra. , 2016). More details on the controversies will be included in the discussion and analysis section of the paper. More recently, the USA Freedom Act, which places new limits on the collection of telecommunications metadata(a set of data that describes and gives information about other data). ) on U.S. citizens by U.S. intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA), and also reinstates authorization to use wiretapping and tracking lone-wolf terrorists, was signed into law on June 2, 2015 (“ USA Freedom Act Archives,” 2015). Discussion and AnalysisAs noted above, the Patriot Act has generated much controversy. The reaction has been particularly critical to the law's attack on the privacy of our country's citizens. In this section of the document, the focus will be on the different tools. which are permitted by law and how important figures have reacted to their use. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and searches.” seizures shall not be violated and no warrants shall be issued except upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized” (“The Patriot Act - Constitution”, 2016). This is important to note given the controversial use of National Security Letters (NSL). An NSL is typically used by the FBI (the FBI Director, a direct assistant, and by all FBI Special Agents) and is similar to a subpoena, with the government arguing that they are constitutional, NSLs are used to collect information from businesses that include credit reporting agencies, telecommunications providers, financial institutions and travel agencies, in order to advance a national security-related investigation, all without requiring an order of the court. They authorize the FBI, as well as other federal agencies (in certain circumstances), to demand that these companies turn over their customer data. This data may include banking, telephone and internet usage information. However, it is not legal for NSLs to obtain content such as emails or phone calls. The information obtainable through NSLs is limited only to records such as subscriber information or billing records. Furthermore, the only way to issue these NSLs is to certify that the documents sought are “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities” (“National Security Letters,” 2014). A recent example of this would be when the FBI wanted to force Apple to access the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. This has left many people concerned about their information, thinking that at any moment the government could decide to take over their phone or computer. Apple was praised for initially rejecting the FBI's request to hack the shooter's phone, but the FBI eventually found another way to access the mainframe and entered the phone itself. The controversy goes even further due to the fact that this process is carried out in secret. Companies that receive these NSLs are “gagged” and cannot tell anyone what happened and in the last 10 years alone it has been reported that over 300,000 NSLs have been issued. 2004 being the highest year for NSLs with a total of 56,507. In 2000, before the Patriot Act was signed, it was reported that only 8,500 copies were issued ("National Security Letters", 2014). This shows that the Patriot Act, in a sense, relaxed the standards of NSLs, making themexploded in volume. With this in mind, it is understandable that the public is not supportive of the way the FBI has treated Apple and is most likely treating other companies. One of the most prominent public figures opposing not only the Patriot Act, but President George W. Bush in general, is documentarian Michael Moore. In his hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Michael Moore interviewed members of Congress about the signing of the Patriot Act. Congressman Jim McDermott explained in the film that the Patriot Act was essentially "off the shelf" and that Congress had all these ideas it was waiting to use. Then 9/11 happened and they had an opportunity to use them. He went on to say that at that point the administration assumed that we had to give up some of our rights (Moore and Moore, 2004). What he also discovered was that no one he interviewed had actually read the law. himself. Asked how anyone could pass the law without reading it, Congressman John Conyers responded: “Sit down, son. We don't read most bills. Do you really know what it would mean if we had to read every bill we pass? (Moore & Moore, 2004). Even though Michael Moore has a clear agenda and bias in his films, the results are still interesting. Hearing a member of Congress admit that no one reads most of the bills passed is very concerning. You would think that these men and women elected to Congress would have the ambition to want to read every part of, or at least a decent majority of every time, the bills that are passed. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, you'd want officials to be active in this sort of thing. It would make no sense to pass a bill without reading it! The final, and perhaps most controversial, part of this article would be the NSA and its connection to the Patriot Act. Before we get into the situation with Edward Snowden, let's first look at what the NSA is and what it was at the time the Patriot Act was signed. The National Security Agency (NSA) is the intelligence organization of the United States government. It is responsible for the global surveillance, collection and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. Originally created as a unit to decipher coded communications during World War II, it officially became the NSA in 1952 under President S. Truman (“About Us – NSA,” 2016). At the time the Patriot Act was signed, some officials, like Jim Sensenbrenner, believed the NSA was abusing its power as it amassed a vast collection of U.S. telephone data. Sensenbrenner went on to say that the NSA had gone "far beyond" its original intent and had "exceeded its authority." What we can conclude from reading this brief history is that we have an agency that has gone too far with its capabilities. It's interesting that more than a decade ago there were concerns that the NSA was going too far. As we will see in the next paragraph, the NSA actually went too far (Roberts, 2013). In June 2013, Hong Kong's Edward Snowden revealed details of classified US government surveillance programs that showed the NSA was collecting telephone information. records of millions of Verizon users, countless emails and internet metadata, and data accessed through Google and Facebook (Szoldra, 2016). Then, on June 21, 2013, the US Department of Justice indicted Snowden on two counts: violating the Espionage Act..