After the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center by the radical Islamic group al-Qaeda and the 2001 anthrax attacks on two senators and several media outlets, Congress rushed to pass the USA Patriot Act, which is more or less a law to deter and punish acts of terrorism in the United States and around the world, to improve law enforcement's investigative tools, and for other purposes. After these unrelated terrorist attacks occurred within weeks of each other, Congress realized that legislative reform was needed. Many historians such as Brett Rubio believe that the USA Patriot Act violated American civil liberties while the United States government, more specifically the Department of Justice, believed it was a necessary course of action to prevent future acts of terrorism. The Patriot Act was put in place to allow the Department of Justice to foil terrorist attacks following 9/11 and the anthrax attack, but the act comes at the expense of American civil liberties such as invasion of privacy and racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims. Since its introduction, the Patriot Act has received heavy praise from the FBI and other Justice Department agencies who have praised its ability to assist investigations and prevent terrorism through increased interagency cooperation, roving wiretaps, more broad and the ability to go after terrorist cell suppliers, to name a few. One of the many provisions of the Patriot Act was greater interagency cooperation or tearing down the “wall.” As FBI Director Robert Mueller stated before Congress: “Today investigators sit at the same table and work together as a team.” Secret Service Investigating Agents and Crime Investigating Agents... middle of paper ......is violated, because the government does not give our private information to the people we know. I also believe that if we have nothing to hide then we should want the government to examine us to prove our innocence. The Patriot Act needs to be strengthened after last year's marathon bombing. The Boston Marathon bombing was the largest terrorist act on American soil since 9/11 and just 12 years after the Patriot Act was created to prevent events like this from happening. When the FBI had received information from the FSB and the CIA years earlier about one of the attackers, it was decided to close the investigation. If it is going to allocate large sums of money, $68.9 billion in 2013, and few restrictions on surveillance, the Justice Department will have to be meticulous with its procedures and not take such costly risks.