Topic > An Overview of the United States Patriot Act

IndexAbstractIntroduction/OverviewDiscussion and AnalysisConclusions or RecommendationsAbstractThe goal of this article is to provide an overview of the Patriot Act in order to provide an understanding of what it does and how it can be achieved conclusion or recommendation appropriate to the law itself. It will focus on the origins of the law, who was involved, why it was created and how the public responded to it. Details will also be provided on various expired and current titles. With the use of further research, there will also be an analysis of the controversies surrounding the law. The conclusions and recommendations at the end of the document discuss some ways in which Patriot Act securities and organizations like the NSA can be more honest with the public. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Introduction/OverviewThe USA Patriot Act is an anti-terrorism law enacted by the United States Congress in October 2001, at the request of 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 simply called “The USA PATRIOT Act” (“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 regarding domestic and international surveillance of electronic communications. It also removed legal barriers that had 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). contains ten titles that each contain multiple sections, many of which are currently out of date. The following are all descriptions of the titles. TITLE I: Strengthening Homeland Security Against Terrorism: Establishes a fund for counterterrorism actions, condemns discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans, increases funding for the FBI Technical Support Center, allows military assistance in certain situations involving weapons of mass destruction at the request of the U.S. Attorney General, expanded the National Electronic Crime Task Force, and expanded the President's authority and capabilities in terrorism cases ("How The Patriot Act Works," 2007 ). TITLE II: Enhanced Surveillance Procedures: Grants increased surveillance powers to various government agencies and entities (“How the Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE III: International Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Counter-Terrorism Act of 2001: intends to facilitate the prevention, detection and suppression of international money laundering and terrorist financing ("How The Patriot Act Works", 2007 ). TITLE IV: Border Protection: aims to prevent terrorism in the United States through immigration regulations. The provisions of the title generally increase the difficulty of entering the country for those known or suspected of having terrorist intent (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE V: Removing Barriers to Terrorism Investigations: Enables the U.S. Attorney General to Pay Rewards Based on Announcements of Assistance to the Department of Justice to Combat Terrorism and Prevent Terrorist Acts (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE VI: Provide Victims of Terrorism, Public Safety Officers, and Their Families: Provides relief to the families of public safety officers who have been injured or killed in terrorist attacks (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE VII: Greater sharing ofcritical infrastructure protection information: Increases the ability of U.S. law enforcement to counter terrorist activity that crosses jurisdictional boundaries (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). TITLE VIII: Strengthening criminal laws against terrorism: alters definitions of terrorism and establishes or redefines the rules by which to deal with it. He redefined the term “domestic terrorism” to broadly include mass destruction as well as assassination or kidnapping as 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 to ensure that information derived from electronic surveillance or physical searches are widespread for efficient and effective foreign intelligence purposes (“How The Patriot Act Works,” 2007). X: Various: it has created or modified a series of various laws that did not fall within any other section of the Patriot Act ("How the Patriot Act Works", 2007). The Patriot Act was subsequently 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 relating to the death penalty for terrorists, strengthening security at seaports, new measures to combat terrorist financing, new powers for intelligence services and a number of other provisions. The second reauthorization act, the Patriot Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006, amended the first and was passed in February 2006. Subsequently, on Saturday, February 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed legislation that would temporarily extend, for a year, three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act that included: authorizing court-approved rogue wiretaps that allow surveillance on multiple phones, court-approved seizure of documents and property in counterterrorism operations, and allowing surveillance against a “wolf loner,” who is a non-U.S. citizen involved in terrorist activity who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group. These provisions are the last two sections of the law that will expire in 2019 (Biscobing, 2016). The term lone wolf is often used in news reports to describe a mass shooter who carries out the act alone (Strohm, 2016). For example, the Orlando nightclub killer was considered a lone wolf because he single-handedly slaughtered all of the nightclub victims. However, he was reported to have pledged allegiance to ISIS around the time of the attack. The Patriot Act has raised concerns among critics about US citizens' data privacy rights. These concerns especially worsened in 2013, when NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information showing that the agency was using the law to justify the collection of data regarding millions of phone calls (Szoldra, 2016). More details on the controversies will be included in the discussion and analysis section of the paper. Most recently, the USA Freedom Act, which imposes some new limits on the collection of telecommunications metadata (a set of data that describes and provides information about other data) on US citizens by American intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency ( NSA) and also restores permission for useof wiretaps and the tracking of lone terrorists, was enacted on June 2, 2015 ("USA Freedom Act Archives", 2015).Discussion and AnalysisAs previously mentioned, the Patriot Act has sparked quite a bit of controversy. The reaction has been particularly critical of the law's attack on the privacy of our country's citizens. In this section of the document we will focus on the different tools permitted by law and how notable people have reacted to their use. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: "The right of the people to the security of their persons, homes, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, except for 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 considering the controversial use of National Security Letters (NSLs). An NSL is commonly used by the FBI (the FBI Director, a Direct Assistant, and all FBI Special Agents) and is similar to a subpoena since the government claims they are constitutional, NSLs are used to collect information from companies including credit reporting agencies. telecommunications providers, financial institutions and travel agencies, in order to further a national security investigation. This all happens without the need for a court order. They allow the FBI, as well as other federal agencies (under certain circumstances), to do so. require these companies to provide their data on their customers. 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 that can be obtained 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 wiretap the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. This has left many people worried about their information, thinking that at any moment the government could decide to take over their phone or computer. Apple was praised for initially refusing the FBI's request to hack into the killer's phone, but the FBI eventually found another way into the mainframe and broke into the phone themselves. The controversy goes even further because this process is carried out in secret. The companies that are issued these NSLs are “gagged” from telling anyone what has happened and in the last 10 years alone it has been reported that over 300,000 NSLs have been issued. 2004 was the year with the highest number of NSLs with a total of 56,507. In 2000, prior to the signing of the Patriot Act, it was reported that only 8,500 were issued (“National Security Letters,” 2014). This shows that the Patriot Act, in a sense, loosened the standards of NSLs, causing them to explode in volume. With this in mind, it is understandable why the public would not be supportive of the way the FBI has treated Apple, and most likely, treats other companies. One of the most prominent public figures who not only opposes the Patriot Act, but also opposes President George W. Bush in general, is documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. In his highly successful documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Michael Moore interviewed members of thecongress about signing the Patriot Act. Congressman Jim McDermott talked in the film about how the Patriot Act was essentially “on the shelf” and congress had all these ideas that they were waiting to use. Then the 9/11 attacks happened and they had a chance to exploit it. He went on to say that at that point the administration assumed that there had to be a waiver of some of our rights (Moore & Moore, 2004). What he also discovered was that none of those he interviewed had actually read the law. Yes. Wondering how the law could be passed without reading it, Congressman John Conyers responded, “Sit down, my son. We don't read most invoices. Do you really know what it would mean if we read every bill we pass?" (Moore & Moore, 2004). Although Michael Moore has a clear agenda and biases in his films, the results are still interesting. Hearing a congressman admit that no one reads most of the bills passed is quite troubling. You would think that these men and women elected to Congress would have the ambition to want to read every part or part ofat least a decent majority, the bills that come. you would like those in charge to be active in this type of thing. It would make no sense to pass a bill without reading it! The final and perhaps most controversial part of this document would be the NSA and its connection to the Patriot Act. Before we dive in on Edward Snowden's merit, let's take a look at what the NSA is and what it was around the time the Patriot Act was first signed. The National Security Agency (NSA) is the US government's intelligence organization United States. It is responsible for global monitoring, collection and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes. Originally created as a unit to crack code communications during World War II, it officially became the NSA in 1952 under President S. Truman (“Who We Are – NSA,” 2016). Around the time of the signing of the Patriot Act, some representatives, such as Jim Sensenbrenner, thought that the NSA was abusing its power after it was amassing a large collection of Americans' telephone data. Sensenbrenner went on to say that the NSA has gone “far beyond” its original intent and has “overstepped its authority.” What we can conclude from reading this short story is that we have an agency that has gone too far with its capabilities. It's interesting to see how even more than a decade ago there was concern 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, Edward Snowden, of Hong Kong, revealed details of classified U.S. government surveillance programs that showed the NSA had collected record phone calls from millions of Verizon users, countless emails, and Internet metadata and data to which can be accessed via Google and Facebook (Szoldra, 2016). Then, on June 21, 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Snowden with two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property. A few days later he flew to Russia where he was granted asylum (a person persecuted in his own country can be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country or ecclesiastical shrines) and remains there in a secret location (Ray, 2016 ). The leaks caused a public uproar and created a stronger distrust between the general public and the government. However, the reaction has been divided between bringing Snowden back to the United States as a hero or continuing to accuse him of espionage and government theft. In any case, the vision of the.