Salem Press

	Highly recommended for public, school and college libraries.
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U.S. Laws, Acts,
and Treaties
Provides the much-needed service of selecting, from literally thousands of U.S. laws, those most likely to come up in classroom discussions.

The Bill of Rights
A comprehensive survey of all aspects of the U.S. Bill of Rights; from its origins to its role in modern American history.

U.S. Legal System
This set includes articles emphasizing basic legal concepts and offer a practical guide to how the federal and state legal systems work.

U.S. Court Cases
Fundamental issues of law and what is meant by "justice" plus presentations of the 212 most important US court cases.

Criminal Justice
Patriot Act

The Law: Revision of federal laws governing warrants, electronic surveillance, access to private records, custody, and definitions of terrorism

Date: Became law on October 26, 2001

Criminal Justice Issues: Federal law; police powers; terrorism

Significance: A rapid response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Patriot Act was designed to protect the United States by making it easier to uncover and defeat foreign and domestic terrorism.

On October 26, 2001, only forty-five days after terrorists crashed skyjacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, President George W. Bush signed Public Law 107-56. Formally titled the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, the law is better known by its acronym, USA PATRIOT Act, or simply Patriot Act. The new law altered more than fifteen existing federal statutes, some in major ways, primarily to equip law-enforcement and intelligence personnel with legal tools for fighting international and domestic terrorism.

Tracking Terrorists and Their Money
The act streamlines the legal processes for obtaining authorization to perform surveillance on suspects persons and for seizing money that may be used to support terrorism. Among its measures, it requires financial institutions to report suspicious activity, identify new customers effectively, cut ties to fraudulent shell banks in foreign countries, and maintain anti-money-laundering programs. Financial institutions are encouraged to share information with law-enforcement agencies, and the federal government is empowered to confiscate the property of any person or organization that performs terrorist acts or plans to do so. The act also expand the kinds of money-laundering and fraudulent activities--such as those involving American credit cards--that fall under the definition of supporting terrorism.

In order to catch terrorists, the act changed requirements for issuing search warrants and reduced judicial oversight. Previously, local judges--or the eleven-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in the case of suspected foreign spying--issued warrants to authorize electronic surveillance, such as wiretaps, for specific instruments or facilities. The Patriot Act permits any federal judge to issue a nationwide warrant to tap phones and electronic mail in any instruments that suspects may conceivable use. It also allows "sneak and peek" search warrants; permits delays in serving some warrants until one week after the surveillance authorized by the warrants; and requires libraries, bookstores, and Internet service providers to supply information about client use. In the case of foreign suspects, antiterrorism agents can request authorization for warrantless searches when gathering foreign intelligence is a significant reason for the searches. Before the Patriot Act was passed, foreign intelligence gathering had to be the sole reason.

Expanded Scope of Antiterrorism Efforts
The Patriot Act is designed to stop terrorists from staying in the United States. When there are reasonable grounds to believe that foreign visitors pose a threat to national security, they can be arrested and held for seven days without being charged, pending investigation or their deportation. There is no judicial review except for habeas corpus, and the U.S. attorney general may order aliens held indefinitely if no countries agree to accept them upon deportation.

The act makes even unknowingly associating with terrorists or terrorist organizations a deportable offense. To track and identify suspects, the act further increases rewards for information about terrorism, expands the exemptions to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, and permits the U.S. attorney general to collect samples of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from convicted federal prisoners. It also adds a new category, domestic terrorism, applicable to any U.S. citizen who commits acts intended negatively to influence government policy or to coerce civilians by intimidation. Such acts, whether by citizens or foreigners, include attacking mass transportation, releasing biological agents, using weapons or explosives, spreading false information about terrorist attacks, or conspiring with terrorists.

The Patriot Act warns citizens not to mistreat Muslims and Arabs, penalizes government officials and law-enforcement agents who misuse it. The act "sunsets" many of its provisions on December 31, 2005--that is, it requires congressional reapproval by that date.

Despite its various safeguards, the act received extensive criticism from both conservative and liberal commentators. The act essentially requires citizens and legal aliens to accept reductions in civil liberties in exchange for increased security. However, critics charge that the act's infringements on civil liberties are unnecessary or excessive. Philosopher Cornel West captured the basic objection when he said that the fundamental fear is "that the present American obsession with safety may undermine freedom, that security could trump liberty, that democracy might be lost in the name of declaring war on terrorism."

Critics specifically decry the act's reduction of judicial oversight of surveillance procedures and detention of aliens, fearing that such measures give the executive branch excessive freedom and upset the balance of power in government. Although Attorney General John Ashcroft insisted in April, 2004, that neither Congress nor the courts found a single instance of abuse under the act, critics were not mollified. By then, more than two hundred local communities and four states had passed resolutions asking that the scope of the Patriot Act be narrowed. At the same time the act's supporters, including some members of Congress, argued to expand it and eliminate the sunset provision.

Roger Smith

Further Reading
Chang, Nancy. Silencing Political Dissent. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002. Argues that antiterrorism policies, including the Patriot Act, threaten civil liberties and may lead to excessive executive power.

Goldberg, Daniel, Victor Goldberg, and Robert Greenwald. It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America After September 11. New York: Nation Books, 2003. Forty-one articles and cartoons emphasizing civil liberties issues arising from antiterrorism efforts.

Reims, Bernard D., Jr., and Christopher T. Anglim. USA PATRIOT Act: A Legislative History of the Uniting and Strengthening of America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, Public Law No. 107-56. 5 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2002. Exhaustive compilation of documents and records intended as a legal resource on the Patriot Act.

Smith, Norris, and Lynn M. Messina. Homeland Security. New York: H. W. Wilson, 2004. Twenty-eight articles reprinted from newspapers and magazines about aspects of national security, terrorism, and civil liberties.

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2001. The complete text of the Patriot Act. The text of the law can also be found on the Government Printing Office's Web site, at purl.access.gpo.gov.

See Also
Attorney general of the United States; Drugs and law enforcement; Electronic surveillance; Espionage; Homeland Security Department; Inchoate crimes; Law enforcement in the United States; Money laundering; Search warrants; September 11, 2001 attacks; Skyjacking; Terrorism; Treason; Wiretaps.