Several controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act—the law that vastly expanded national security surveillance in the wake of the September 11 attacks—are set to expire on March 15 unless Congress passes a new bill reauthorizing them.
And many of the most egregious misuses of the PATRIOT Act stem from systemic dysfunction throughout various aspects of the intelligence community in how national security surveillance as a whole operates. The report is a timely contribution to the reauthorization debate, spotlighting issues with a related provision of national security surveillance law, and with the oversight systems for national security surveillance.
As Congress considers how to make national security surveillance more accountable, it should broadly examine problems with surveillance powers and the checks currently in place to guard against abuse, and pursue remedies accordingly. Bush in October The law expanded national security surveillance and also brought about a range of institutional changes, such as facilitating greater coordination between government agencies.
The PATRIOT Act amended a preexisting law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, governing all foreign intelligence and national security surveillance authorized by Congress as opposed to internationally focused surveillance powers the president wields based on their inherent authority in the Constitution.
FISA has dramatically expanded since then. We believe Congress should only reauthorize these provisions if it passes major reforms in the same bill see below for more on what those reforms should be. There are significant instances of surveillance abuse focused on certain racial and religious groups under the guise of guarding national security. Roving wiretaps give the government the authority to issue one surveillance order for a target that is intermittently using multiple communications identifiers.
The lone wolf provision, which was added to FISA as part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of , allows the government to monitor a foreign national who is suspected of aiding international terrorism but is not connected to a terrorist organization.
This combination may sound unlikely, and in fact, to the best of our knowledge, the provision has never been used. A particularly controversial provision of the PATRIOT Act, Section , gives the government immense power to demand records from companies for national security investigations. The executive branch has repeatedly abused the authorities in Section —a problem that has been reduced, but not fully resolved. The National Security Agency NSA previously used Section to engage in nationwide bulk collection of phone records, a gross misapplication beyond what Congress authorized the law to do.
More on how the program works and its current status below. Sunset clauses give Congress a built-in mechanism to periodically assess whether provisions of laws like the PATRIOT Act are working as intended, and to make changes if lawmakers deem it necessary. Sunsets have also proven useful in achieving reforms. When the three provisions discussed above were about to expire in , lawmakers refused to extend them without reforms. This helped Congress pass the USA FREEDOM Act , which instituted a number of reforms to protect privacy, prohibited nationwide bulk collection of phone records, and created the authority for the call detail records program.
Now we have a chance to demand additional reforms, and fix problems that have developed over the last few years.
Questions of misusing government funds arise when limited resources are used in tracking American citizens, especially those moving overseas. Suspected terrorists have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other sites without always explaining why or allowing legal representation, violating their right to due process; some prisoners have been proven, subsequently, to not even have any ties to terrorism.
The business, finance, and investment communities are more likely to be affected by heightened documentation requirements and due diligence responsibilities. Though the impact falls more on institutions than individual investors, anyone who conducts international business is likely to experience added costs and greater hassles with something as mundane as opening a simple foreign checking account.
Department of Justice. Accessed Sept. Savings Accounts. Career Advice. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Investopedia. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.
These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. The law also requires the financial industry to report various suspicious customer behaviors as a measure against terrorism-related money laundering. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work.
These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate.
You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy. Compare Accounts. The Patriot Act allows criminal investigators to share information with intelligence officials and visa versa. This information sharing was prohibited by law before the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act modernized our ability to monitor criminal and terrorist communications by applying our wiretap laws to new technologies such as cell phones and e-mail without modifying or reducing the legal and constitutional restraints applicable to those tools.
Wiretap orders must still be reviewed by, approved by and monitored by a federal court to prevent any abuse of this power.
Shuster writes: The war on terror is multifaceted and requires an offensive strategy abroad as well as appropriate and clear policies at home that allow law enforcement officials to break up terrorist cells, both in the U.
These cells need to be infiltrated in order to protect America from another attack. This requires law enforcement officers to trace finances, monitor suspicious activity and uncover this vast network known as al-Qaida. The Patriot Act serves this role by allowing agents to pursue subpoenas to search a terrorist's background, Internet activity, phone calls, travel plans or any other detail that will determine the suspect's involvement.
Ultimately, the goal is to stop terrorists from plotting to murder innocent Americans and the Patriot Act has helped apprehend many of these killers. America's national security investigators work to prevent terrorists' communication and freeze their assets.
As we move into the 21st century with new and different threats, part of their goal is to make it difficult, impossible even, for terrorists to hide, plan and coordinate. The unconventional threats facing America today are not like the dangers of the past. We are fighting a wide-ranging and complex system of spylike terrorists who act covertly and are ready to give up their lives to kill. Their end-goal is unclear but it does not include freedom or democracy. Taking the fight to the enemy is necessary but not enough; America must defend its homeland by providing federal investigators with tools to track down terrorists within our borders.
The Patriot Act provides these and is essential to winning the war on terror. Van Bokkelen. In the article, U. Van Bokkelen writes: In order to fight this new enemy, law enforcement and the intelligence community needed to be able to use the same tools that law enforcement has successfully used over the years to fight the mob, drug cartels, public corruption and other types of organized criminal activity. Those tools include wiretaps, roving wiretaps, search warrants, delayed notification search warrants, grand jury subpoenas requiring the production of records and, most importantly, being able to share the information that was obtained with other law enforcement agencies.
The Patriot Act gave the war on terrorism those tools. The Patriot Act also provided for broad judicial oversight as to the use of these new tools. I also want to discuss Section The criticism of this section more than any other underscores the misunderstanding surrounding the Patriot Act.
The critics of this provision call it "the library provision. Rather, the terms used are "records" or "things. It gives to the war on terrorism another of the tools that historically has been employed in the fight against organized crime, gangs, official corruption and drug cartels. The irony of the criticism of this section is that such information is routinely obtained in traditional criminal investigations pursuant to a subpoena with no judicial oversight.
Section authorizes terrorism investigators to obtain the same type of information but only through a court order. In addition, U. What is the Protect America Act? Extensive congressional oversight found no violations. Six reports by the Justice Department's independent Inspector General, who is required to solicit and investigate any allegations of abuse, found no violations. Intense public scrutiny has yet to find a single civil liberty abuse. The attacks of Sept.
The terrorists who attacked us seek to kill innocent men, women and children of all races and creeds. They seek to destroy our liberties. There's still a chance a deal can be reached to extend the anti-terrorism law before the deadline, but don't count on it.
That would require an act of responsibility from Senate Democrats -- something that's in short supply these days on matters of national security. Instead, this Senate minority of 42 Democrats and four Republicans prefers to impose its will on bipartisan majorities by refusing to let the renewal of the Patriot Act come to the Senate floor for a vote. President Bush called the filibuster "inexcusable" this week, and most Republicans seem ready to fight this one out for a change.
They ought to. It is an essential part of the United States' effort to prosecute the War on Terror in tangible, measurable ways. The House of Representatives has voted to reauthorize the provisions of the Patriot Act that are leading to real results in the war, but unfortunately, on Friday, a minority of senators blocked the reauthorization.
As we know, the Act was designed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress to deal directly with the shortcomings in our system prior to September 11th - providing new and better methods of sharing information, increasing cooperation and coordination in the law enforcement community, and improving our ability to track and investigate terrorist activity in the United States. Sixteen key provisions of the Act are scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
For several months, Congress has debated these provisions. It is good in a democracy like ours that we discuss and analyze the wisdom of every law - particularly those that, if abused, would infringe your civil liberties. We have done that. Wood writes: Inter-agency sharing of information is crucial to a thorough and meaningful terrorism investigation.
Here in Georgia, our law enforcement agencies have benefited from this exchange on a regular basis. Since passage of the Act, individuals in terrorism-related investigations have been convicted across the country. Critics of the Patriot Act raise hypothetical civil rights abuses that they fear might someday occur.
A common target of the hypothetical abuse musings is Section of the Patriot Act. Critics fear that it would result in unchecked government searches of library records. Actually, Section does not contain the word "library. It has been used exactly 35 times in three and a half years and never to gather information from a library. Moreover, to be certain that it is not misused, it contains a requirement that a federal judge approve its usage in advance.
Attorney for Rhode Island Robert C. Corrente writes: The Patriot Act made a number of important and sensible improvements in the rules that govern intelligence investigations. First, it broke down "The Wall," which had prohibited the sharing of information between criminal investigators and intelligence personnel.
For example, a federal prosecutor told Congress about a criminal investigation of Osama bin Laden in and described how he had been able to talk to police officers and even to al-Qaida members, but not to the FBI agents across the street, who were involved in an intelligence investigation of bin Laden. The ability to share information has been critical to the dismantling of several terror cells, including ones in Portland, Ore.
No one has openly advocated rebuilding The Wall, but several of the information-sharing provisions of the act are among those scheduled to expire this year. And as district attorneys, you bring your expertise and integrity to bear every day to serve the citizens of your communities.
You are the men and women on the frontlines and you have the most to lose whenever an effective law enforcement tool is lost or compromised. We know today that the terrorists avoided detention of the plans for September 11, in part, because of our inability to share information adequately. President Bush believes that winning the war on terror requires winning the war of information. We are at a critical point as the bill is being debated in both houses of Congress.
I am optimistic that members of Congress share my sense of urgency in making sure that law enforcement officials have the tools they need to protect this country from future terrorist attacks-tools that are consistent with our long cherished values and consistent with our rights under the Constitution. Feulner, Ph. In addition, the article highlights the uses of Section while dispelling many of the myths that surround the provision. Fuelner writes: Today, almost four years later, the verdict is in: The Patriot Act works -- and the provisions scheduled to "sunset" should be renewed.
Of course, this being Washington, not everyone agrees. Critics tend to focus on Section of the Act. It allows a special federal court to approve a search warrant for any tangible thing books, records, papers, documents and other items during an investigation aimed at international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.
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