Pros And Cons Of The USA Patriot Act

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The USA Patriot Act is short for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (Patriot Act 2011). After September eleventh 's attack, The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill to President George W. Bush, which he signed into law on October 26, 2001 in hopes of preventing another attack on American soil. The act was based on a Department of Justice proposal that was modified by the Congress before it was enacted into law (96). The act was made to give more power to federal enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the attacks on the twin towers, and the pentagon (96). This act modifies a variety of statutes like: intelligence, investigation, controlled substance, crime, privacy, and financial transactions. This act has four key area of concern for homeland security: (1) the collection of communications and data, (2) conducting foreign intelligence investigations, (3) controlling money laundering, and (4) funding and enhancing national border security (book 96). How does the government collect communications and data? Well their is a third way of doing it in hopes of receiving approval from a senior member of the Justice Department, court order, or grant themselves permission to use devices to capture identity and communications without the people knowing this is happing to them(97). The act under certain circumstances allows law enforcement officials greater liberty to collect and review communications records and stored e-mails, treat voice mails to were e-mail, reduce the requirement of probable cause necessary to secure a warrant and in some cases even skip the judiciary entirely (98). This is where the American population felt unsecured about their government because all they could think of is that the government wants to spy on people for no reason. Foreign investigations the government was not to look for evidence of a crime but the new act allows them to look for anything they wanted and even do physical search based on lower standards (98). …show more content…
Before agencies were not allowed to share information and then the act was made into law and the agencies were allowed to share information regarding suspects. The US Patriot Act has three basic ares on trying to control counterfeit money, first expand the authority of the secretary of the treasury to regulate the U.S. financial institutes, such as require businesses to report cash transactions larger then 10,000 dollars (100). Second, create new crimes to control money laundering and enhanced punishment (100). Third, the act modified the ways forfeitures could be carried out and granted the government greater power to confiscate the property of anyone thought to support, plan, aid, authorize, or participate in an act of domestic or international terrorism (100). The Patriot Act allows border protection to use new ways for dealing with the potential for terrorism and raise the cap and allowing them to hire more border patrol agents (101). The Patriot Act created loads of controversy since it was passed. People that disagree with the act think that the acted was passed too fast. Jim McDermott, a Senator, said alleged "that no Senator had read the bill" while John Conyers stated, "We don 't read most of the bills. Do you really know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed?"(Patriot Act 2011) That really surprised me because it 's like some of the new gun laws they are trying to pass, knowing the fact that they might not have been thought out or even read all the way makes me scared of what the government is capable of doing without even realizing it. I really do believe the government should the people of the United States agree on certain laws and since they agree on it they might even follow it, instead of disagreeing with it and breaking it. They need to slow the processes down, but then again if they did read it all way it would take forever. Its like us when we get new Tv service we just want signal and sometimes don 't even bother to read the fine print. United States v. Antoine Jones a night club, that was believed to

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