Usa Patriot Act

The Patriot Act has 16 provisions that give the government extensive surveillance and legal powers to use against suspected terrorists. They range from the authority to intercept electronic communication to the ability of law enforcement agencies to delay notice of the execution of a warrant. In other words, under special circumstances, suspected terrorists may be subject to searches without ever being notified. (National Security vs. Civil Liberty: How do you feel about the Patriot Act? n.d.)

According to the encyclopedia, prior to the Patriot Act, federal law had sharply limited the ability of prosecutors and law-enforcement officials to share investigative information with other federal officials, let alone local ones. Thanks to the Patriot Act, sharing would increase between intelligence organizations such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose purview is international; the FBI, whose area of focus is domestic; and first responders, whose focus is the community. Such information sharing, it was hoped, would prevent information from falling through the cracks (Law Enforcement, Responses to Terrorism, n.d.).

The encyclopedia also mentions that among its specific provisions, the Patriot Act grants increased authority to intercept communications related to an expanded list of terrorism-related crimes. The Patriot Act also allows investigators to aggressively pursue terrorists on the Internet; provide new summons power to obtain financial information; reduce bureaucracy by allowing investigators to use a single court order for tracing a communication nationwide; and shares information between local law enforcement and the intelligence community (Law Enforcement, Responses to Terrorism, n.d.).

In the final analysis, I cannot help but feel that the discussion of the Patriot Act whether good or bad is going to lie in what criteria individuals’ value. I do not think that it is a bad thing to want to strengthen intelligence gathering options and the...