“If we don’t have the information, then they can’t get it,” she said in the article.
Under section 215 of the act, the FBI is allowed to get business records and those of other institutions in the hands of third parties while no longer requiring that the records must concern “an agent of a foreign power.” This means any person’s records can be called up under investigation.
MacDonald argued that any request for these records requires judicial approval, and, to investigate a U.S. citizen, the FBI must have knowledge that the individual is engaged in terrorism or espionage. David L. Hudson, Jr., a First Amendment research attorney, stated that the standards for showing certain records were relevant are minimal, and all the “FBI has to show is that the records are sought for an authorized investigation.”
However, a New York Times article stated that Bush had “secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.”
Not only does this bypass the simple standards that were already in place, but it is also an infringement to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.
The inconsistencies, secrecy and violation of numerous amendments are at the heart of the controversy. The language used in the act is open to interpretation, and the government uses that gateway to access information that was not previously available to them without legitimate relevance.
Members of the media are some of the largest opponents of the bill, as it walks a thin line in violating the First Amendment and allows government to delve into records that are still prohibited in news gathering. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), news outlets are forbidden to access medical records, the “disclosure of which would constitute unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Other restrictions include commercial information and physical objects such as audio tapes or video tapes.
The Patriot Act was enacted to keep the Americans afraid of outsiders, namely the Muslim community. The Bush administration enhanced the belief that this document would prevent further attacks and implied that opposing it would make someone unpatriotic. Yet over the years in which this act has been in place, there have been multiple terrorist attacks throughout the world. In fact, the types of crimes it has helped cease are drug busts and deportations, which hardly account for terrorist activities and can be prevented by other procedures previously in place.
Now that the representative of a fear-stricken nation is no longer in power, and President-Elect Barack Obama aims to end the war in Iraq, it is hard to say what the prevalence of the PATRIOT Act will be. Perhaps the American people have a hope of fully restoring their individual liberties, but for now, it is an issue buried in the laundry list of things to fix.
