For example, any federal crime may be subject to a delayed notice search, which is commonly referred to as the “sneak and peek” search in Section 213. This means that the government may essentially break and enter into any home or office and conduct a secret search, without the owner’s consent or knowledge, and search the premises in a covert manner. The Act has expanded the government’s ability to carry out these secret searches and now allows the seizure of tangible evidence. The government has also installed key loggers on electronic devices during secret searches; key loggers record all keystrokes of the computer user, including passwords and other personal information. (Harrison, n.d.)

The seizure of electronic communications records is not limited to terrorist activities either. An individual’s name, address, billing records, identity, length and type of service, records of session times and duration, and the way they pay their bill can be seized under the Patriot Act. (USA Patriot Act, n.d.)

Another controversial section allows computer trespasser information to be intercepted if the owner of the victim computer agrees. This means that virtually any intruding computer can be traced with a wiretap without judicial oversight, because the owner of the victim computer consents to the interception. (USA Patriot Act, n.d.) Although this can be applied to terrorist activities, it is not confined to that function.

Image via Wikipedia

More computer crimes are now considered terrorism; under Section 808, any unauthorized access or distribution of viruses into government computer systems is now considered terrorism and under Section 814, the government can prosecute various computer crimes, such as hacking or Denial of Service attacks, with more ease. (Harrison, n.d.) With the Patriot Act, the government has increased abilities to intercept, inspect, seize, and prosecute technology crimes.

Although many people consider some provisions of the Patriot Act to be a violation of our civil rights, it can only be such if the government abuses the power of the Act. Under normal and reasonable use, the Act serves to protect us from terrorists and other criminals. The average American has nothing to fear from the Patriot Act. It only becomes a violation of our Constitutional rights when the law is used against us instead of to protect us.

Do you feel that these secret searches are a violation of our civil liberties? Or is it worth it? Some people feel that in order to be protected from terrorists we must give up some of our privacy rights. Do you think the founding fathers would have wanted this?

References

Harrison, D. (n.d.). Higher Education Issues After The USA Patriot Act. Retrieved June 22, 2011, from http://www.nacua.org/documents/PatriotAct_Outline.pdf 

USA Patriot Act. (n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2011, from http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/

Publish your writing on Triond and earn cash!

Want more great reading? Check out:

How Does the Government Spy on You?

The Patriot Act: Title II

Do You Advertise?

Five of the Best Guard Dogs

It is easier to collect routing information of communications, such as phone numbers, email headers, and addresses. This is done by using either a pen register or trap and trace device; the pen register records all outgoing data and the trap and trace device documents all incoming information.

Title II of the Patriot Act expands the use of these devices to internet applications. This is considered questionable by some because electronic information is more revealing than a simple phone number; URL’s are just not the same as a phone number or address because they reveal the content of search queries. (USA Patriot Act, n.d.)

Under the Patriot Act, the government can utilize many of these resources without any proof of actual wrongdoing, a simple insinuation that the information will aid in a terrorist or national security investigation will suffice. In fact, judicial oversight of these activities is severely limited; judges are not permitted to deny any request for communications origin or destination data.

Similarly, judicial approval is not necessary for a search into one’s personal information as long as the government claims that the information will aid an ongoing terrorism investigation. However, a judge is still responsible for issuing a warrant for a wiretap; therefore, probable cause must be presented in order to obtain the content of communications data. (USA Patriot Act, n.d.) This is considered more private information and is protected by the Fourth Amendment. 

Reference

USA Patriot Act. (n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2011, from http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/

Publish your writing on Triond and earn cash!

Want more great reading? Check out:

The Patriot Act: Title II

Can You Live Without Technology?

Self Defense or Murder?

Do You Advertise?

Title II of the Patriot Act pertains specifically to communications and the ability of law enforcement to inspect and retrieve that data. Communications service providers are required to comply with government requests for data and they may also disclose information in emergency situations. (Harrison, n.d.)

Image via Wikipedia

The main goal of Title II is to make it easier for the government to obtain information easier, especially since technology has advanced beyond the scope of previous laws. Under Title II, oral, wire, and electronic communications may be observed or seized. This is beneficial when investigating terrorism or other areas of national security, because the government can obtain necessary information quickly and easily.

Image via Wikipedia

The method of obtaining communications information varies, but roving wiretaps, pen registers, trap and trace devices, and other tools such as the Dragonware internet tap or the FBI’s Carnivore system are at the government’s disposal. (Harrison, n.d.)

Reference

Harrison, D. (n.d.). Higher Education Issues After The USA Patriot Act. Retrieved June 22, 2011, from http://www.nacua.org/documents/PatriotAct_Outline.pdf

Publish your writing on Triond and earn cash!

Want more great reading? Check these out:

Self Defense or Murder?

Can You Live Without Technology?

How to Identify the Suspect to Police

Do You Advertise?

This is the sort of thing the Patriot Act has to potential to transform into. It might be originally be used for pure motives but when people get that sort of power, it’s hard not to overstep your bounds. This is exactly one the arguements against the Patriot Act in the United States.

Are we safer now? People are quick to point out how our rights are being violated by the Patriot Act, the groping in the airports, the lack of necessity for going into Iraq, because after all these things we haven’t been attacked since 9-11. The public likes to assume that these things are not necessary because we have not been attacked, instead of accepting that we have not been attacked because of the Patriot Act, TSA, and Iraq. 

George Bush in his book Decision Points writes that he knew regardless of his decision to enter Iraq he was going to be labeled badly. He says that if he had chosen not to enter Iraq the media would have blamed him for the outcome, just as much as his entering into that war. Either way he was in a lose lose situation. At least with entering the war that everyone now blames him for he saved lives over in the United States.

How quick we forget the bipartisan agreement that there was WMD’s in Iraq. How quick we forget Hillary Clinton, then a Senator from New York calling for Congress to go to war. It is easier to forget these things, in light of our safety now and turn our backs on the man who made sure we would be safe to begin with. 

It is easy to sit back now, having not been attacked in the last ten years and claim that all of this has been a waste of time. That going to Iraq and Afghanistan a waste of time, security measures at the airport a waste of time. Because we are safer now we tend to forget that there, is an effort being made by those on the front lines to ensure that safety? 

Benjamin Franklin would tell us “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Therefore, we have given up some of our liberties, via the Patriot Act to receive the temporary safety of not being attacked by radicals who threaten our way of life. We are safer, and less grateful than ever before to those individuals who assure our safety. The Homeland Security agents who fight the battle on the frontlines here at home and the brave men and women who fight the battles on the front lines millions of miles away from home deserve more than us questioning the necessity of their existence. At a time of great horror we chose to limit or liberties in order to be safe again, now we have the option of getting or liberties back or accepting that sacrificing them for the safety we now have is necessary. Either way we need to acknowledge that we are safer now than we were prior to September 11th, that the war was and continues to be necessary to maintain that safety, and question which would we rather a war that will continue or the possibility of another attack because if we sacrifice the system set up post nine-eleven we aren’t going to be rewarded with the same safety we now have, we will be awarded with another attack the equivalent of 9-11 on our shores. 

If you don’t like gay marriage…. don’t have one.

Cigarette ads have been banned on television since January 2, 1971.  Twenty-seven States have smoking bans in all workplaces and public places, including bars and restaurants.  Six States have banned smoking in your private car with children under 18 in the vehicle.  

If you don’t like cigarettes…. don’t smoke them.

Since 1992 six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, 88.6% were charged with possession only.  It cost an average of $129. a day to house inmates in our state prisons.  President Jimmy Carter stated, “Penalties for drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.  Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use”.

If you don’t like drugs…. don’t use them.

Proponents of pornography insist that it is a valid expression of free speech.  Most people are surprised to learn that Holiday Inn is said to be the nation’s largest distributor of satellite pornography.

If you don’t like porn…. don’t watch it.

Our country’s Sodomy Law defines certain sexual acts as crimes.  These crimes include any sexual act deemed unnatural.  Such as oral sex, anal sex, and bestiality.

If you don’t like sex…. don’t have it.

In 1973 Roe vs. Wade the U.S. Supreme Court found that the procurement of an abortion was a constitutional right based on the constitutional Right to Privacy.  Being unable to overturn this ruling abortion opponents are trying a new tactic.  New laws are being passed (two states so far) that impose strict requirements for abortion clinics. In Kansas there are restrictions on the temperature of the recovery room, also on the size of the janitors closet and the operating room.  Failure to comply with these new restrictions within the allotted time will cause the clinics to lose their license.  Surgery centers and hospitals have no requirements as to the temperature of recovery rooms or the size of their closets.

If you don’t like abortions…. don’t get one.

As a government alcohol agency explained “Alcohol no more causes alcoholism than sugar causes diabetes.  If alcohol caused alcoholism then all drinkers would be alcoholics”.

If you don’t like alcohol…. don’t drink it.

Gun laws in the United States regulate the sale, possession and use of firearms and ammunition.  Gun laws do not stop crime.  Gun laws do not stop criminals from having guns.  The most useful thing gun laws do is give prosecutors leverage to charge criminals with unlawful possession and use of firearms. Thus, keeping them in prison longer.

If you don’t like guns…. don’t own one.

The ‘roving wiretap’ provision of the Patriot Act allows the FBI to obtain wiretaps from a secret intelligence court, known as FISA court, without identifying the target or what method of communication is to be tapped.

The ‘lone wolf’ measure of the Patriot Act allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of a person.  Without showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.

The ‘business records’ provision of the Patriot Act allows FISA court warrants for any type of record (banking, library, medical etc.) without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation.

The Patriot Act has been consistently extended since it was passed in October 2001.  Extended with no accountability required.

If you don’t like having your rights taken away…. don’t take away someone else’s.

When Nelson Mandela visited the White House there was a strange moment of revisionist history. George W. Bush warmly referred to the former South African president as a “symbol of freedom and courage.” It was strange, not because Mandela isn’t a symbol of freedom and courage, but because the United States government hasn’t always recognized this fact. In the early and mid-’80s the US State Department officially categorized Mandela and his political party, the African National Congress (ANC) as terrorists. Apparently, back then, Black South African efforts to dismantle apartheid and create a democratic government made the United States nervous.

     But what made this moment really surreal was that, only days earlier, Bush had successfully arm-twisted Congress into passing the Patriot Act- a controversial package of anti-terrorism legislation that, among other things, allows law enforcement to arrest and prosecute folks for associating with groups or individuals the US classifies as terrorists. Created in reaction to the September 11 attacks, this disturbing legislation gave law enforcement tremendous leeway in tapping phones, conducting unannounced property searches, freezing financial assets, detaining suspects and deporting immigrants.

     But don’t think supporters of the late, Osama bin Laden are the only ones targeted under this legislation. Innocent Americans and resident aliens could get caught up in law enforcement’s anti-terrorism web just as easily as card-carrying members of Al Qaeda. And so could political activists. Look at it this way: Had the Patriot Act been in effect 28 years ago, thousands of US college students who supported Nelson Mandela and the ANC, and who were active in the anti-apartheid movement here, could have been tried for terrorist activities.

     Chief among critics’ fears is the fact that the Patriot Act defines “terrorism” so broadly that it enables the White House to brand people as “terrorists” simply because their ideas are unpopular with the administration. Once classified as such, law enforcement has vast freedom to spy on these people and their associates. “A lot of the provisions in the new legislation are unnecessary. The existing legislation adequately covered everything Bush’s administration set out to accomplish. The Patriot Act raises real concerns amongst Americans about their civil liberties.

     Legal watchdogs also suggest that, unchecked, prosecutors could even use the Patriot Act to try petty criminals who are loosely linked to international terrorist groups. This fear isn’t far-fetched as it sounds. Afghan guerillas, for example, have long used the international heroin trade to support their political movements and military operations. If a link can be made between, say, a street-level drug gang in the ‘hood and an international cartel known to have terrorist ties, local hustlers could be tried as members of a terrorist enterprise. So, although the goal of the Patriot Act is to target terrorists, critics warn that these law enforcement tools will be eventually used against the same folks who’ve been targets for decades: political activists and people of color.

Naturally, in light of the tremendous loss of life on September 11, even critics of the Patriot Act agree that tougher laws are necessary. But civil rights watchdogs believe these laws have already entangled many innocent people who aren’t terrorists. Since September 11, hundreds of Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants have been questioned and detained, usually as material witnesses or for visa violations. Usually in the past such people would be quickly released. But many of the post-September detainees, most of whom are men, are still being held for what critics have dubbed “preventive detention.” That is, they’re being detained to prevent them from doing anything illegal. And yet, most of these men aren’t suspects in any crime.

     One detainee, Pakistani immigrant Muhammed But, died of a heart attack while in police custody at New Jersey’s Hudson County Jail. He remained in custody- even though he had been investigated and cleared of any involvement in the September attacks. His case, critics maintain, illustrates how anti-terrorism laws violate due process rights and put people’s safety at risk.

     Ironically, for all the Middle Eastern and South Asian men who have been detained, it’s an African American businessman who may be the first person to be sentenced under the Patriot Act law. Former big baller Kevin Ingram built his reputation as a star bond trader on Wall Street. But was arrested for his involvement in a money-laundering scheme that allegedly had ties to terrorist groups in the Middle East. An FBI sting operation linked Ingram to accused illegal weapons dealers Mohammed Rajaa Malik and Diaa Mohsen. According to investigators, Malik and Mohsen enlisted Ingram to launder nearly $2.5 million that they got from selling automatic and nuclear weapons to undercover FBI agents. Malik and Mohsen were believed to have had possible connections to then public enemy No.1, Osama bin Laden.

     Before the September attacks, Ingram pleaded guilty to the money laundering charges and, in exchange for a reduced sentence, agreed to help the government with its investigation into Malik and Mohsen. But in the aftermath of the attacks and the tough new anti-terrorism laws- some of which were retroactive- the judge in Ingram’s case slapped him with a longer sentence than the 10 years he was expected to serve.

What other dangerous implications the Patriot Act has in store down the road will probably come as no surprise. Bush pressed Congress, at the time to quickly pass the act without very much debate. And despite the laws’ intent, the Patriot Act may still leave us vulnerable at home. Before September 11 the worst terrorist attack in the US wasn’t committed by Osama bin Laden, Taliban sympathizers or Islamic fundamentalists. Before September, Timothy McVeigh committed the worst terrorist attack in US history. The Oklahoma City bomber killed 168 people and injured more than 500.

     With its heavy emphasis on foreign threats, the Patriot Act does little to avert a homegrown menace. Most lawmakers are in denial that there are Klan organizations, skinheads, neo-Nazi groups and others that have the same proclivities as McVeigh. And who’s to say that any of these groups are any less of a threat than the hundreds of immigrants being detained in jails all across the country? As Nelson Mandela observed during his historic visit to the White House….”Terrorism is a relative term.”

For decades, presidents of both parties have let an autopen do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to scrawling their signatures. The machine was recently put to use signing a bill into law, apparently a first.

Overseas and out of reach when lawmakers passed an extension of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama employed the autopen to sign it, a step the White House has been mum about ever since.

“I always heard the autopen was the second most guarded thing in the White House after the president,” says Jack Shock, who had permission to wield former President Bill Clinton’s autopen as his director of presidential letters and messages.

Jim Cicconi, who oversaw the use of autopens for President George H.W. Bush, recalls that the plastic signature templates for the machines – yes, there was more than one autopen – would wear out from repeated use.

Ronald Reagan had 22 different signature templates, including “Ron,” “Dutch” and other iterations, to boost the aura of authenticity surrounding his fake signatures, says Stephen Koschal, an autograph authenticator who two years ago published a guide to presidential autopen signatures.

It’s not just ordinary Americans who get the autopen treatment.

Koschal says he once visited Vice President Dan Quayle’s office in the Capitol and spotted a signed photograph from the first President Bush that he said had clearly been autopenned.

Obama took the presidential autopen out of the closet and into a new realm.

While traveling in Europe last month, Obama directed his staff in Washington to use an autopen to sign into law an extension of certain Patriot Act powers to fight terrorism. The legislation had been approved by Congress at the last minute, and there was no time to fly it to France for Obama’s signature before the anti-terrorism powers expired.

It was believed to be the first time a president has used an autopen to sign legislation, and that didn’t sit well with a number of Republicans. Twenty-one GOP House members sent Obama a letter on June 17 asking him to re-sign the legislation with his actual signature because use of the autopen “appears contrary to the Constitution.”

Obama’s team relied on a 29-page legal analysis crafted during the administration of President George W. Bush to argue that the faux signature passed constitutional muster.

Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under the younger Bush, says the Bush White House had considered using the autopen to sign a minor piece of legislation as a test case, “but in the end Bush just kept signing the parchment himself.” Bush used the autopen for routine correspondence and photos but not on matters of importance, Fleischer said.

While a number of White House aides from administrations past were willing to discuss the presidential autopen, that kind of talk is frowned upon while a president is in office.

“You want to preserve the president’s semblance of reaching out and being connected,” says Shock. “But the cold hard facts are that when you get 10,000 letters a day he can’t possibly handle all that kind of correspondence himself.”

It turns out there are varying levels of fakeness in presidential signatures.

There are preapproved form letters with digital signatures. There are preprinted cards for birthdays and other special events. Autopen signatures generally are reserved for more personalized correspondence that doesn’t score a real signature, say officials from administrations past.

Obama’s staff is loath to talk about his use of the autopen.

The president prefers to keep the focus on the sampling of 10 letters a day that he reads from among the tens of thousands that ordinary people send to the White House. In many cases, he writes back to these people, with his own signature.

But the president couldn’t get around explaining how the Patriot Act got signed into law without briefly shining a spotlight on the autopen. Once that news was out, though, the White House clammed up. It declined to provide any further details about how many autopens the administration uses, what they look like, where they’re kept, or who makes the machine.

And don’t ask Bob Olding, whose company is the leading manufacturer of autopens, to discuss his clientele.

“I’m not going to help you,” he said. “Our customers do not want anyone else knowing they have these machines.”

Olding did reveal, though, that “when there’s a major change in government, we get an uptick in business.”

Olding is president of Rockville, Md.-based Damilic Corp., whose signature machines run from $2,000 up to $10,000. Hulking older versions look like a drafting table and are too big to fit through a doorway. Newer models, with microprocessors and digital controls, sit on a tabletop. But they still feature two mechanical arms that move a pen back and forth, up and down.

The machines sign letters at about the same pace as does the human hand. An autopen machine that automatically signs a stack of documents can spit out roughly 500 signatures an hour; those with manual document feeders, about 200 an hour.

As recently as the second Bush administration, the autopen in use was a large piece of furniture that looked like a drafting table, says Heidi Smith, who served as Bush’s correspondence director for two years. She says those with clearance to use the autopen would head over to the executive clerk’s office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, where the autopen wielded Bush’s pen of choice – a Sharpie.

Autopens have been used by presidents since Dwight Eisenhower, says Koschal, and President John F. Kennedy put them to heavy use. Many presidents have had secretaries sign their names to correspondence and documents, he says.

More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson acquired a mechanical copying device called a polygraph that attached to his pen and made a second copy of what he was writing. Jefferson liked it so much he wrote that “I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph.”

It’s not just busy presidents who rely on autopens. They’re used by thousands of organizations, companies and government officials.

Donald H. Rumsfeld got in hot water for using one as defense secretary to sign letters of condolence to the families of U.S. troops killed in action. When word leaked out in 2004, Rumsfeld said he’d done it to “ensure expeditious contact with grieving family members.”

“I have directed that in the future I sign each letter,” he said.

Other officials and candidates have fingered the autopen as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for documents that appeared to bear their names. One was Enron executive Kenneth Lay, who was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks despite his lawyers’ arguments that he shouldn’t be held accountable for documents signed by autopen. His conviction was later vacated on other grounds.

So how to tell the difference between a real signature and an autopen version?

Koschal says the best way to detect a fake is to lay the signature in question over a known autopen version and hold the two documents up to a light. If they’re exactly the same, chances are that the top one was created with an autopen. But presidents often create multiple autopen signatures to make it less obvious when they’re letting a machine do the work.

As for Obama’s autopen signature on the extension of Patriot Act powers, it may pass the constitutional test, but not Koschal’s.

“I’d pay peanuts for it,” the autograph authenticator said. “It’s not a real signature.”

The most noble intentions can be something that can have long lasting effects to many. There is really know how far the government will allow itself to go, justifying the freedoms that it has protected. And many people have argued that just by enacting the law in the first place, the government might have gone too far to begin with. While the actual reasoning given is something that can be sympathized, the fact that there is too many uneasy realities that are being raised.

Terrorists will always be out there in the world, no matter what. When President Obama, while in France, signed the extension of the act, mere moments before deadline, right around midnight last night, he said that the act is necessary to continue to protect against the terrorists that plague the world. Therefore, based upon that reasoning, the act will always be necessary and should have really be enacted since the dawn of time.

Arguments will continue about the Patriot Act, no matter how many reforms will happen, until the moment is no longer in law. Yet, we must wonder in protecting some freedoms, have we made a grave sacrifice with others. For the next four years, the Patriot Act is law and Barack Obama has obviously conceded that it is something that needs to be in place. The argument will continue and one must wonder what the price is freedom truly is.

 The USA Patriot Act is an act that was signed into law after the bombing of the World Trade Centers. Terrorists bombed and destroyed the towers. The Patriot Act provides legal tools and avenues for defending and preventing any further terrorist acts for countless different law enforcement agencies (USA, 2010). The Act changed some of the legal restrictions that tie law enforcement’s hands. Because of the ACT, law enforcement now has a broader range of power. Technology has progressed tremendously through the years and the Act updated laws pertaining to legal access to the new technology. The Internet and cell phones are just two examples of modern technology. America and its government and citizens have two similar priorities; preventing terrorism and preserving the rights granted to Americans (BORDC, 2010).

Section 215 of the Patriot Act permits law enforcement agencies to look into business records, when the proper warrant is obtained. Even though this was already a law, the Act granted the right to search all necessary places. Section 215 is especially helpful in the instance regarding libraries. Terrorists have been known to use public library computers because they believe them to be safe and anonymous. Warrants are granted in the event they are connected to national security investigations (BORDC, 2010).

Section 206 supplies investigators the right to establish roving wiretaps. Roving wiretaps are wiretaps that move with the suspect and do not stay necessarily on one single phone. Many times a criminal or potential terrorist will make use of cell phones and switch them often to avoid the possibility of being tapped during their phone conversations. Section 206 prevents the necessity of having to return to court repeatedly to obtain a warrant each time the tap must be moved because the criminal changes phones (BORDC, 2010).

Section 213 in the Act eliminated the fact that prior notice was to be given to potential search targets. Law enforcement agencies must show reason to a judge “why” a delay in notifying the target is necessary. Possible reasons include the suspect fleeing or even destroying the potential evidence (BORDC, 2007).

There are those who are in opinion that the ACT is stealing American rights and giving all the power to the government. The Act requires financial institutions, such as banks to report any suspicious transactions to the Treasury Department. The FBI has also been granted the right to peruse educational and/or business records even if the person is not a suspect. Regardless of whether a person is a suspect in a crime, their confidential records are subject to be read, if deemed necessary (Gowan, 2004).

The USA Patriot Act was not created, in order to sabotage Americans and their civil or privacy rights. There are very few disadvantages might exist in the Act. The Act gives power to law enforcement agencies to secure and protect the country. If the authority and support is not provided, the country can not be protected. The Act was never intended to impede or take away citizen’s civil rights and liberties. The Act can be used as a very effective tool and grant the power needed in the fight against terrorism. Because the power within the Act exists, does not automatically imply the government will use the power to abuse American citizens’ right to privacy.

The USA Patriot Act was designed to preserve life and liberty in the United States of America. The Patriot Act is not a scary, evil tool for the government to torture American citizens. The USA Patriot Act will appear invasive or threatening to a citizen who is not always abiding by the law. In conclusion, the main goal of the Patriot Act is to give the power where it is needed in order for agencies to protect American citizens and to hopefully deter future acts of terrorism. The terrorists not only want to strip Americans of their rights, their dignity, their passion for life; they as well are determined to make Americans live in fear. Terrorists will kill the old, the young, entire communities and even the children in cold blood, given the chance. The USA Patriot Act is designed to prevent these heinous events from happening. The Act while appearing to trespass upon individual privacy rights can be an effective shield against the dragon’s fire rained upon American citizens.

References

BORDC, Voices in support of the USA Patriot Act, Retrieved, March 26, 2010, from;

   http://www.bordc.org/resources/doj.php

Gowan, Mark (2004) the Ornery American, Retrieved, March 28, 2010, from;

   http://www.ornery.org/essays/2004-03-17-1.html

USA Patriot Act, Retrieved, March 27, 2010, from;

   http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html