Download The USA Patriot Act, passed in response to the Sept

How should America balance Liberty and Security?
Directions: Read, highlight and annotate the following information on the 2001
Patriot Act, and the 2015 Freedom Act Then answer the following discussion
questions on a separate piece of paper in preparation for a graded discussion. Your
answers should be preferably typed, 1.5 spacing, and approximately 6-8 sentences
each.
1. If you were a member of Congress, would you support the continued
reauthorization of this law? Why or why not?
2. How do you think our government decides who is a “suspicious” person, and
therefore deserves to have his/her phones wiretapped?
3. What do you think of the new Freedom Act provision that requires the NSA to get
a court order to collect “metadata” in the form of phone records? Will that
protect Americans, or slow down critical investigations?
4. What happens if the government gets a court order and wiretaps someone’s
telephone and they discover that the person is NOT a terrorist but is still
breaking the law? Should he/she be arrested?
5. There has only been one other terrorist attack since 9/11, The Boston Marathon
bombing. Does this indicate that the Patriot Act is working?
***Optional Challenge: Read the transcript of an interview with Edward Snowden, a
man who broke the law in 2013 when he accused the NSA of spying on millions of
Americans and released millions of phone records to prove it. Then read his
reaction to the expiration of certain provisions of the Patriot Act.
 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs/jan-june13/nsa1_0610.html
 http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/edward-snowden-nyt-op-ed-patriotact-end-118678
Grading:
Discussion Questions: 10
Participation in Class: 5
The USA PATRIOT Act,
Following the 9/11 attacks on America, Congress overwhelmingly passed the USA PATRIOT
Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism) as a means for protecting the country from future attacks by providing
law enforcement officials with tools to fight terrorism. Here are key provisions:
I - Give the president the authority to confiscate the property of any foreign person who is believed
to have aided in a war or attack on the United States. Such seizures can be submitted secretly to
courts as evidence.
II - It allows the interception of communications if they're related to terrorist activities and allows
law enforcement agencies to share information related to terrorist activities with federal authorities.
In 2015 Section II of the law was changed to stop the NSA from continuing its mass phone
data collection program, called “meta data.” The new Freedom Act states that phone companies
will keep the data and the NSA can obtain information about targeted individuals with permission
from a federal court. Once a court order allows surveillance on a particular person, officers can use
any means available to intercept that person's communications, regardless of where the person
goes. For example, any internet service provider can be ordered to provide information on IP
addresses, login times and sites visited. It also allows delayed notification of search warrants,
meaning a suspect's house could be searched while the suspect isn't present, and the suspect
would not be notified of the search until after it was carried out.
III - This section of the Patriot Act is aimed at cutting off the financial support of terrorist groups. It
has provisions requiring banks to take steps to prevent money laundering, allows law-enforcement
agencies to gather information from banks and creates longer prison terms for money laundering
and smuggling.
V - The most important part of Title V is the use of National Security Letters (NSL). An NSL is a
demand for the release of information and paperwork related to a person under investigation. The
Patriot Act makes NSLs much stronger, allows them to be used against U.S. citizens and contains a
gag order preventing the target of the NSL from ever knowing about it or telling anyone else about it.
There is no judicial review or need for probable cause when an NSL is requested and issued.
These expanded powers have led to controversy because many feel the USA PATRIOT Act violates
the basic civil liberties established by the U.S. Constitution, particularly those related to privacy
and First and Fourth Amendment rights. As a result, many local and state governments have
passed resolutions against the Act, and the ACLU has taken legal action against various provisions
of the law. What has emerged is a continuing debate and a power struggle between the right to
personal civil liberties and the need for national security.
Note: Since 2001, the Patriot Act has been reaffirmed on March 10, 2006 by George Bush
and again by President Obama on May 26, 2011. It was amended in the spring of 2015 when
Congress allowed section II of the law to expire. Those section II provisions were replaced
with the Freedom Act – restricting some data collection.
CON
ACLU Files Challenge to USA PATRIOT Act, Citing Radical Expansion of FBI Powers
DETROIT - The American Civil Liberties Union today filed the first legal challenge to the USA
PATRIOT Act, taking aim at a section of the controversial law that vastly expands the power of FBI
agents to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of innocent people in the United States,
including citizens and permanent residents.
""Ordinary Americans should not have to worry that the FBI is rifling through their medical records,
seizing their personal papers, or forcing charities and advocacy groups to divulge membership
lists,"" said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU and the lead attorney in the lawsuit.
""We know from our clients that the FBI is once again targeting ethnic, religious, and political
minority communities disproportionately,"" she added. ""Investing the FBI with unchecked authority
to monitor the activities of innocent people is an invitation to abuse, a waste of resources, and is
certainly not making any of us any safer." The report, Unpatriotic Acts: The FBI's Power to Rifle
Through Your Records and Personal Belongings Without Telling You, describes how the law:
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Violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing the FBI to search and seize records or personal
belongings without a warrant, without showing probable cause -- and without ever notifying
even innocent people of the searches;
Violates the First Amendment because it allows the FBI to easily obtain information about a
person's reading habits, religious affiliations, Internet surfing and other expressive activities
that would be ""chilled"" by the threat of investigation;
Violates the First Amendment by imposing a ""gag order"" that prohibits those served with
Section 215 orders from telling anyone -- ever -- that the FBI demanded information, even if
the information is not tied to a particular suspect and poses no risk to national security.
June 2, 2015 ACLU Reaction to Freedom Act – restricting some data collection
Jameel Jaffer, American Civil liberties Union deputy legal director, stated: “The passage of the USA
Freedom Act is a milestone. This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its
passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a
blank check. It’s a testament to the significance of the Snowden disclosures and also to the hard
work of many principled legislators on both sides of the aisle. Still, no one should mistake this bill
for comprehensive reform. The bill leaves many of the governments most intrusive and overbroad
surveillance powers untouched, and it makes only very modest adjustments to disclosure and
transparency requirements.
“
PRO
Ashcroft's defense of the Patriot Act: Speech from 2003
JOHN ASHCROFT: The worldwide terrorist threat is real. It is imminent. Our enemies
continue to pursue ways to murder the innocent and the peaceful. They seek to kill us
abroad and at home. But we will not be deterred from our responsibility to preserve
American life and liberty, nor our duty to build a safer and more secure world.
In the days after September 11, we appealed to the Congress for help in defending
freedom from terrorism. "Give us the tools, and we will finish the job." Congress
responded by passing the USA Patriot Act by an overwhelming margin. And while our job
is not yet finished, we have used the tools provided in the Patriot Act to fulfill our first
responsibility to protect the American people.
The Patriot Act opened opportunity for information sharing. To abandon this tool would
disconnect the dots, risk American lives, sacrifice liberty, and reject September 11's
lessons. …We know that cooperation works. The Patriot Act creates teamwork at every
level of law enforcement and intelligence. To block cooperation against terrorists would be
to make our nation more vulnerable to attack. It would reject the teachings of September
11.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a forceful call for an extension of all
provisions in the Patriot Act in May, 2015.
“We need to recognize that terrorist tactics and the nature of the threat have changed, and
that at a moment of elevated threat it would be a mistake to take from our intelligence
community any of the valuable tools needed to build a complete picture of terrorist networks
and their plans — such as the bulk data collection program,” McConnell said, referring to the
expiring authorities of the PATRIOT Act. “The intelligence community needs these tools to
protect Americans.”