USA Patriot Act

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism act of 2001 otherwise known as the USA Patriot Act was signed into law by president George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. This act is part of the foreign and defense policy area. “The foreign and defense policy area includes organizations that focus on relations between the United States and the rest of the world. Organizations that national security initiatives and other defense-related policies, as well as individual countries, are included.” This act was enacted by the 107th United States congress. It was introduced to the house of representatives by a republican representative named Jim Sensenbrenner on October 23, 2001 and passed
This caused the people to have many concerns and fear about terrorists. As a counter against this to ease the minds of the American people, the government passed the USA Patriot Act following the 9/11 attacks. There were also more acts in response to the attacks as well. The USA Patriot Act’s main purpose was to help many government agencies find and stop any potential act of terrorism or terrorist groups. The act is divided into ten categories called titles. The first title is “Enhancing domestic security against terrorism” and it raises government spending for counter-terrorism and gave the president and the military more power when it comes to anything dealing with terrorism. The second title enhanced surveillance procedures. An example is the government can now scope or wiretap people who are suspicious. Title number 3 is “Anti-money-laundering to prevent terrorism and title 4 raises border security. Title 5 removes obstacles to investigating terrorism and title 6 deals with the victims and family of the victims of terrorism. The 7th title deals with the criminal law dealing with terrorism and the 8th title is improved
Many people believe that this grants them a certain feeling of ease and rest because they know that there is something that helps identify and major threats and stop terrorist groups before anything drastic happen. This cause people to worry less and have a strong sense of safety. Others feel that this grants certain agencies to much power to spy and monitor them. People say that this takes away a lot of their own privacy and that it isn’t right. This causes them to feel a breach in their privacy and fear of what the government can do if they don’t have any limits. People against the act will want to get rid of it because they feel that the government will take advantage of this and they won’t know when to stop. Their belief is it breaks some of their own rights and this is wrong. The ACU and the ACLU are prime examples of this belief and this is why they are always fighting against it. The others believe that terrorism is a great threat not only to the United States but also around the world and some action needs to be taken immediately. The USA Patriot Act offers them exactly what they are looking for and they are willing to give up some privacy in order to find the bad people among them. Usually, the people in the United States don’t have to fear because if they don’t do anything suspicious, the government won’t look at them. It is only those certain few