The USA PATRIOT Act
(Uniting and Strengthening
by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism)
Congress enacted the Patriot Act by overwhelming, bipartisan margins, arming law
enforcement with new tools to detect and prevent terrorism: The USA
Patriot Act was passed nearly unanimously by the Senate 98-1, and 357–66 in the
House, with the support of members from across the political spectrum.
The Act Improves Our Counter-Terrorism
Efforts in Several Significant Ways:
1. The Patriot Act allows investigators to use the tools
that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking. Many of the tools the Act provides to
law enforcement to fight terrorism have been used for decades to fight organized
crime and drug dealers, and have been reviewed and approved by the courts. As Sen.
Joe Biden (D-DE) explained during the floor debate about the Act, “the FBI could
get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but they could not get one to investigate
terrorists. To put it bluntly, that was crazy! What’s good for the mob should be
good for terrorists.” (Cong. Rec., 10/25/01)
- Allows law
enforcement to use surveillance against more crimes of terror. Before the Patriot
Act, courts could permit law enforcement to conduct electronic surveillance to investigate
many ordinary, non-terrorism crimes, such as drug crimes, mail fraud, and passport
fraud. Agents also could obtain wiretaps to investigate some, but not all, of the
crimes that terrorists often commit. The Act enabled investigators to gather information
when looking into the full range of terrorism-related crimes, including: chemical-weapons
offenses, the use of weapons of mass destruction, killing Americans abroad, and
- Allows federal
agents to follow sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection.
For years, law enforcement has been able to use “roving wiretaps” to investigate
ordinary crimes, including drug offenses and racketeering. A roving wiretap can
be authorized by a federal judge to apply to a particular suspect, rather than a
particular phone or communications device. Because international terrorists are
sophisticated and trained to thwart surveillance by rapidly changing locations and
communication devices such as cell phones, the Act authorized agents to seek court
permission to use the same techniques in national security investigations to track
- Allows law
enforcement to conduct investigations without tipping off terrorists.
In some cases if criminals are tipped off too early to an investigation, they might
flee, destroy evidence, intimidate or kill witnesses, cut off contact with associates,
or take other action to evade arrest. Therefore, federal courts in narrow circumstances
long have allowed law enforcement to delay for a limited time when the subject is
told that a judicially-approved search warrant has been executed. Notice is always
provided, but the reasonable delay gives law enforcement time to identify the criminal’s
associates, eliminate immediate threats to our communities, and coordinate the arrests
of multiple individuals without tipping them off beforehand. These delayed notification
search warrants have been used for decades, have proven crucial in drug and organized
crime cases, and have been upheld by courts as fully constitutional.
- Allows federal
agents to ask a court for an order to obtain business records in national security
Examining business records often provides the key that investigators are looking
for to solve a wide range of crimes. Investigators might seek select records from
hardware stores or chemical plants, for example, to find out who bought materials
to make a bomb, or bank records to see who’s sending money to terrorists. Law enforcement
authorities have always been able to obtain business records in criminal cases through
grand jury subpoenas, and continue to do so in national security cases where appropriate.
These records were sought in criminal cases such as the investigation of the Zodiac
gunman, where police suspected the gunman was inspired by a Scottish occult poet,
and wanted to learn who had checked the poet’s books out of the library. In national
security cases where use of the grand jury process was not appropriate, investigators
previously had limited tools at their disposal to obtain certain business records.
Under the Patriot Act, the government can now ask a federal court (the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
), if needed to aid an investigation, to order production of the same type of records
available through grand jury subpoenas. This federal court, however, can issue these
orders only after the government demonstrates the records concerned are sought for
an authorized investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning
a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence
activities, provided that such investigation of a U.S. person is not conducted solely
on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment.
2. The Patriot Act facilitated information sharing and
cooperation among government agencies so that they can better “connect the dots.” The Act removed the major legal barriers
that prevented the law enforcement, intelligence, and national defense communities
from talking and coordinating their work to protect the American people and our
national security. The government’s prevention efforts should not be restricted
by boxes on an organizational chart. Now police officers, FBI agents, federal prosecutors
and intelligence officials can protect our communities by “connecting the dots”
to uncover terrorist plots before they are completed. As Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.)
said about the Patriot Act, “we simply cannot prevail in the battle against terrorism
if the right hand of our government has no idea what the left hand is doing.” (Press
- Prosecutors can now share evidence obtained
through grand juries with intelligence officials -- and intelligence information
can now be shared more easily with federal prosecutors. Such sharing of information
leads to concrete results. For example, a federal grand jury recently indicted an
, Sami al-Arian, for allegedly being the
leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the world’s most violent terrorist
outfits. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is responsible for murdering more than 100 innocent
people, including a young American named Alisa Flatow who was killed in a tragic
bus bombing in
. The Patriot Act assisted us in obtaining the indictment by enabling the full sharing
of information and advice about the case among prosecutors and investigators. Alisa’s
father, Steven Flatow, has said, “When you know the resources of your government
are committed to right the wrongs committed against your daughter, that instills
you with a sense of awe. As a father you can’t ask for anything more.”
3. The Patriot Act updated the
law to reflect new technologies and new threats. The Act brought the
law up to date with current technology, so we no longer have to fight a digital-age
battle with antique weapons—legal authorities leftover from the era of rotary telephones.
When investigating the murder of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, for example, law enforcement used one
of the Act’s new authorities to use high-tech means to identify and locate some
of the killers.
- Allows law enforcement officials to obtain a search
warrant anywhere a terrorist-related activity occurred. Before the Patriot
Act, law enforcement personnel were required to obtain a search warrant in the district
where they intended to conduct a search. However, modern terrorism investigations
often span a number of districts, and officers therefore had to obtain multiple
warrants in multiple jurisdictions, creating unnecessary delays. The Act provides
that warrants can be obtained in any district in which terrorism-related activities
occurred, regardless of where they will be executed. This provision does not change
the standards governing the availability of a search warrant, but streamlines the
- Allows victims
of computer hacking to request law enforcement assistance in monitoring the “trespassers”
on their computers.
This change made the law technology-neutral; it placed electronic trespassers on
the same footing as physical trespassers. Now, hacking victims can seek law enforcement
assistance to combat hackers, just as burglary victims have been able to invite
officers into their homes to catch burglars.
4. The Patriot Act increased the penalties for those
who commit terrorist crimes.
Americans are threatened as much by the terrorist who pays for a bomb as by the
one who pushes the button. That’s why the Patriot Act imposed tough new penalties
on those who commit and support terrorist operations, both at home and abroad. In
particular, the Act:
- Prohibits the harboring of terrorists. The Act created a
new offense that prohibits knowingly harboring persons who have committed or are
about to commit a variety of terrorist offenses, such as: destruction of aircraft;
use of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons; use of weapons of mass destruction;
bombing of government property; sabotage of nuclear facilities; and aircraft piracy.
- Enhanced the inadequate maximum penalties for various
crimes likely to be committed by terrorists: including arson,
destruction of energy facilities, material support to terrorists and terrorist organizations,
and destruction of national-defense materials.
- Enhanced a number of conspiracy penalties,
including for arson, killings in federal facilities, attacking communications systems,
material support to terrorists, sabotage of nuclear facilities, and interference
with flight crew members. Under previous law, many terrorism statutes did not specifically
prohibit engaging in conspiracies to commit the underlying offenses. In such cases,
the government could only bring prosecutions under the general federal conspiracy
provision, which carries a maximum penalty of only five years in prison.
- Punishes terrorist attacks on mass transit systems.
- Punishes bioterrorists.
the statutes of limitations for certain terrorism crimes and lengthens them for
other terrorist crimes.
The government’s success in preventing another catastrophic attack on the American
homeland since September 11, 2001, would have been much more difficult, if not impossible,
without the USA Patriot Act. The authorities Congress provided have substantially
enhanced our ability to prevent, investigate, and prosecute acts of terror.