The Partiot Act: Fact Versus Fiction

The PATRIOT Act: Fact Versus Fiction
October 7, 2005

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress strengthened the tools law enforcement officials could use to investigate and apprehend suspected terrorists. The most wide-ranging of those Actions was passage of a bill known as "The PATRIOT Act."

Certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act were to sunset or expire this year, unless Congress Acted. I voted with a bipartisan majority of my House colleagues to pass the USA Patriot and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005. Given everything that has been said about the PATRIOT Act, it is worthwhile to separate the facts from fiction.

The PATRIOT Act has played a key role in a number of successful operations to protect innocent Americans from terrorists. There should be no safe zone, no sanctuary, for terrorists in America. This fight is way too important. The PATRIOT Act helps ensure that terrorists have no safe zone.

Most of what the PATRIOT Act does is not new. Many of the tools in the PATRIOT Act have been used for decades to fight organized crime and drug dealers.

There are two main things that the PATRIOT Act has changed: First, it has updated the law to reflect new technologies and new threats. The PATRIOT Act ensures that law enforcement no longer has to fight in a digital age with laws passed in the era of rotary telephones. Second, the PATRIOT Act has allowed sharing and cooperation among government agencies. Watching the 9/11 Commission hearings, many people learned about the "wall of separation" between law enforcement, intelligence and national defense officials. The PATRIOT Act dismantled the "wall of separation."

Because investigators and prosecutors could share information, the PATRIOT Act played a role in breaking up five terrorist cells in the U.S. (in Buffalo; Detroit; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; and Northern Virginia). More than 400 individuals have been criminally charged in the United States in international terrorism related investigations.

The PATRIOT Act still requires a court issued warrant for any law enforcement investigation that includes any type of search. Warrants are required to search a residence undertake wiretapping or to search library records. Some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act have been misrepresented by its critics.

The so called "sneak and peak" provisions that law enforcement agents use to gather information without letting the bad guys know has been used for decades to fight crime. The procedure of searching without notifying the suspect is a needed tool in the PATRIOT Act for keeping Americans safe. In order to conduct such an operation, law enforcement needs a court order, as they always have. Law enforcement can delay making an immediate arrest if there is no imminent danger and they believe the suspects will bring them to higher level criminals.

Delayed notifications of executed search warrants have also been permitted for years. When agents execute a search warrant, federal law requires them to leave behind a notice informing the subject that a search has occurred and providing and inventory of items seized. However, courts regularly permit the required notice to be delayed until a later time. Notice is delayed, not cancelled. Without this tool a suspected terrorist could destroy evidence, warn co-conspirators, flee or accelerate a planned attack. The PATRIOT Act imposed a uniform standard prescribed by Congress rather than allow an ad hoc set of rules by federal judges across the country.

Federal agents are not permitted by the PATRIOT Act or any other federal law to unilaterally write a search warrant that allows them to enter a subject's home. Only a judge can issue such a search warrant.

Roving wiretaps allow a search warrant to attach to a particular phone or other communication facility. This is simply keeping up with current technology in the era of disposable cell phones and free email accounts. There have also been concerns about law enforcement officials being able to view library and book records. It's worth noting that nobody's bookstore, medical or library records have been searched. However, several of the 9/11 attackers used computer terminals at public libraries because they knew the hard drives there would be harder to trace. There must be no safe sanctuary for terrorists. That's why it's important to include these locations in the law.

There is tremendous Congressional oversight of the PATRIOT Act. Every six months the Inspector General has to report to Congress what orders they've obtained. Since 9/11 the Inspector General has issued 6 reports on the PATRIOT Act, and there has yet to be a single verified instance of abuse of civil liberties under the PATRIOT Act.

These are just some of the facts that have made the PATRIOT Act one of the key tools that federal investigators and prosecutors have used to track down terrorists and lock them up before they can harm Americans.

http://www.house.gov/miketurner/news/columns/10.07.05.shtml