what was the patriot act what caused congress to pass this legislation

The Patriot Human action has get a symbol of the massive expansion of government surveillance after nine/11. So if y'all're concerned well-nigh excessive government surveillance, or if you've ever talked with someone who is, you've probably heard or used "the Patriot Deed" every bit a shorthand for the problem.

That'south not exactly correct. The Patriot Act was a large, broad law, and a lot of it has nothing to do with surveillance. And the authorities's current surveillance powers are fatigued from some parts of the Patriot Act, but also from other laws.

The current fight in Congress over surveillance programs has led to a lot of defoliation about whether "the Patriot Act has expired." Information technology hasn't; most of the Patriot Human activity is permanent. But iii of the many, many private provisions within the constabulary expired, or "sunsetted," at the end of May 2015. The nigh significant of these is Section 215, which the government used to justify the National Security Agency's controversial telephone records program.

But other controversial programs remain in effect. And ultimately, the expiration of three Patriot Act provisions will have merely modest effects on the government's spying powers. Here's what you need to know nigh the original Patriot Act, the three expired provisions within information technology, and the other ways the government can collect Americans' information.

What is the Patriot Act?

Just weeks later the attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act — the USA PATRIOT Act. (Over the course of the bill'south existence, most journalistic outlets take given upward on the all-caps "PATRIOT" because information technology's dumb and looks like something out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)

The bill passed overwhelmingly. Only one senator (Russ Feingold of Wisconsin) voted against information technology.

Something like this would seem over the peak today, no? (Luke Frazza/AFP)

The Patriot Deed covered a lot of ground. Some of its provisions have since been struck down by the courts (the Supreme Court has ruled that it'south illegal to indefinitely detain immigrants who aren't charged with crimes, for example); others have become function of the mission of the Department of Homeland Security, which didn't be when the police was passed. Others have stuck around and aren't the discipline of a lot of controversy: the law created a slew of new federal crimes related to terrorism, created federal funds to assist victims of terrorism, and gave the federal government a range of new powers to track and seize coin being used past organizations connected to terrorism.

But what "Patriot Act" tends to mean to most Americans — and the reason the parts of the nib that demand to be renewed past Congress have faced increasing opposition over the past several years — is several provisions that made information technology much easier for the government to collect millions of Americans' communications records.

Why are some parts of the Patriot Act expiring?

Dorsum when the Patriot Act was offset being debated, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) was worried about some of the powers the Patriot Act was giving the federal government. He voted for the bill, merely non earlier calculation a five-year inaugural clock to iii of the sketchiest-looking provisions. After five years, if Congress hadn't passed a new law renewing the programs, they would "sunset." Wyden hoped "these provisions would exist more than thoughtfully debated at a later, less panicked fourth dimension."

Waiting for a less panicked time.

In 2006, at that place was a little more than "thoughtful debate" — including a filibuster, led by Feingold, that caused senators to tweak the surveillance provisions slightly. Past 2011, though, Ron Wyden was on the Senate flooring warning that there was a "hugger-mugger Patriot Act": that the federal government secretly believed the law allowed it to conduct mode more surveillance of Americans than people causeless. Despite Wyden'due south warnings, Congress passed a four-year extension — which reset the countdown clock for May 31, 2015.

What did the expired parts of the Patriot Act actually do?

The parts of the law that expired at the finish of May embrace three of the nearly controversial programs for domestic and international surveillance.

The 1 you're about likely to have heard of is Section 215, which is officially called the "business concern records" provision — it gives the authorities broad power to ask businesses for their records relating to someone who might be involved in terrorism. For case, if the FBI had been tracking Timothy McVeigh before the Oklahoma City bombing, it might have learned from concern records that he'd rented a truck and bought a truckload of fertilizer.

When the Patriot Act was first passed, 215 came under some mild criticism because of fears that the regime could strength public libraries to turn over someone'south borrowing records. (Remember libraries?) Just in 2013, documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the government had been collecting the phone records of every single customer of phone companies including Verizon. And it was using Section 215 as the justification that made it legal.

The Snowden leaks put Section 215 at the middle of a renewed controversy almost government surveillance of Americans — which ultimately led to the current legislative fight. Merely two other, less discussed provisions have also expired.

The "roving wiretap" provision (Section 206) allows the government to tap every device a person uses — landline, cell phone, laptop, etc. — with just 1 approval from the (famously permissive) Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. And the "lonely wolf" provision (Department 207) allows the government to surveil someone who might be engaged in international terrorism, even if he or she is not actually connected to whatever existing terrorist group.

Have any of these provisions actually prevented terrorist attacks?

The Obama assistants says that Section 215, in particular, has been extremely helpful in terrorism investigations. Simply when the regime'south Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board reviewed the programme in January 2014, that is ... not what it found (emphasis added):

Where the phone records collected past the NSA under its Department 215 plan have provided value, they have done so primarily in two ways. The showtime is by offer additional leads regarding the contacts of terrorism suspects already known to investigators, which can assistance investigators confirm suspicions about the target of an inquiry or nearly persons in contact with that target. But our review suggests that the Section 215 programme offers little unique value here, instead largely duplicating the FBI's ain information-gathering efforts. The second is past demonstrating that known foreign terrorism suspects do not have U.S. contacts or that known terrorist plots practice not have a U.Due south. nexus. [...]

Nosotros have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records programme made a physical difference in the consequence of a counterterrorism investigation. Moreover, we are aware of no example in which the program straight contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist set on. And we believe that in only i example over the past seven years has the plan arguably contributed to the identification of an unknown terrorism suspect. In that case, moreover, the doubtable was not involved in planning a terrorist attack and at that place is reason to believe that the FBI may take discovered him without the contribution of the NSA's program.

There'south less information most the other two provisions. Section 207, for example — the "lone wolf" program — has manifestly never even been used.

Are these the only controversial parts of the Patriot Deed?

Hardly. They're just the ones that Congress put the countdown clock on when it passed the original law. In the 15 years since the Patriot Act has passed, Congress and the public have realized that the federal government is using all sorts of provisions to justify surveillance.

The most controversial permanent plan under the Patriot Human activity is the "National Security Letters" program, which lets the government need communications records from telecom companies without even going through the surveillance courtroom for approval first.

National Security Letters have been used extremely broadly, and some privacy advocates take pointed out that they could simply replace some of the powers the authorities lost at the end of May. As Julian Sanchez of the Cato Found wrote concluding month:

the FBI didn't fifty-fifty bother using 215 for more than a year later on the passage of the Patriot Act.[...] In at least one example, when the secret court refused an awarding for journalists' records on First Amendment grounds, the Bureau turned around and obtained the same data using National Security Messages.

And the Patriot Deed isn't the simply law that has led to problematic surveillance programs:

What is the USA Liberty Human action?

Near members of Congress who want to calibration back government surveillance have decided that the best way to fix the Patriot Act is to let surveillance programs continue but put serious restrictions on how they can be used. That's the purpose of the U.s.a. Freedom Act. (Its official name is the United states Freedom Act: Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection, and Online Monitoring Act. That is even stupider than the Usa PATRIOT Act and sounds like something out of Squad America: World Police.)

The Usa Freedom Act would force the government to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval before being able to access phone records, and would only give it access for specific searches — not just passive majority drove of everyone'due south information.

Furthermore, the Freedom Act tackles National Security Messages — it would concord them to the same standards that requests under Section 215 come across, so that the government couldn't use the letters to become data they were banned from getting through the courts. And it would force the surveillance court — which currently operates completely in secret — to publish data about its major decisions.

Other privacy advocates, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), oppose the Usa Freedom Act considering it would allow some surveillance under Section 215. They'd adopt to see drove of phone records stop entirely, and think that simply not renewing the Patriot Deed provisions and not replacing them with a new bill is the all-time manner to exercise that. Other advocates disagree, using National Security Messages equally an instance of how the authorities can only employ other routes to get the aforementioned amount of data.

Read more: How Rand Paul's anti-surveillance filibusters fit into his presidential bid

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8701499/patriot-act-explain

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