Talk:Patriot Act/Archive 2

Cave!

«He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.» -- Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791

Vandalism

I'm just a humble Canadian citizen, but I'm pretty sure this: "The Act unofficially raped the U.S. constitution by expanding the authority of U.S. law enforcement agencies for the stated purpose of fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad." In the intro isn't completely factual. Maybe some of it is, but a) unofficially raped isn't NPOV at all b) shouldn't "constitution" be capitalized? --Stephen (talk) 23:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds spot on to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.178.59 (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Unofficially raped is probably a bit too strong. (205.238.205.25 (talk) 08:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC))

Help: Court: section 805

In this section it says the court ruled section 805 to be unconstitutional. I read through the cited material, which appears to be the judges ruling on case CV 03-6107 ABC.

After reading through it I found the exact opposite to be true. It appears the plaintiffs "Humanitarian Law Project", had failed to provide any evidence of constitutional violation. On page 35 it clearly says.

"The Court therefore DENIES Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on this basis, concluding that Plaintiffs have failed to establish that the prohibition on providing "expert advice and assistance" violates the First and Fifth Amendments by giving the Secretary of State virtually unreviewable authority to designate groups as terrorist organizations."

I know to some this might not be clear but it basically says the Plaintiffs failed to prove violations of the First and Fifth Amendments.

If this is the case I believe it is... A judge in California found 805 unconstitutional. This was overturned by a superior court. Since one judge found it unconstitutional, some people feel it necessary to run around screaming "The court found 805 unconsitutional!!!" --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that might have been the case, the findings of higher courts always trump lower courts so I will change the article. If someone has information about 805 being found unconstitutional please let us know..Mantion 02:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure. See page 24 - finding 1 is "Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the Prohibition is Impermissably Vague but Have Failed to Demonstrate that the Prohibition is Substantially Overbroad." - Ta bu shi da yu 13:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Clean Up Intro

Hi all. I am new to the site and was just browsing this article. It seems like the intro is quite long and could be shortened considerably, both to improve readability and to make it consistent with other articles of a similar length. One idea would be to move all of the information about definitions of terrorist or terrorism to a separate section within the article. Thoughts? --Mackabean 17:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, I have taken on the task of reorganizing the introduction. In particular, I removed the lengthy discussion of terrorism definitions, which is important but didn't seem appropriate for the intro. I will put that back in in another section. I also tried to highlight the relatively recent fight over the act's reauthorization, which seems important because it provided an opportunity for much more lengthy Congressional debate over the civil liberties and security issues with much more time than during the original passage of the bill. I welcome thoughts about this reorg from others interested in this subject. Thanks. --Mackabean 17:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Sub-article on the Re-authorization of March 2006 desirable.

To take some of the detail about the Re-authorization act out of this summary article, a new sub-article would be a useful change and addition. Any takers? -- Yellowdesk 15:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

or Move Re-authorization material to later on the page

I agree that a sub-article might be the place for this stuff. In any case, it seems illogical and confusing to preface what the act does provide, which is contained in the following sections, with the stipulations incident to the act's reauthorization. If not a sub-article, can we perhaps reorder this portion of the page? Mcwabaunsee 18:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

legal jargon

I am not a registered member of wikipedia, but was wondering if it would be possible to create a side article or add a new section to the existing article explaining what the USA PATRIOT Act means in laymans English. Not everyone can understand the article as it is now (not everyone can understand the Act as it was issued...) and as it is an important document, I believe that anyone who wishes to read it should be able to understand it. We simple folk would really appreciate it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.10.37.16 (talk) 23:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

I would really appreciate being able to understand it. --24.123.188.12 19:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

There is very little "legal jargon" in the article. As for a synopsis of the act, the introduction paragraph is all that is needed. Of course, the act is very lengthy, so stating "I can't understand it" is not helpful. What part is not understood? Also, keep in mind that there is a lot of misinformation about the act. Therefore, the article must make note of what the act is not as well as what the act is. That always makes for a confusing read. However, it is not the fault of the Wikipedia authors. It is the fault of people who feel the need to lie in order to push their private agenda. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

With the greatest of respect, but I don't agree with that. This article was totally disorganized and confusingly written. I have totally rewritten it now. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Public Opinion Error

Under the Public Opinion section for the very last poll, the total percentage amounts to 197%. I assume that the polls in the first section also do not amount to 100% due to rounding, and / or another criteria not being listed (such as a neutral opinion).

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.226.226.146 (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Just juvenile vandalism. The numbers are correct for the moment. --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Links dead?

It seems that the links in the fourth paragraph of the article are dead.oihh

"In July 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a reauthorization bill (S. 1389) with substantial changes to several sections of the act, while the House reauthorizaion bill (H.R. 3199) kept most of the act's original language . The two bills were then reconciled in a conference committee that was criticized by Senators from both parties for ignoring civil liberty concerns.[5] The “compromise bill,” (text) which removed most of the changes from the Senate version, passed Congress on March 2, 2006 and was signed into law by President Bush on March 9, 2006."

Don't work anymore for me (there might be more in the article): http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:19:./temp/~c109vlG2PF:: (S. 1389) http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:2:./temp/~c109NYVJWm:: (H.R. 3199) http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:6:./temp/~c109VgtpwI::%7Cfull ((text)

In all three of the links, I get "Please resubmit your search Search results are only retained for a limited amount of time.Your search results have either been deleted, or the file has been updated with new information."

Also, did the re-authorization act do away with all sunset clauses?

It's not possible to use links like this from THOMAS, because they are specific to a session. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It also seems that the link for reference #3 is dead: Reardon, Marguerite and Declan McCullagh. "ACLU Challenges Patriot Act". News.com, November 2, 2005. Retrieved on April 9, 2007. -user:Thekaleb —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 19:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 08:27, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

USA PATRIOT Act → Patriot Act — The name Patriot Act is the common name. Used by the New York Times (…surveillance, more Patriot Act, more tough…), Washington Post (…for his support of the Patriot Act and the removal…), Chicago Tribune (…such as the Iraq war and the Patriot Act, about which…), and most others. —METS501 (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC) ——METS501 (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose: It is standard practice throughout Wikipedia to make the article with the real name and redirect with common nicknames. Anyone typing "patriot act" into the search box will, without any effort on their part, be redirected to this article. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Not really, but you can still oppose. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). —METS501 (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: The name "USA PATRIOT" is a back-formed acronym (though not strictly a backronym). Acronyms belong in capitals. 81.104.175.145 17:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support: "USA Patriot Act" on Google News archive receives 29,900[1] while "Patriot Act" receives 79,500[2]. (Wikimachine 02:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC))

Which is not strictly accurate, since one search term includes the other. ("Patriot Act" -"USA PATRIOT Act") gives under 50K hits, as expected. On a larger internet search, ("Patriot Act" - "USA PATRIOT Act") gets 1.4 million hits, and "USA PATRIOT Act" gets over 1.1 million. Not a big difference. Dekimasuよ! 09:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Patriot Act redirects here. Either way, "USA" is part of the Act's short title, so it must stay. WP:COMMONNAME is a fallback when offered multiple choices as to what to call it. It would come into play if we were stuck over deciding whether to go for USA PATRIOT Act or Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. It does not in any way suggest we use a title that is patently incorrect, regardless of other usage. 81.104.175.145 03:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose The common name can be handled by a redirect. The actual name of the act is USA PATRIOT Act, in acronym form. -- Yellowdesk 13:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support per WP:NAME; we should use the name our readers call it. We do not use official short titles for American legislation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

  Could have fooled me. 81.104.175.145 00:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - The official name is USA PATRIOT; Patriot Act is a redirect. If thousands of links point to Patriot Act, they're still going to get to the article. 81.104.175.145 makes a very valid point: we use the official name in many places, regardless of what it's "commonly" called. Anthony Hit me up... 14:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support Common name. Voretus 21:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

While I still oppose the move, the only valid argument I can see for making the move is to rank higher in Google's search results. According to the naming conventions, a popular name should be used if it the real name would hinder search results. The example given in "Jimmy Carter" instead of "James Earl Carter, Jr." - the issue being that "Jimmy" is not in "James Earl". However, when I type "patriot act" into Google, the Wikipedia article "USA PATRIOT Act" is the first non-sponsored link. So, how is this move going to help? --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

If not Patriot Act, how about USA Patriot Act? Really, very few sources that I can find actually use it all capitalized. Even official legislation [3] uses "USA Patriot Act", which covers the common name and the official name (by including the "USA"). —METS501 (talk) 01:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

+1 for including the "USA" part, though I'm still not entirely in favour of that as a target since it's not called the "Patriot Act", USA PATRIOT is an acronym. I believe WP:NAME and WP:MOSCL would not normally support reducing an acronym without a well-established anacronymization. 81.104.175.145 01:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not? We have Laser, so spelt, despite the fact that laser, like maser, is a genuine acronym, not an artificial formation like this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Because "laser" and "maser" are anacronyms, with decades of such usage documented to back it up. 81.104.175.145 00:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

needs citation and examples:

"Whether Congress has the Constitutional power to make this claim is the subject of much litigation." can we have a few examples of litigation that has been filed since the act has taken place... I am sure there are at least a few, but this is not a statment of fact without support. Mrathel 03:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)mrathel

All moot now after my rewrite. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

History of this Act

I'm starting on getting a history of this act together. See Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/History. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Just so people are clear: this subpage has been created to replace what we've got in this article. I never intended it to be a full article, though it might get to that point. And I'd also like to point out that I lost an immense amount of work because of the article move. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Sarah has rightly pointed out that I did this in the wrong namespace. Have moved to correct namespace: Talk. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This 1,200 page law was enacted 45 days after the Sept,11 attacks on the USA. It was said to have been kept ready for signing in the same week as 9-11 with an astonishing foresight that 9-11 events would happen and that a law would be required to control terrorism ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vsssarma (talk • contribs) 23:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

What is so astonishing about this? If you'd bothered to read about the history of the Act, you'd realise that the legislation is in fact a number of Acts all melded into one uber-document. I'd say that a good 3rd of the Act is the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act, which went through Congress and the Senate, then was merged into the USA PATRIOT Act. Then they implemented a whole raft of miscellaneous recommendations that had been discussed quite a bit before the terrorist attacks occured. The U.S. DoJ, I might point out, are lawyers and had already been asking for change for some time. It's not really at all suprising that the bill was prepared is such a short period of time.

Look, if you want to attack something, you really should be focussing on the underhanded way they introduced the Act - in a time of national emergency and in such a way that they pretty much blackmailed any opposition by saying things like, if you oppose this bill then you support terrorists. Then you should vent your bile to the Senators and Congressmen who were so weak that they just accepted that sort of stupidity. You should be outraged that it's a 1,200 or so page document that was passed in around 30 days.

Finally, I really do think you should read History of the USA PATRIOT Act, which I spent almost a year working on (of course, you don't see my name in the history due to a copy and paste merge - but I can prove that I wrote nearly all of it). it would probably help you form a more... educated understanding of why the Patriot Act came about. - 122.107.54.132 (talk) 04:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

A new tilte?

I think this Artcile needs a new title how about theThe United State Patriot Act? Arnon Chaffin (I'm listening!) 18:34, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

if you review the section above: Talk:USA PATRIOT Act#Requested move you'll notice there was not overwhelming interest in changing the title of the article, and there exists a redirect for the title you suggest, so someone searching for the article will find it via the title you suggest. -- Yellowdesk 20:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

In fact, it's a very bad idea, because not only is it longer than any other title, but it's not even remotely accurate. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Benefits of Patriot Act

What about the benefits of the act ? Are there any ? Were terrorist attacks successfully inhibited by the act ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.143.76.19 (talk • contribs)

Each of the 10 articles has a separate page. The descriptions of each of them makes it rather clear what benefits there are. The big problem with this entire subject is the constant use of "terrorism law" when referring to the Patriot Act. As such, benefits given to the victims of 9/11 are dismissed as not being part of the act. As for inhibiting terrorist attacks, who honestly believes that there will ever be a terrorist who publicly states, "I was going to attack XXXXX on XX/XX/XX, but the Patriot Act stopped me." -- Kainaw^(what?) 01:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Benefits? The Act represents one thing, the taking of civil rights that are granted and should be protected by the United States Constitution. Taking a few rights to "protect" the citizens is only a false sense of security. In the end, it grants the federal government more power than it should have. The citizens of Germany did appreciate the actions initially under Hitler's regime. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Idealist101 (talk • contribs) 03:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Just because many believe (because of negative press coverage) that the Patriot Act is a bad thing doesn't mean supported and cited positive articles shouldn't be included. Wiki isn't about majority opinion. Its about facts, right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.156.107.74 (talk) 14:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Correct. However, adding anything that could possibly be seen as positive will likely be reverted and you'll be run out of Wikipedia by a crowd of pitchfork carrying fanatics. -- kainaw™ 14:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

No more national security letters!

A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court's approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.[4]

I'm too pleased to objectively add that. ←Ben^B4 16:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Good news indeed. Not sure where you'd put it, as this article is in a right mess. Hopefully should have this fixed soon. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed this. I have a comprehensive history section now. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Edited first line

I removed "Passed just 45 days after Sept,11... and "dramatically" as it referred to the relative expansion of the Act. That it was "45 days after 9/11" has nothing to do with the Act itself. "Dramatically" is a matter of opinion, not fact. As the first part came almost word-for-word from the ACLU web-site, it was surely meant to impart a negative connotation with not too subtle sophistry that it was passed in great haste. However, depending on one's stance, it could also be construed as having taken plenty of time. In which case one might think that there was consensus enough to prevent the usual partisan quibbling that passes for normal on the Hill, and is therefore a good thing. In either case, it is simply not germain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Desmoid (talk • contribs) 19:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, passed 45 days after the attacks is germain, and has been commented on by more than a few critics. It should be rephrased though. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

One might argue that 9/11 was the impetus for the Act, but this does not change my point that "just 45 days after" is a meaningless statement of fact. I have stated succinctly why it is not germain to the article; it's cheap editorial. Saying it just is, or that some critics somewhere commented on it does not make it so. Desmoid 17:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's not cheap editorial to say that it was passed 45 days after the attack. Remove the word "just" and you have an NPOV statement. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I have corrected this now. As you can see from the controversy section, many people have commented on the time taken to pass the Act. This is pertinent to the article. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Just reread what you wrote. You say that it was the impetus for the Act, yet this is a meaning statement of fact. That was plagiarised. I'm not sure that this makes logical sense. If it is a statement of fact, it can't be plagiarised. If it was the impetus for the Act, then it's not a meaningless fact. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't concede your argument. Why doesn't every article begin with how many days it took to pass a bill? Because it doesn't matter. I agree removing "just" makes it NPOV as a statement, but the article is not about 9/11. The opening paragraph above already states the day the bill passed; pointing back to 9/11 with "45 days" is melodramatic without adding new information. Minus "just", it still comes straight from the copyrighted ACLU USA Patriot Act page. It may be ok as far as web rules go, but it's bad form at the least. Desmoid 21:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you are wrong then. As many have commented on the amount of time taken to pass the Act, it's significant. Incidently, not sure why you believe that it's plagiarism - please cite the source (i.e. give us the URL) of the ACLU page you are referring to. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it is poorly written. ACLU page - http://www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/17343res20031114.html I made no mention of plagiarism as it certainly is possible to put more than a couple words together independently, however rare, and specifically mentioned it might be ok as web rules go, i.e. free to disseminate. However, this is beside the point. Please explain what is significant about 45 days, other than people comment on it. Commentary does not imply importance. Precisely because people do find the topic controversial is all the more reason to render it as prosaic as possible. With "just" removed it still implicates something untoward in the manner in which it was passed. I suspect this is in part why it does not meet good article criteria. Desmoid 19:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you wrote "it still comes straight from the copyrighted ACLU USA Patriot Act page". The words "straight from" means there was a direct copy (i.e. plagiarism). That's what you wrote, and therefore that's the way I understood it. It's not POV to say that it was passed 45 days after the September 11 attacks. It's a solid fact, and reasonable to be noted. I don't see a particularly strong case here to remove that line. If you disagree, I would suggest taking it to WP:RFC for further comment. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Have it your way; let's call it plagiarism. In any case it has little to do with my two principle objections. Whether it was 11, 111 or 145 days after Sept 11 remains a meaningless fact. What is it about that many days in particular that makes it noteworthy you have yet to say, other than some people commented on it. I simply want to know why it is noteworthy. Second, how was it dramatically increased? Where is the drama? The correct word is "substantially". Desmoid 17:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't write the lead, but I quite like it. I'll change "dramatically" to "substantially", that's a fair comment. However, the lead summarises the main points of the article, and the time taken for the legislation to pass after the Sept 11 attacks is noted more than a few times. This isn't a meaningless fact. If you take the time to read the Congressional Record (which I'm guessing you haven't) you'll see that Senator Patrick Leahy specifically commented on the fact that they wanted to move the legislation forward faster because of the attacks. Same with Senators Sarbanes, Hatch, Graham and Lott. That's a bald fact. Hardly plagiarism. However, I've modified the sentence. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was taken from the ACLU site, which makes it plagiarism. You argue that because it's fact therefore it cannot be plagiarism? Absurd. I'll admit to reading the congressional record, but only as a cure for insomnia. Leahy made a comment, fine; write that. But the persistent flag-waving of the pseudo-important "43" is inane. Of course if one is rabidly anti-patriot act it makes sense as a basis for its thinly-veiled agenda. Desmoid 19:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

If you cannot be bothered reading the congressional record of the debates, don't say that it's boring and puts you to sleep and is therefore not relevant. It's not plagiarism to say that it was passed 45 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, and it is clearly on the record from both Democrats and Republicans that it was passed in this time period because of the September 11 attacks. Thus I don't believe your criticism that it is a meaningless piece of information is valid. The fact that it was commented on by a number of parties and the timing of the legislation is quite significant. An Act of the same magnitude as the Patriot Act would probably not have passed as quickly had not an event as momentous as the Sept. 11th attacks happened.

I have tried to accommodate you with a compromise version. If you can't be satisfied with that, I'm not sure that you can be satisfied.

Incidently, I don't appreciate you implying I'm rabidly against the Patriot Act. That's an ad hominem argument - try to stick with facts please. It's inaccurate, and to be frank it's absurd to read in someone's position on the Patriot Act based on the sentence "passed 43 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks". I mean, how do you know that this wasn't written by someone who was impressed by the excellent work of the Senators and Congressmen who passed a complex and necessary piece of legislation in record time?!

For the record, I have certain concerns about the Act, but as a whole it is a pretty reasonable piece of legislation. I can say this because I've spent over two years reading what it actually says, and reading commentary from people who have a clue on both sides of the spectrum. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Your use of quotes is beguiling. You say I imply you are against the PA, then you say it's an argument? Well, which is it? I was speaking editorially; no statement was made, and as such no argument exists, ad hominem or otherwise. How do I know it wasn't written by people impressed...in record time? Are you serious? How many times must it be repeated, it came from the ACLU website, word for word. That, as far as your previous question goes, is that! "An Act of the same magnitude as the Patriot Act would probably not have passed as quickly had not an event as momentous as the Sept. 11th... " This is a demonstrably specious assumption. It's also non-dispositive; not only would it not have passed as quickly, in all liklihood it would never have been written otherwise! I'm sure you're an intellligent fellow, but thou doth protest too much, methinks. I certainly can be satisfied by taking out the first reference to the lenth of time; pepper the rest of article with it ad nauseum as it already is. Never mind that issue: this article is so mind-numblingly ponderous as to cause narcolepsy. Regards. 155.188.247.5 (talk) 16:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Complete rewrite

Folks, I've finally completed a total rewrite to this article. Rather than do the editing on the main article and cause it to be in an unfinished state for long periods, I wrote a draft and polished it there. The draft can be found at Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/Draft.

I have worked on this in sections. The edit history can be found at:

• Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/Draft/Lead
• Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/Draft/Background
• Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/Draft/History
• Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/Draft/Titles summary
• Talk:USA PATRIOT Act/Draft/Controversy

On a personal note, had I known the time and effort that this was to have taken me, I might have chosen an easier topic! There is information out there on the Partiot Act, but much of it is distorted or biased by either supporters or detractors. Another issue is that many of the titles just aren't documented, so I've read the entire Act on my own, aided by Patrick Leahy's section summary, CRS's summary and many other sources that do actually talk about the Act. This took me over two years to do, in which time I neglected editing other articles.

Along the way, however, I've learned a lot. I have a better understanding of how the U.S. Government works, how laws are created, how the U.S. Code is put together and how to read Acts of Congress. I've also learned how to use THOMAS and that the U.S. has this great service call the Congressional Research Service, which does an invaluable job of summarising and providing info about U.S. legislation.

So it's been fun! I do hope that people can get something useful out of this article now, as when I first read it (after Orin Kerr criticised it) I couldn't make heads nor tails of what the Act did, or why it was so controversial. There were also major gaps and inaccuracies in the article. It should be a lot better organized and informative now. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• I find it interesting that there is no comment on one controversial item, the Re-authorization's change to the process for appointing interim U.S. Attorneys, subsequently repealed in June 2007. See Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy timeline and Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. I'll see If I can figure out some succinct paragraph or more, to describe the item...eventually.
  -- Yellowdesk 16:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• Wasn't that done because of the Reauthorization Act, and not the actual USA PATRIOT Act? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not sure how to understand your comment. The appointment of interim U.S attorneys statutory changes were put into the Re-Authorization, yes. Which makes it part of the whole USA PATRIOT statute/bill/vehicle. In that sense it's a related controversy to the greater package.
  -- Yellowdesk 05:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• I was just wondering if it should be in this article, or an article about the reauthorization act. But as there is no such article, it probably should be in this one. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• Now I understand. Sure, if there were such a Re-authorization article (and doubtless there are additional items specific to the re-authorization), it would make sense to appear in that article. Creating a new article and doing it well would be yet another research topic, alas. I guess it could grow out of a section here. -- Yellowdesk 12:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

• One of the problems is that this article has grown too large. This was an unexpected issue for me when I authored the draft... if we add something, we might need to leave it to one short paragraph, then expand this into the Reauthorization Act article. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It appears that Ta bu shi da yu may have left the wikipedia project for good, in November 2007.
Here is the initial set of edits importing the rewrite on October 15, 2007.
Here is some additional background to the rewrite, posted on the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions on October 17, 2007.
See this item with fuller commentary. I may bring it to the talk page here, where it is relevant.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 16:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Article Size and organization

It is correctly pointed out by Ta bu shi da yu that this survey article is rather large (and that the topic is large as well). I think it's worth discussing and figuring out if some of sections might stand well on their own, and an even briefer summary article can be created that links to those more detailed sub-articles. It seems that the History section, in the first one-third of the article is most capable of benefiting from this kind of delegation, since it has no sub-articles to link to.
From the Table of Contents:

2 History
2.1 September 11 terrorist attack
2.2 First bills introduced
2.3 Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 and Financial Anti-Terrorism Act
2.4 Birth of the USA PATRIOT Act
2.5 Opposition grows
2.6 Security and Freedom Ensured Act
2.7 Judicial and legislative challenges
2.8 Lead up to reauthorization
2.9 Reauthorization legislative history
2.10 Judges strike key provisions

-- Yellowdesk 17:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. That would definitely be the first candidate. If we could determine the important milestones of the history of the Act, that would be a great start. Then we can split it from the main article. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It looks like we have an outline via the section headers, and in narrative form could in one to four or five sentences per section summarize this. With effort. -- Yellowdesk 17:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The Bill of Rights

(Removed comment from Potatomasterr)

Please review WP:SOAPBOX. Talk pages are for comments about the article itself, not opinions. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

• It's not an opinion. Potatomasterr 23:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

See opinion and fact. No matter how much faith you have in your opinion, faith does not turn opinions into facts. -- kainaw™ 23:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't. It was an opinion. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Wait What???

In response to the "Silly" comment below.

How can you compare the absoloute power that Hitler commanded to the power that a U.S. President has? The United States President does not have absoloute, "sovergn", power. The President answers to the American people and if he does not listen, well you can see what is going on in our government right now. Bush could not pass gas on Capitol Hill right now. - (Unsigned Comment)

And yet, the fact remains that the Patriot Act exists. 65.81.145.26 08:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

And my little toe exists. Big deal. Ever realize that we live in an environment where people are pressured to fear some words in some act that they know almost nothing about out of fear that the government may read their email or see what library books they check out? Fear can make people believe all kinds of ridiculous things. -- kainaw™ 13:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree with Kainaw more. "Big deal" is a most reasonable response :-) Ta bu shi da yu 15:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"About the EFF" section - removed

We do not need an "About the EFF" section. Information on the EFF should go in the EFF article. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Page Size problem

Hi Yall! This page is way too large. It's so large we've gotten some emails complaining about it. ^{(VRTS ticket # 2007111810008747)} Can we focus some effort on cutting this page in half? I've noticed a number of "see-also" sections that have excess of 5 paragraphs of text. Do we really need that much duplicated content? I don't have much experience in the editing of this article so I'll need some help breaking this down. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I am the guy you got this to the size it now is. What do you mean by there is "see also" sections? That doesn't really make much sense. Of course, it is definitely correct that it needs splitting, but not at the cost of remove history or background of the Act - without this info it's hard to understand the Act. - 220.239.246.70 09:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I mean sections that are here simply to summaries and lead-to larger articles. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

A log in to substantiate the above claim by 220.239.246.70 would be appreciated. If that editor is Ta bu shi da yu, please log in.
An undislcosed OTRS ticket text amounts to zero information on why the complaint should be attended to. Moot without further comment.
But I'll look at splitting out the history section.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 03:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't login, I have scrambled my password. - 211.30.32.138 (talk) 05:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like it's time for you to get another account. You're not done with wikipedia yet. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 15:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I have split out the history of the law / enactments / legislative history / judicial histories -- to USA PATRIOT Act history as a response to the above OTRS complaint, which has zero specificity or guidance or disclosure. See also above comments at Talk:USA_PATRIOT_Act#Article Size and organization. The reduction in size is about 75K, bringing the article to about 135 to 140 K, before fixing footnotes that have lost their initial instantiation. That takes it from # 15 in article size (where most long lists reside), to about # 175, more or less. (See Special:Longpages for current size as of the then current database update.)
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 05:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I only mention the ticket number to emphasis the seriousness of the WP:SIZE issue and to act as a reference for myself latter on. The ticket doesn't really contain any more useful information. Just remember that people on slower computers, embedded kiosks, mobile devices or OLPC type devices will have a difficult time with text files that are too large.

Suffice to say that our guidelines request that an article be no larger then about 50kb. I know it's hard in many cases and I see you've done some great work in reducing it. Thank you. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The next candidate is to split off the USA_PATRIOT_Act#Titles section, but that will take time, as in weeks, as each title of the act does deserve five-plus adequate summary sentences describing them here on the main article.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

If you can summarise the Patriot Act in 5 sentences, you deserve a medal and I take my hat off to you. - 211.30.82.214 (talk) 12:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It's difficult to know what to cut and what to keep. Many of the major news stories in the U.S.A. during the past six years have related to this act in one way or another. Toyalla (talk) 21:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Footnote fixes todo

 Done
These footnotes: to be re-instated, where the first instance was moved out with USA PATRIOT Act history
32, 33, 43, 113, 133, 134, 176, 199, 206, 207, 208
To cross off as fixed.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 04:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

History

Wouldn't it be a good idea to actually summarise the history and have a link to it? That is very important to the Act. Also, the background has been entirely removed now, which makes this article not particularly useful at all. It doesn't mention FISA, the ECPA, or in fact anything that would actually put the Patriot Act within it's context. We really need this info in this article, or it should be put into the history article. The history was really important, as that had really important info about the parts of the Act that were held unconstitutional, and how the Act came about. This is all gone from the main article, I believe there should be some more info to give background to the Act. - 211.30.32.138 (talk) 05:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. For now this satisfies the OTRS complaint, and at leisure a better summary can be written. The text you mention is alive and well over at USA PATRIOT Act history.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:05, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's not. The missing text is as follows:

Background

The Patriot Act made a number of changes to U.S. law. Key acts changed were the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1968 (ECPA), the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), as well as the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Title II of the Patriot Act made a number of significant changes to the laws relating to foreign intelligence surveillance, of which the main two Acts that were affected were FISA and the ECPA. FISA came about after the Watergate scandal and subsequent investigations by the Church Committee, which discovered and criticised abuses of domestic spying by the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This led to widespread congressional and public outcry, resulting in Congress passing FISA in 1978. FISA governs the way in which U.S. intelligence agencies may conduct wiretaps and the interception of communications in order to gather foreign intelligence. FISA established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and a FISC Court of Review which administer foreign intelligence related applications for access to business records, wiretaps, microphone "bugging," physical searches and the use of pen registers and trap and trace devices. The Act does not apply to U.S. citizens, but is limited to dealings with foreign powers and nationals.

The ECPA was an amendment to Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which is sometimes known as the "Wiretap Statute." The Wiretap Statute was mainly the result of two Supreme Court cases — Katz v. United States and Berger v. New York — and from criticism by the Church Committee of the actions of COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). The Supreme Court found in both Katz v. U.S. and Berger v. New York that Fourth Amendment search and seizure protections prohibited warrantless wiretaps. COINTELPRO was a program of the FBI that was aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. COINTERPRO's operations during 1956 to 1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered to have politically radical elements. These included those whose stated goal was the violent overthrow of the U.S. government (such as the Weathermen), non-violent civil rights groups such as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. The Church Committee found that most of the surveillance was illegal. Consequently Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, though noting that wiretaps and interception of communications are a vital part of the law enforcement, found that wiretapping had been undertaken without legal sanction and were being used to overhear the private conversations of U.S. citizens without their consent. These conversations were then often being used as evidence in court proceedings. Therefore, in order to protect the integrity of the courts while also ensuring the privacy of citizens was not violated, the Act provided a legal framework within which wiretaps and interceptions of communications could be used. The Act requires a court order authorizing the use of such measures against U.S. citizens, with penalties for those who do not get such authorization. The notable exception to these orders is in section 18 U.S.C. § 2511(3), which makes an exception to the restrictions of wiretaps in cases where the President must take measures to protect the U.S. from actual or potential hostile actions from a foreign power.

When Title III was established telecommunications was in its infancy and since that time many advances in communications technology have been made. This made it necessary to update the law to take into account these new developments. Thus the ECPA was passed, and extended Title III to also protect wire, oral and electronic communications while in transit, as well as protecting stored electronic communications. The ECPA also extended the prohibition of the use of pen register and/or trap and trace devices to record dialling information used in the process of transmitting wire or electronic communications without a search warrant.

Along with changes to surveillance measures, the Patriot Act also made substantial changes to laws relating to money laundering. The main law changed was the Money Laundering Control Act (MLCA), which was itself an amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) The BSA was passed by Congress in 1970 and is designed to fight drug trafficking, money laundering and other financial crimes. It requires financial institutions to keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, file reports of cash transactions exceeding a daily aggregate amount of $US10,000, and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion or other criminal activities. The MLCA, passed in 1986, further enhanced the BSA by making it a crime to structure transactions in such a way as to avoid BSA reporting requirements.

Immigration law was also tightened under the Patriot Act. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA), also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, was passed by Congress in 1952 and was designed to restrict immigration into the U.S. It allowed the government to deport immigrants or naturalized citizens engaged in subversive activities and also allowed the barring of suspected subversives from entering the country. The Act is codified under Title 8 of the United States Code, which primarily governs immigration and citizenship in the United States. Prior to the INA, a variety of statutes governed immigration law but were not organized within one body of text. The Act was later modified by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and then by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Since the Patriot Act, Title 8 has been modified even further by various Acts, including the Real ID Act of 2005.

- 211.30.72.60 (talk) 03:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks. Obviously I had wrongly allowed that section to be dropped when making the new article USA_PATRIOT_Act history
  -- Yellowdesk (talk) 19:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi protection

Why is this semi-protected? - 211.30.32.138 (talk) 05:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You can pursue this with (Spellcast) See this edit history
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource banner - in the lead section?

I believe that the banner should go down the bottom, just like every other article. - 211.30.32.138 (talk) 05:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It previously was at the start of the "Titles" Section, where it got lost under the sidebar listing all of the U.S. Code that had been changed/amended. I moved it to the external links section at your suggestion.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 15:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Formatting references for easier editing

This is a reference-intensive article, for good reasons.
I am in the process of going through the text and formating how the <ref> and </ref> tags relate to the text so that they can be found with greater ease in the editing screen. Here is what I suggest when people add a reference. The good result of this is that you can locate the end of any reference easily, since the closing </ref> is on the first column (while editing). This should make it easier to add or edit the text of the article while noticing where the end and start of each reference is located.

Here is the intented result:

some text at the end of the sentence.NOSPACE<ref>SPACE-NEWLINE
body of reference material hereSPACE-NEWLINE
</ref>SPACE-NEWLINE
Start of next sentence.

The result looks like this while actually editing:

some text at the end of the sentence.<ref>
body of reference material here
</ref>
Start of next sentence.

---

The intended result is that the editor can easily find:
- the end of any reference,
- the beginning and start of each reference when there are several together at the end of a paragraph or sentence,
- and not least, easily find the start of the sentences,
- plus generally all sentences are set-off from the references, instead of all being run-on together.
-- Yellowdesk (talk) 05:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Reauthorizations

Based on the Congressional Record, it looks like the reauthorizations took place in March, not February, of 2006. Is there a source that backs up the current claim of February? Sam22789 (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have a source that says March, change it and add a ref tag to it. -- kainaw™ 14:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Question about Patriot Act and opening accounts.

I apologize for being a bit off topic.

I note that, after turning 18, I could not open any bank accounts without a driver's license or state I.D.. I could however, close an existing bank account, without a government I.D. Which part of the Patriot Act covers this? And how exactly does it help?

A semi-contradicting part is, I opened a bank account savings with my Mom as a minor (after the Patriot Act). So my Mom had to have her driver's license as I.D. But after I turned 18, I could take her name off of it. That's apparently the only way around the Patriot Act to my knowledge. Now, without an official state I.D., I can't open any new bank accounts of course. I could close the 1 I already have, but then, I cant re-open it (even with the same bank I imagine). So my questions are which part of the Patriot Act states/enforces this (so I can read/look it up) and then my other question is sort of the logic of this: how can you close an account and take all your money without a legit government I.D. but you need 1 to open? Shouldn't it be both? (Reverse would make more sense). Thanks. Neal (talk) 21:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC).

Don't know about closing an account, but the part of the Patriot Act that covers this is actually in section 326, though it's a bit indirect. Basically, this section tasked the Secretary of the Treasury with prescribing regulations to set forth the minimum standards that financial institutions must undertake to verify the identity of customers who open accounts. This was done after public consultation, and eventually Treasury came up with 31 CFR 103.121. The regulation sets out the minimum requirements for setting up a Customer Identification Program (CIP). This is why you now need to identify yourself with things like a driver's license or ID. It's basically to prevent money laundering. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 13:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It is indirect in that the law doesn't require a driver's license. The law requires a verifiable identity. They bank doesn't want to deal with a lot of problems, so the bank requires a driver's license. This is very similar to the belief that you have a driver's license to fly on an airplane. Some guy in San Francisco wrote multiple newspaper articles about how evil the Patriot Act was because you had to have a driver's license to fly. Finally, after many years of preaching this message, someone asked him if he'd tried flying without a driver's license. Of course not. So, he tried it and all he had to do was go through the whole baton waving search before boarding. Because he got special treatment, he skipped the normal line and was through security faster than if he had a driver's license. If you pressured your bank, it is possible that someone will agree that you don't need a driver's license by law, it is just bank policy. -- kainaw™ 14:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, knee-jerk reactions almost always make people look like a bit of an ass. I know that I felt a bit of an ass after I'd actually researched the Patriot Act - it wasn't as bad as people made out, though IMO it's not a particularly well drafted piece of legislation either. The indirect identification point you make is eminently sensible. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 09:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Mk, thank you both. Neal (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC).

No probs. :-) Tbsdy lives (talk) 09:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

THOMAS'd

Is there a reason for citing links to THOMAS with the ridiculous forced acronym, especially since the articel says that there is no basis for the phrase? 68.39.174.238 (talk) 00:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a pretty reasonable objection. I have gone and fixed this. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 07:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

See also

Does anyone else love the totalitarianism and dictatorship links at the bottom? Funkbomb (talk) 14:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

These are now gone, thank goodness. :-) Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 09:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Author?

I find it ridiculous that this article has been considered as an FA considering it doesn't even list the author of the act, nor any sponsors. Brianreading (talk) 04:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Being nominated as a Featured Article does not mean the article is good. In fact, this article failed to become a Featured Article. So, why get upset about it? Why not add information about the author and sponsors instead of complaining about it? This is Wikipedia - the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. -- kainaw™ 12:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't get your shorts in an uproar pal. When I originally wrote this it turned out to be 217KB long. I had to cut it down somehow. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 09:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Comparisons

What about all the numerous comparisons to earlier laws that once were part of the article? I can't find any of them anymore, not even in the numerous child articles. I'm not calling that Wikipedia should endorse them but they're a very significant aspect of the public and media discontent with the PATRIOT Act. Especially Western Europe keeps comparing it for years now with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, accusations which aren't exactly rare even in the US. The bare enormous number of times these comparisons to earlier laws are being made should be reason enough to include them with ample referencing, no matter how sensational, overblown, or unwarranted these accusations may be. As I said, inclusion doesn't equal endorsement, and responses by legal scholars and other legal authorities, political scientists, and legislators to these accusations would certainly add to a balanced account of the issue. --77.184.3.14 (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Find me even a single reliable source and we'll add this in. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 09:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Anthrax attacks

Some time ago I was able to get a reference to the Anthrax attacks as the the reason why this Act was passed. I am not surprised to see this reference gone. Lots of people out there with things to hide.

The first set of anthrax attacks happened on the same day that the US attorney general "demanded" passage of the act and gave a ONE WEEK deadline for passage to Congress.

ONE WEEK after the ACT was introduced to Congress the two main opponents to the bill were mailed anthrax filled letters of weaponized anthrax traced to a US government bacteriological weapons lab.

Odds are that the act would NOT have passed in the form it did pass without the Anthrax attacks and that fact should be reflected in the article.

The timing of the demand for passage and the mailing of the first set of letters could be coincidence. Both happened on the same day.

The one week deadline matching the timetable for the mailing of the second set of letters cold also be coincidence. The second set of letters was mailed one week after the bill was introduced and not passed, matching the demand of the AG for passage in one week.

The mailing of those two letter to the two top opponents of the Patriot could further be coincidence.

However

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action.4.156.78.230 (talk) 17:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I really must say, this is one of the silliest things I've read. The Act was passed in a climate of extreme fear, but that was because of the September 11 terrorist attacks. I think you are drawing a very long bow by implying that the AG did this. For instance, maybe it was done by someone who was scared and wanted the act passed, and THEY decided to mail Anthrax to the opponents. I'm not saying this is the case, but I'm showing that your "enemy action" could be from anyone.

As I stated above, we are not a site for the propagation of conspiracy theories. If you have evidence of this from a reliable source, it might be worthwhile noting it here for review. But I really doubt you'll be able to provide us with anything. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 08:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Diffuse contrast

I find the following phrases in the intro Despite widespread congressional support, it has been criticized peculiar. It implies that it is not to be expected that decisions with wide support in congress is not criticized. I think this implication is wrong. The statements should be provided as separate and unconnected. --Ettrig (talk) 11:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Generally, bills take long enough to get through Congress that the legislators get a good enough read on public opinion in their districts that they can vote with that opinion. (After all, being seen as backing a very unpopular bill cna be fatal in an election.) Thus, while there is always criticism, (if congress passed a law requiring citizens to breathe, there would be criticism), the level of criticism is usually inversely proportional to the level of congressional support. This is one of the cases where a bill was passed so fast that there was very little public analysis during the process, and legislators acted so that they could be seen to have done [i]something[/i], rather than trying to find out what the voters wanted. I know of at least one senator (Sherrod Brown of Ohio) who's election to the Senate was partly due to his opposition to the patriot act as a Represenative. LordShonus (talk) 06:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Date issue

The first act reauthorized all but two of the provisions of Title II that would have expired. Two sections were changed to sunset on December 31, 2009: section 206 — the roving wiretap provision — and section 215, which allowed access to business records under FISA. Section 215 was amended further regardless so as to give greater judicial oversight and review. Such orders were also restricted to be authorized by only the FBI Director, the FBI Deputy Director, or the Executive Assistant Director for National Security, and minimization procedures were specified to limit the dissemination and collection of such information. Section 215 also had a "gag" provision, which was changed to allow the defendant to contact their Attorney.[168]

The source isn't an online link. Wikifan12345 (talk) 23:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Who says it has to? However, that said - I should point out that someone has modified the US Code template to remove external links to the code. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute

The Patriot Act was discussed heavily during the 1990's after the Oklahoma City Bombing, during the Bill Clinton Administration. This article starts in the 21st century with George W Bush after September 11, 2001. Was somebody sleeping? There were many pop cultural references to the Patriot Act that predate the year 2000. If you remember history, in the 1990's there was a lot of media coverage regarding ultra-patriot or ultra-conservative Militias (including outright fascist) and other militant groups of Americans who were "paranoid" about the Patriot Act (this tied in to militant sub-culture ideology and conspiracy theory) and the irrational fears of Y2K. There was plenty of talk about the Patriot Act during the Clinton years, so there may be something missing from this article. The History Channel (I sympathize if you don't trust the cable tv media) has done documentaries on the 1990's discussing the political landscape in America, it spoke of the Patriot Act as being the COINTELPRO of the Clinton Administration to monitor "Ultraconservative" paramilitary organizations. I know for a fact this patriot act talk is over ten years old dating back to the 20th century. If you follow this Link you can watch a 1990's TV show on YouTube discussing the Patriot Act (This should prove it was not a George Bush concept) --Recovery Psychology (talk) 00:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand the concerns here, but when I originally wrote the page it turned out that it was about 150KB 220KB! That's 5 about 7 and a third times the recommended size of a normal article. Unfortunately, there's a lot of material to cover, and we've had to summarise a lot of the material in an umbrella format. However, if you notice in the section "Background", there is a link to the article History of the USA PATRIOT Act, which I originally wrote but was moved to this page by another editor. This actually goes back even further than the Oklahoma City Bombing, and in fact covers Watergate and formation of FISA and other acts. I haven't really covered the Oklahoma Bombings... perhaps you could add to this article this material? - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I rechecked... and it was actually 220KB. This page is actually about 150KB. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting the Conservapedia article does not say anything about the Patriot Act prior to 2001 and the Bush Administration either...I may be confused but it would appear that this Act has gone from being the thing that the conservative right feared to the thing that the liberal left fears over the last twenty years...but then again Conservapedia claiming that Wikipedia is too liberal and anti-American is poorly educated on Conservativism and America, to begin with.--Recovery Psychology (talk) 13:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's not a bad article. Not as comprehensive as this one, but then I'm biased. But then again, so are they :-) Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Title V?

Where is it? It has its own article but it's not even mentioned in this one. 165.123.123.25 (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I thought part of the act was repealed?

I've read on various websites and news articles that the act or part of it was repealed, why isn't this information included? 72.39.210.23 (talk) 11:57, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have links to those newspaper stories? Articles are written by volunteers so it can sometimes fall behind current events. -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:35, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The Obama administration is actually working hard to get all expiring sections renewed before the Dec 31 deadline. It will be difficult, because of the holidays. However, Congress is just as interested in keeping (if not increasing) the power of the Patriot Act as the President is. The main debate now is the spending increases. The Democrats want to funnel the money into companies and friends that support the Democrats. The Republicans want to funnel the money into companies and friends that support the Republicans. Nobody gets money if they don't come to an agreement. So, expect them to finish it up on Dec 30 and renew the whole thing on Dec 31. -- kainaw™ 17:38, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

POV paragraph

The following has been removed from the controversy section, due to use of weasel words and editorialising.

The USA Patriot Act was adopted as an effort to strengthen national security but some believe it impedes upon civil liberties in order to increase national security. The impact of the Bush administration’s national security legislation on Fourth Amendment rights has been the subject of much debate. Under the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement must have reasonable grounds to believe that the law is being violated before a search warrant can be issued (Davis, 2003). This requirement helps to limit the focus and targets of criminal investigations, control overzealous law enforcement officers and protect innocent civilians (Davis, 2003). However, the Patriot Act’s effect on civil liberties grants government agencies the ability to share sensitive information with one another to a much greater extent than was previously possible (Henderson, 2002). The government can use the Patriot Act to disseminate surveillance information more broadly than it did in the past; thus, the privacy concerns of American citizens are more significant.

I would suggest also that if it is readded that it not just be stuck in the middle of the controversy section, but made to flow better (I note all of the points made have been covered already!) and to use ref tags for consistency with the rest of the article. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:09, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

When I reread it, it's not editorializing. However, it sticks out like a sore thumb... - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:11, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone think that this act didn't significantly reduce freedom and liberty in America?

Dubious claim?

"This was the first time in U.S. history that U.S. government tried to take the freedoms of its people. "<--this is manifestly false, there are numerous examples in US history of the U.S. gov't abusing the freedoms of its people, with particularly massive examples being the dispossession of natives, slavery, Jim Crow, the denial of rights to women, and so on. That sentence needs to go. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gensmahaut (talk • contribs) 13:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

In the civil war President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (latter overturned by the Supreme Court). That might be a more equivalent example. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see this in the article... - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I see it has been removed - this is a good thing! It was a particularly dubious claim, and clearly editorializing. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 12:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Obama just signed a one year extension on Mar 1, 2010

This should probably be added somewhere. Minjin (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. In fact I came to this page looking for information as to whether or not Obama had repealed the act. A section on the patriot act's post-Bush history will be important, going forward. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 01:25, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Remember to keep in mind that Presidents don't have the authority to repeal laws. Thankfully, only Congress can do that. Courts can prevent the enforcement of illegal parts of laws too. 173.63.2.241 (talk) 20:35, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The acronym...omg

Just a comment - how long do you think it took for the brilliant guys in Washington to come up with the words that makes up this acronym? USA PATRIOT act?? Man...Children of the dragon (talk) 01:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not a discussion forum. Are you looking for documentation from Congress about how long it took to name the act? -- kainaw™ 01:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't the title of the Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) be USAPATRIOT, rather than USA PATRIOT, considering the acronym is of ten letters, rather than three and seven? This is not the United States of America PATRIOT Act (USA PATRIOT Act). As presented, the name is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.24.220 (talk) 09:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It is titled as the US Congress titled it. If you don't like the name, you need to run for Senator and change the name. Making silly complaints on Wikipedia won't do anything. -- kainaw™ 13:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I was under the impression that wikipedia strives for accuracy. In the preamble, it is stated that the name of the Act is an acronym. The acronym is of ten letters length. If, in fact, it is two acronyms, of 3 and 7 letters each, then that should be stated. By all means make snide comments regarding points of accuracy, but such comments really are unnecessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.24.220 (talk) 13:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Your impression is not correct. Wikipedia strives to be a coherent source of information from verifiable third-party sources. If all the verifiable sources fail to be accurate, then Wikipedia strives to be less than accurate. -- kainaw™ 15:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

If, as you claim, Wikipedia does not correct inaccuracies, then titling this item USA PATRIOT Act is consistent. However, to then describe this as a single acronym is a mistake of Wikipedia. It is two acronyms (or more correctly, a three letter initialism, and seven letter acronym). Wikipedia's "striving to be less than accurate" should, surely, not stretch to grammatical inexactitude. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.24.220 (talk) 10:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

What it "should" or "shouldn't" be called doesn't matter. What matters is what it's actually called. Considering that the whole point of the acronym is to form the words "USA" and "Patriot", it would be quite silly of them to write it as a single word, and it would also be much harder to read as one word. The name is so ridiculously silly that it's hard for non-Americans to take the whole thing seriously, but that doesn't really change much. - Alltat (talk) 20:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Lede is too long . . .

Lede is too long and detailed. Those working on this article might help it by taking much of the detail out of the lede and putting it into the appropriate sections in the body of the article. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Tea Party blocks extension (2/8/11)???

I've just heard that the Tea Party blocked the extension, and this will result in the expiration of the PATRIOT Act. Has anyone heard more? 96.233.148.163 (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This is legitimate, I will create add this in the "Reauthorizations" section. Here is an AP link about it: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PATRIOT_ACT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-02-08-22-12-28 67.180.137.188 (talk) 05:20, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

First, the Tea Party cannot block any sort of extension of the Patriot Act because the Tea Party is not part of Congress. The House of Representatives failed to renew three parts of the Patriot Act. The result can go in many ways. They not be renewed, so they will expire and the Patriot Act will continue without them. They may expire and be rewritten in a different form. So, the Patriot Act will change. They may be voted on again before they expire and renewed. The last is the most likely result. Both the Senate and the House plan to vote on extending them through the end of 2013. -- kainaw™ 16:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Title VII

Article jumps from Title VI to VIII. Where is Title VII? It's not mentioned in the article at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.68.12.101 (talk) 14:25, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It must have been deleted. It was easier to just rewrite it than hunt down the old copy. That title is very small. It just states that "terrorism" is included under the term "criminal activity". -- kainaw™ 15:41, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Style

Should Acts of Congress, as opposed to legal cases, generally be italicized. I can see that is the general practice in this article, what I want to know is whether that is in the Wikipedia style guidelines or considered good practice/proper English generally. 75.252.72.2 (talk) 23:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved to Patriot Act. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 22:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

---

USA PATRIOT Act → USA Patriot Act –

Why the shouting? This has gone on long enough. I don't care what some people out there might choose to do for boosterism, but per normal English style and WP:MOSCAPS ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") and WP:TITLE, this is a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term, so the article title should be downcased. Lowercase will match the formatting of related article titles.

ngrams suggests strongly that we should be downcasing. Tony (talk) 16:18, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not the bigegst fan of the name but it appears to be an acrymin for Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 in which case the capitalization may be permitted.--70.24.207.225 (talk) 18:04, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment – I'd prefer just Patriot Act. Here's a better n-gram link to show why. Dicklyon (talk) 23:34, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

This has to be at least the third time this has been suggested. I feel it is around the tenth time. Should there be a standard answer: "This has been suggested many many many times by many other people. The consensus is: The act itself uses "PATRIOT" in the text, so Wikipedia uses that as well." -- kainaw™ 23:46, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how many times: it has only just come to my notice, and sticks out unpleasantly. I don't mind Dicklyon's suggestion of "Patriot Act". Tony (talk) 00:20, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Support that amended move target. Merry Christmas. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

• Commnet it is an acronym, by the weird things Congress does to make stupid acronyms, and the act is the USAPATRIOT Act (no space), so should move to that name. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 03:40, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The fact that it's an acronym is not in dispute. But we don't all-caps laser or radar; we go what's most common in sources, preferring downcasing in unclear cases. See WP:OFFICIALNAMES, WP:COMMONNAME, and MOS:CAPS. Evidence from sources indicates that it's most commonly called the Patriot Act. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Washington Post has an article with the headline, "FBI Underreported Use of USA Patriot Act". I want to set up a shrine on my user page to Alcuin of York, the inventor of lower case. Kauffner (talk) 08:59, 25 December 2011 (UTC) P.S. "Patriot Act" is even better, per Dicklyon's ngram. Kauffner (talk) 04:08, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Tony's proposal (since I can't figure out what being "a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term" has to do with anything; the only thing I can guess is that he copy+pasted a rationale from one of his many move requests for moving a title-case name to a sentence-case name, but that's not what he's proposing here). Support move to Patriot Act since that's the common name. Yes, it's an acronym, but as Dicklyon points out, even acronyms sometimes become simple words. Powers ^T 01:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
• USA PATRIOT Act → Patriot Act – Since the above RM discussion is looking so mixed, and the alternative Patriot Act looks acceptable to at least some of us, I think that's where we should be heading. I hope it's OK to run several RM's concurrently (if not, someone please just squash it). Dicklyon (talk) 03:41, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Having two templates on one page seems to confuse the bot, so I've merged the discussions. 81.142.107.230 (talk) 09:46, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - As stated above, this is an article about a legal document that has been published and ANYONE can easily go and read (seriously, it isn't hard to type "patriot act original text" into Google and turn up hundreds of links). If anyone here had an ounce of energy to do so, it would be very apparent that the act itself shows how it is spelled. It shows the capitalization and everything. Attempting to rename it here just because it gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling to ignorantly use incorrect capitalization doesn't really make much sense. Attempting to rename it over and over and over even though the consensus has been against the move over and over and over just reeks of immature nonsense. -- kainaw™ 01:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, it says "This Act may be cited as the `Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001'." But we're not going to do that, either. You might want to review WP:COMMONNAME, which says "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." – Dicklyon (talk) 01:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

• Support. This makes perfect sense to downcase. In addition to the common usage, there is no ambiguity when the lower-cased Patriot Act is used, so WP:COMMONNAME is adhered to. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support, this is a stylization, as for example in Ke$ha (why does she always come to my mind first?) or Snow ((Hey Oh)), and thus should be removed. We don't capitalize Adele either just because she likes to use all caps on my iTunes downloads. --The Evil IP address (talk) 10:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Background change

I see that someone reduced the background sentence to a single sentence (vandalism!) and then someone came along and corrected it. However, they also noted that it allowed the U.S. government to spy on its citizens, which is patently false.

I have reverted back again now. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 05:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Patently false? The ACLU would disagree with that statement. "Without citation" might be more accurate. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 08:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

No, no they wouldn't. It does not allow search and seizure or spying on U.S. citizens. Point me to where it does, and point me to the ACLU article that says it does please. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 13:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

"Section 215 vastly expands the FBI's power to spy on ordinary people living in the United States, including United States citizens and permanent residents."... etc. From here: http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/215.html. Weather that is true or not, I don't feel qualified to speculate. -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The issue is the use of the words "expands" and 'spy". It doesn't state that the FBI can actually spy on people. It states that the power to do so has been expanded - which only implies that the power to do so has been realized and is in practice. It is a purposeful implication. They want you to believe that the government is spying on you. As for the word "spy", they are using examples such as recording library records. They do not mention phone taps. The implication is that the government has a secret agent in your closet who is recording everything you do. Again, it is purposeful implication. They want you to believe that the government is inside your house invading your privacy. So, the actual quote - word for word - should be used if it is to be added to the article. Allow the reader to jump to conclusions about what the statement means. -- kainaw™ 18:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

There HAVE been cases where the FBI suspected someone, just from blog entries criticizing US Government policies ended up having national security letters drawn and telephones were tapped, e-mails copied and GPS loggers put on their vehicles, in all cases, nothing was found. I would consider that spying on US citizens, especially when the suspicion was due to mere blogging about US policy. The biggest issues is minimal oversight in the current system, hopefully that will eventually be addressed by congress.Wzrd1 (talk) 20:32, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

NPOV - Wikipedia should take no side in whether this Act is Constitutional

I have taken out the incorrect wording in the first paragraph that says President Bush signed this act "into law." According to 16 American Jurisprudence 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256: "The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement." An unconstitutional statute is not a "law," and should not be called a "law," even if it is sustained by a court, for a finding that a statute or other official act is constitutional does not make it so, or confer any authority to anyone to enforce it.

No congressman will call the USA PATRIOT Act a "law" because that would be taking personal responsibility for guaranteeing its constitutionality. Calling something a "law" in context of its applicability to the people when its constitutionality is clearly in question is fraud. It can cause monetary damages, and it opens one up to lawsuits. Members of the Congress are smart enough to refer to it as "an Act." Wikipedia should follow their lead and refer to this act as what it is, an act signed by the president. Wikipedia takes no side in whether or not it is constitutional. --DarrenLarsen (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

As I pointed out on your talk page, the text you are quoting is mostly correct - though it makes reference to a thing called an "unconstitutional law." You are misreading it. Only the Supreme Court can declare a law to be unconstitutional. What you are doing is declaring it to be unconstitutional and then declaring that in being unconstitutional, it cannot be a law. You are not the Supreme Court. Until the Supreme Court makes a decision, it is a law. Wikipedia is not taking sides. It is reporting the fact that it was passed into law and has not, at this time, been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The instant that it is declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the article will need to be edited to reflect that it is retroactively declared to never have been a law. -- kainaw™ 14:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, to pick a nit, ANY federal court can find a law unconstitutional. The SCOTUS is only the final authority upon appeals.Wzrd1 (talk) 20:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

NPOV?

"The act...dramatically reduced daily freedoms of the American public..."
This seems controversial and an opinion. Should it be changed to meet WP:NPOV? —BlittleMcNilsen (talk) 20:16, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree, there would have to be a citation for such a sweeping claim. In fact it's so blatant that I'm going to do it myself. If someone wants to change it back there should be a relatively high standard for the source, ie an academic journal, not an ACLU editorial. And the introduction should only list the absolute facts of the act, identifying the popular arguments for and against would be more appropriate in the controversy section of the article. Kilkeel (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2012 (UTC)Kilkeel

100% agreed - this should be changed. Not NPOV. Let readers make their own opinions! - 114.76.227.0 (talk) 16:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I would like to have my link added please.

Hello,

I am the owner of PatriotAct.com. We have a website that has all the information on the Patriot Act. We have sections on the website like Patriot Act Pros and Cons. This would be able to show both sides of the conversation. We also have touched on the main ideas from the Patriot Act text. There is a forum set up on the website for discussions regarding the Patriot Act to.

The website is set up to show both sides of the conversation, readers can learn more about all aspects of the Act. The Patriot Act is one of the most controversial acts in American History. We have also set up a "blog" that we will be adding all new articles to each time to update the new revisions and votes each year.

I would like to have a link or several links from you to my website at http://www.PatriotAct.com please. We are dedicated to bringing the latest information out to the readers like your site and ours.

Thanks for your time Usapatriotact (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Has your site been referenced by reliable sources? Powers ^T 18:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

to negative

i feel like this is a little too negative an article. To stay objective i think there should be Benefits section to accompany the criticism section. Also the background section should have more information on who passed it how it was drafted and when it was in committee. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.207.120 (talk) 21:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

To date, there has not been a single incident that showed any real benefit to having the patriot act. 69.214.158.153 (talk) 09:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC) While this article may have a perceived negative slant one must look at it in context of the subject. The Patriot Act has failed nearly every judicial challenge because it literally negates the constitution of the United States. The First and Fourth Amendments in particular are singled out and allow law enforcement and the DoJ virtually unsupervised access to our private transactions. Our constitution is the only thing that stands between us and tyranny and while many if not most of the authors of the PA had good intentions we must remember all good intentions are eventually corrupted. Therefor this article must have a negative slant to it or it would be a blantant endorsement of eliminating our constitutional protections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BufordDoyle (talk • contribs) 00:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

When you make such a claim, you can be certain that it demonstrates an opinion based on ignorance, not fact. From this: "In one case, Patriot Act electronic communications authorities allowed law enforcement agencies to identify a person who had sent 200 threatening letters laced with white powder in Lafayette, La." That is a single incident. -- kainaw™ 13:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but if you pretend to be neutral and/or critical, you better think twice. This is a document about current events that most of the World see as a selfish act. If you don't agree, it ok. But it's a fact.

Wikipedia have guidelines about keeping the scrutiny of unbiased and good source of information, Thus I think it's unfair to claim the topic as negative and biased when you begin your statement with "I feel like this is a little too negative an article"...

As far as I know, Wikipedia is not supposed to be an pro-USA on-line encyclopedia. The reason you are against the claims about "any [no] real benefits", you replied it isn't fair and your argument against is "because it already worked for USA".

Then you defines what means "opinion" by yourself and make it looks as a Worldwide or even American's common sense. No, it's not. You talk about what a "claim" is supposed to be, "ignorance" and put it all together in an argument that isn't far more biased than the one you disregard.

Benefits? try "Its unconstitutional" Prove me wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.149.203.74 (talk) 06:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The Supreme Court decides what is and what is not Constitutional and, as of this writing, they have not declared the current act to be unconstitutional. Perhaps you are using a rather ignorant definition of "constitutional". -- kainaw™ 15:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I wrote much of this article. There are certainly sections that have proven to be unconstitutional. However, most of the Act is not. We have pointed out in this article the bits that were struck down by the courts, and we've also pointed out the bits that have proven most controversial. However, if you could point out which bits you feel we've missed out on, I'll certainly review whether we need to make corrections. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 14:52, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

While this article may have a perceived negative slant one must look at it in context of the subject. The Patriot Act has failed nearly every judicial challenge because it literally negates the constitution of the United States. The First and Fourth Amendments in particular are singled out and allow law enforcement and the DoJ virtually unsupervised access to our private transactions. Our constitution is the only thing that stands between us and tyranny and while many if not most of the authors of the PA had good intentions we must remember all good intentions are eventually corrupted. Therefor this article must have a negative slant to it or it would be a blantant endorsement of eliminating our constitutional protections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BufordDoyle (talk • contribs) 00:48, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Protect Page?

Should we semi-protect this article? Percent chance that any anonymous edit is vandalism is pretty close to 100! Asbruckman (talk) 16:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Moderate Support It seems to me like a fairly reasonable step to take, especially considering the notoriety of the article and the past frequency of vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kernsters (talk • contribs) 21:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Title X

Currently the Title X section doesn't mention the creation of NISAC. There is a wikipedia page (Port Operations Simulator) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_operations_simulator that mentions NISAC, but that page is currently an orphan.

A line could be added to Title X mentioning the establishment of NISAC, with a link to the Port Operations Simulator page.

External link to information supporting addition: The establishment of NISAC is shown in reference External Links > Government Sources > "The USA PATRIOT Act," the full text "http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html"

USA PATRIOT Act (H.R. 3162), SEC. 1016 (d)(1) SUPPORT OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION AND CONTINUITY BY NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS CENTER- There shall be established the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) to serve as a source of national competence to address critical infrastructure protection and continuity through support for activities related to counterterrorism, threat assessment, and risk mitigation.

Egulaye (talk) 14:53, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Extension????

This article says:

In a vote on February 8, 2011, the House of Representatives considered a further extension of the Act through the end of 2011.[176] House leadership moved the extension bill under suspension of the rules, which is intended for noncontroversial legislation and requires two-thirds majority to pass.[176] After the vote, the extension bill did not pass; 277 members voted in favor, which was less than the 290 votes needed to pass the bill under suspension of the rules.[176] Without an extension, the Act is set to expire on February 28, 2011.

Is this true? According to the source it cites it appears to be true, however this, which was published a few days after the politico article says that the patriot act was extended. If so, then the WP article is blatantly false. I recently had a fight with a friend over this, and we thought we'd cleared it up on WP until he found that article. Can anyone verify what the current status is? --Ashershow1_{talk•contribs} 00:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the "reauthorisation" referred to in the article? Is this a technical term? What does it mean?

The real details on the act's history and re-authorization details can be found on the non-baised wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_USA_PATRIOT_Act 68.209.128.242 (talk) 12:10, 22 November 2012 (UTC)Bill H.

Obama?

what will obama do about the patriot act? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.67.7 (talk) 02:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Nothing. He is the President now. The Patriot Act belongs to Congress. If he had any intention of doing anything, he would have done it when he was a member of Congress. Perhaps, when he is no longer President, he may decide to go back to Congress and do something. However, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, so we won't make wild predictions about the distant future. -- kainaw™ 14:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

But you just did make a wild prediction! :-) It was a silly question. - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 16:39, 24 April 2009 (UTC)u

Yea, I'm pretty sure he is bound by the Constitution to enforce the laws of Congress, regardless of whether he thinks a particular provision of law is unconstitutional or whatever his opinion is. 173.63.2.241 (talk) 20:39, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Please note that this is not a forum for general discussion on the Patriot Act. Last time I checked though, Obama isn't doing anything about the Patriot Act. And honestly, he does have bigger problems to tackle right now.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 02:37, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I left this reply in the wrong place, and further am replying to people who were talking about this before Obama signed the renewal. Anyhow, it was not a stupid question Kainaw may have been dismissing. Obama as president certainly has tremendous power over the PATRIOT act. In fact, it has sunset provisions and the most powerful aspects of the law go away if not renewed (some organizational changes don't revert, since departments were shuffled around). Many House democrats promised not to pass HR 514, brought by the same congressman (Sensenbrenner) who initially introduced PATRIOT weeks after the 9/11 attacks, because PATRIOT was "the worst legislation in the history of congress" (Conyers), but it did pass after initially failing, and Obama signed "To extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004" on February 25, 2011. This constitutes a major broken promise, or change of heart, depending on how you'd like to characterize it. I'm not here to offer an opinion on whether Obama was right to renew PATRIOT, but he indeed did absolutely that. It's merely an extension of the sunset provisions. It will expire if the same thing doesn't happen later. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.514: I am afraid I am not very familiar with how to edit wikipedia, so I'll just leave this comment and hope for the best. Cheers! 74.192.163.136 (talk) 11:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Obama has not challenged the Act although it was his third highest pre election promise and from everything I have read plans not to, I am surprised there is neither entry or mention, anyone have a view to me adding it....? Twobells (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Before you edit, I suggest you read this bill which Obama signed http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.514: that relates to the PATRIOT act's continued existence in public law 74.192.163.136 (talk) 11:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC).

Didn't he autopen it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.191.224.185 (talk) 20:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect name for the act in the infobox

I noticed that the article gives the name of the act as Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, but the infobox along the right side of the page has it titled as Uniting and Strengthening America by providing Appropriate Tool Required to Interrupt and Obstruct Terrorism. I have changed the title in the infobox to be consistent with the actual name of the act. Uzbekistanpwns (talk) 06:46, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Reichstag Fire Decree

It seems to me that listing the Reichstag Fire Decree in the See also section is not right. I do not fail to see the similarities, but I think that including this link here is a bit of a manipulative step. It also does not fit in with the other links, but this may not be as relevant. If there is consensus, I will edit it out. Ddegirmenci (talk) 01:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Many users feel it is necessary because it justifies the belief that Bush was identical to Hitler. It doesn't matter that Bush didn't write the Patriot Act or that he wasn't a member of Congress when it was voted on. It is simply necessary to ensure that everyone knows Bush was drunk, stupid, looked like an ape, and was actually a reincarnation of Hitler. -- kainaw™ 18:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

To suggest parallels does not suggest that Bush was "identical" to Hitler - that is nonsense. Bush may not have written the act (he probably didn't - or couldn't - read it either). Hitler didn't personally write the Reichstag decree either. I thought everyone knew that Bush was stupid - apart from those even more stupid than him. As for the other comments, that is OTT abuse, and not worth commenting on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnC (talk • contribs)

The parallels are between the legislation, not between who was leader at the time. Both were emergency legislation that severely reduced liberties, and were (are) used as an excuse to imprison indefinitely political opponents.— Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnC (talk • contribs)

The parallel that you want to draw is that the Reichstag Fire Decree suspended civil liberties of German citizens. The Patriot Act expanded authority of law enforcment against foreigners. So, they are identical and Bush is going to use the Patriot Act to become a totalitarian leader before he leaves office, right? Further, we all know that the Patriot Act is pure Republican evil, so once we get a Democrat President and Congress, it will be completely repealed right away, right? -- kainaw™ 14:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed the Reichstag Fire Decree in the see also section myself, and came here to add section on the talk page discussing whether or not to remove it when I found this discussion. I find the link's inclusion highly suggestive. I also understand why the link was included. However, I have to say that I lean toward removing the link. That it is mentioned seems to be an argumentum ad Hitlerum. I would propose removing the link unless a reference from a reputable source can be found making the comparison. If such a reference cannot be found, then I think it could be argued that the link should be removed per WP:SYNTH. I realize that citations are not usually required for adding "see also" links, but it is the best idea I can think of right now to end the debate. --Noha307 (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Blatent liberal propaganda.

This whole article reeks. Its so clearly biased against the act its unbelievable. All this talk of civil liberties being ignored... but there is no mention of our lord saviour the Jesus Christ. That's where our liberties come from anyhow. And if he had all those planes crashing into his finance centres well all us decent conservative folk know he would be darn pissed. Not you god fearing liberals of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.227.74.161 (talk) 06:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• First, "Blatant" is spelled with an 'a' not an 'e'. Second, if you have any specific concerns about the neutrality of this article, please list them on this talk page so we can address them. Third, Jesus Christ is not out "lord and savior." He is a mythological invention used to control people. --Ashershow1_{talk•contribs} 00:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
• How is it that you say that protecting our rights and liberties is not a valid source? Then you say that god told a bunch of pissed of muslims to fly a plane into the twin towers. And you think that is valid at all? I fail to see any logic in that good sir. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.121.202.91 (talk) 16:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I just checked, the Jews disagree with Ashersho1, as do the Muslims, we'll not even go into the buddhists, and other faiths who would also disagree. If you are unhappy with protection of the constitution, move to a country that lacks those protections. May I suggest Iran?Wzrd1 (talk) 20:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Nice, the only way someone can get anything real on to wiki is by using sarcasm and humor. Kudos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.162.4.7 (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Or don't use hyperbole and accusations, but instead list parts that are problematic so that they can be resolved.12:49, 21 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wzrd1 (talk • contribs)

New addition regarding a White House petition

A new addition was made referencing a White House petition seeking a repeal of the act. There have been many, many petition presented on the White House petition site, but would that count as notable unless acted upon successfully? My feeling is that it would not be notable at this time and hence, the last sentence in the article should be removed. Thoughts?Wzrd1 (talk) 13:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

RfC concerning the Lavabit email service

There is a request for comments (RfC) that may be of interest. The RfC is at

Talk:Lavabit#RfC: Should information about Lavabit complying with previous search warrants be included?

At issue is whether we should delete or keep the following text in the Lavabit article:

Before the Snowden incident, Lavabit had complied with previous search warrants. For example, on June 10, 2013, a search warrant was executed against Lavabit user Joey006@lavabit.com for alleged possession of child pornography.

Your input on this question would be very much welcome. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

there is a discrepancy in the very first line of this article

The law was signed by George W. Bush... bot his father. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.121.39.10 (talk) 21:43, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

How could barack obama sign this law into effect in 2001 when he wasn't even sworn into office for the first time until January, 2009? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.3.41.50 (talk) 15:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

the most unpatriotic act

Hello, I'm Winner 42. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —the one you made with this edit to Patriot Act— because it didn’t appear constructive to me. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Winner 42 Talk to me! 17:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

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I wonder what do you want construct on 'the most unpatriotic act'. Why dont you not want to mark 6 on 6 but to falsify all in fear 6 is 7 ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:D:5481:4B50:4A5D:60FF:FE32:8309 (talk) 18:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC) becouse ther are hard edit wars we need pardigm shift; we need:

we need new article why so callae patriot act is most unpatriotic

i try to make it but it was deleted . Can you make the space to put int on?

1. why? becose it was called exactly like put ". "The USA PATRIOT Act is 'the most unpartiotic' Act of Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. Its title is a ten-letter backronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001"."

References

Why is the article's title not U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act of 2001?

Was that the name of the bill?

Why does wikipedia and the mainstream media refer to it as the "Patriot Act" when the word patriot was merely an acronym in the bill's title? And why does wikipedia and mainstream media ignore the fact that the bill's title also includes "of 2001"?

The article's title should be properly displayed to represent what the bill was. Giving lowercase capitalization to an acronynm contrived by lobbyists and lawyers as well as ignoring the suffix "of 2001" gives the technique too much credence. Fix this shit.

The reason it is is not the WP:COMMONNAME and the consensus in the previous move request was to use the current title.--67.68.29.99 (talk) 03:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

Requesting semi-protection due to repeat IP vandalism on current event issue — Sai ¿?✍ 07:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

 Not done requests for page protection must be made at WP:Requests for page protection - Arjayay (talk) 07:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

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What parts are still in place?

I'm confused about the "Expirations" section. It says that Section 201, for example, expired on March 10, 2006, but under "Status," it has a check mark, implying that it's still in place. What's up with that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PiratePablo (talk • contribs) 04:29, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Dissenting Vote in the Senate

At the end of the fourth paragraph the article says that the only dissenting vote in the senate was Bernie Sanders which is inaccurate. He was not yet a member of the senate (though he did vote against it from his seat in the House). The actual dissenting vote was Russ Feingold from Wisconsin. 72.33.2.27 (talk) 21:48, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

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"Undocumented" vs "alien"

Another user just changed each occurrence of "alien" to "undocumented person." The euphemism does not seem necessary or appropriate in this article, where it talks about excluding persons who are certainly aliens, due to factors such as membership in terrorist organizations. It is not like cases where someone is referring to workers in the US as "illegal aliens" and the term "undocumented workers" is used to avoid hurt feelings. The act applies to aliens even if they have a passport with a visa, green card, or permission to study in or tour the US. Edison (talk) 22:06, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

"Undocumented" vs "alien"

Another user just changed each occurrence of "alien" to "undocumented person." The euphemism does not seem necessary or appropriate in this article, where it talks about excluding persons who are certainly aliens, due to factors such as membership in terrorist organizations. It is not like cases where someone is referring to workers in the US as "illegal aliens" and the term "undocumented workers" is used to avoid hurt feelings. The act applies to aliens even if they have a passport with a visa, green card, or permission to study in or tour the US. Edison (talk) 22:06, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

No merge

I don't see why the USA Act and the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act needs to be merged with this article, and I see no discussion on the talk page of either article. - 211.27.7.53 (talk) 11:05, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

What about merging USA Act and the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Patriot_Act instead? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.184.218.138 (talk) 15:21, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

No, can't see the point. These are proposed acts in themselves, they provide some background but don't see why they should be merged in there either! - 211.26.166.65 (talk) 09:39, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Current status

What is the current status of the Act? The "Reauthorizations" section says the Act has expired, as the last reauthorization attempt failed. However, in the "Section expirations" section is really confusing. I don't know what the check is supposed to mean as compared to the X. It seems to imply that the section is in force, but the expiration date being crossed out is really confusing. It could mean that the section expired, or that the expiration date itself is no longer applicable.

Ideally, the current status should be mentioned in the introduction. In fact, the introduction is a little too short for my tastes. I was going to take a stab at expanding it before I realized I couldn't figure out the current status, so I gave up. —howcheng {chat} 00:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)