The Patriot and Freedom Act

The Patriot and Freedom Act

The Patriot Act was signed in at a time when the entire world was scared of terrorism which was after the 9/11 attack, which killed about 3,000 people inclusive of the hijackers. Through investigations, the government believed that all these happened due to inadequate security, preparedness and limited information of the attackers. Given the enhancements that were constitutionalized by the Patriot Act, it is plausible to say that the 9/11 remains the most significant attack in American history because they worked.

Some of the enhancements in the Patriot Act included; the authority of increased surveillance through wiretaps, accessing telephone records and business records of those associated with suspects of terror attacks. There were also increased cooperation among law enforcement agencies as well as increased penalties on terrorists and those harbouring them (Department of Justice, 2001). However, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the Patriot Act with those opposing believing that the Act is giving the federal government too much power. Notably, this is the same reason Sen. Ron Wyden insisted on the addition of the five-year countdown on some of the provisions ensuring that they would be debated again in Congress and either be renewed or sunset (Lind, 2015). The goal here was to ensure that the Congress had a chance to revisit the provisions at a time when the fear had resided and may loosen the belts, especially on the controversial provisions regarding surveillance.

Consequently, in 2015 the Patriot Act evolved into the Freedom Act, whereby part of it was renewed, and the rest was burnished. Notably, the parts dissolved were the controversial ones involving surveillance, and they included the collection of bulk phone records and a general data collection limit based on geography (The Washington Post, 2015). These step may have appeased those opposing the Patriot Act, but it was a small step that has not done much to prevent surveillance of Americans and yet it has affected how the law enforcement work in the war against terror. Case in point, first, the government has other powers that allow them surveillance authority in different circumstances (Lind, 2015). Therefore, the government does not necessarily need the Patriot Act to perform surveillance on its citizens. Second, the provision of phone records surveillance was not completely removed; it was just rephrased whereby a collection of bulk information was removed. Still, if needed, the government can seek the data from the telephone companies, thus a very insignificant difference.

Unfortunately, this difference is not insignificant to the NSA who collect intelligence to ensure America is safe. In 2018, NSA released a public statement announcing that the Freedom Act has limited their role because the information they received from the telephone companies was bugged with errors, thus unhelpful ( Kris, 2018). The implication here is that the Freedom Act is affecting the information NSA collects which is bound to change how they perform their roles in the long term which could be a possible gap in preventing the next attack. The anti-surveillance Americans will quote the Justice Department admitted that the FBI could not point to any terrorist attacks that they have countered with the help of the Patriot Act. However, isn’t it astounding that research shows that about 50 terrorists attacks have been prevented since 9/11 through the combined effort of intelligence agencies and law enforcement? (History, 2017). Therefore, while there may not be a causal effect between surveillance and prevention of terror attacks, a mere correlation is good enough if at the end of the day it prevents the loss of Americans to a preventable cause.

In summary, the Patriot Act and Freedom Act are very significant to the safety of Americans and a little bit of surveillance perceived as “invasion of privacy” is not good enough to risk the loss of lives. The war against the Patriot Act led to the Freedom Act, which presently NSA admits is limiting to their role of protecting America. There should never be a question between privacy and safety.