USA PATRIOT Act

The PATRIOT Act — formally the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act — was signed into law on October 26, 2001, just 45 days after the September 11 attacks. Congress passed it with overwhelming bipartisan majorities and minimal public debate. The Act amended dozens of existing statutes to break down 'walls' between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence collection — a division the 9/11 Commission had cited as a contributing factor to the intelligence failure that preceded the attacks. Critics argued the speed of passage meant Congress did not fully consider the civil liberties implications of the surveillance powers it was granting.

Section 215 — the 'business records' provision — became the most controversial element of the Act after Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations disclosed that the NSA was using it to collect the phone call metadata of virtually every American. The program, approved by the secret FISA Court in classified opinions, swept up records of who called whom, when, for how long, and from where — a mass surveillance program with no analog in prior US history. The federal appeals court ruled in 2015 that the bulk phone metadata collection exceeded Section 215's scope and was unlawful. Congress subsequently passed the USA FREEDOM Act, which ended bulk collection while requiring phone companies to retain the data and respond to individualized queries.

Other significant PATRIOT Act provisions include: Section 213 ('sneak and peek' searches), which allows law enforcement to search a premises and delay notifying the owner for weeks or months — a departure from the common-law requirement of knock-and-announce; Section 206 (roving wiretaps), which allows surveillance of a target across all their devices without specifying each device in the warrant application; and Section 218, which lowered the standard for FISA surveillance from 'primary purpose' (foreign intelligence) to 'significant purpose,' allowing the FISA Court to authorize surveillance in cases where criminal prosecution was the primary goal. These provisions collectively reduced the procedural barriers between intelligence and law enforcement that had existed since the Church Committee reforms of the 1970s.