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Question 3 Question 3 According to the document, the Patriot Act is an act that expands the investigatory abilities of the federal government in the area of terrorism investigations. The document claims we need it because our country is threatened and, especially since September 11th, having efficient and expedient ways to investigate terrorism is of the utmost importance to the safety of our country, mainly because the modern terrorist is changing and so the guidelines used to search them need to change, as well. Question 4 According to this site, the Patriot Act's has four key points. Firstly, it allows terrorist investigators to do what crime investigators have already been doing by letting them use electronic surveillance, letting them have wiretap warrants linked to individuals, not numbers or locations, giving a time margin before letting a suspect know of warrants and investigations, and letting them request business records. This section. Secondly it allows different branches of government to communicate with each other without the legal barriers of before. These first two are likely what irritates the ACLU so much, since, in their opinion, it's a gross invasion of personal privacy. Thirdly it allows for a more modern approach to investigations by letting investigator get a warrant for multiple districts and by letting individuals allow investigators to monitor their computers after being hacked. And fourthly, the Act increases the penalties for terrorism by making harboring terrorist illegal, upping the jail-time for terrorist acts, increasing conspiracy penalties, punishing mass transit and bio-terrorism and eliminating the statues of limitations for some terrorist acts. This also scares the ACLU since, according to them, many people have been jailed unnecessarily and unreasonably due to the ease at which it can now be done. One myth they dispel is that the act gives the government more power to target people in the US for warrantless surveillance. They dispel it by giving four facts. Firstly that the government still needs a court order to electronically survey an American, secondly that "domestic wire-tapping" (wiretapping a domestic-domestic call) is not allowed, thirdly that investigator CAN intercept communications between a domestic and foreign call, only if it involves terrorism or foreign intelligence, and fourthly that the Patriot Act is only updating the FISA to account for changes in technology. Another myth they dispel is that the act lets the government search through domestic mail, computers, and homes of Americans with no warrant. They dispel this by saying that a court order is still needed for these investigations to take place and the Act makes it no easier that before and that the myth comes from the misreading of the act when it says the government can communicate with private communication companies to get information of foreign terrorist threats. My last myth that the site dispels is that the act allows the government access to private business records without a warrant. They dispel this by saying that most business records, including medical and library records, are just as hard to get under the Patriot Act, and that the Executive branch would not use the act this way.

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